ECS KN1 SLI Extreme Motherboard

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Nicholas Hart
Kurtis
ECS
Feb. 7, 2006

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Software (and fun with Tech Support)

The KN1 SLI Extreme comes with quite a bit of extra software on two CD's. The first CD contains drivers and utilities for the board. Unfortunately it carries drivers for a few other boards as well, as there are VIA drivers and three different sound chip drivers. This makes it a little confusing if you are trying to install a specific software package rather than the full deal. If you let the CD autorun, you don't have to worry about this as it will install the correct software drivers for your system.

Unfortunately the autorun software doesn't cover the utilities included with the system and you are left on your own to find their installers. I was trying to find monitoring software so that I could see CPU temperature within Windows and went looking for such an application on the CD. nVidia's nTune software should have allowed me to do so, but didn't give any information. There is another program called Omni-Guardian which is also a monitoring program but there are two install packages for it and no notes on which I should use. I tried both and with either I got the same error message: "Unable to find the ITE monitor IC". That doesn't sound good. I checked device manager and everything seems in order, no red X's or !'s. I don't see ITE listed anywhere so I can't be sure if a driver is installed or not.

Well, this gave me a chance to check out the WinFlash Windows BIOS update utility in hopes that the newest BIOS from ECS' site would solve my problems. I'm happy to say that WinFlash worked as advertised and gave me no troubles. Unfortunately, nothing changed and I still didn't have monitoring information. Time to call in the big guns, ECS tech support. Once again I got a mix of good and bad. I got an email response within 48 hours of my support request despite having received a message that my question may be significantly delayed by the Christmas and New Year's holidays. I was told to "Verify if PC Health or Hardware Monitor was enabled in the BIOS'. Ok, rummaging through the BIOS yielded no such option so I replied back asking where that option is. This time I got an even quicker response but it was rather useless. "It is in the main CMOS Setup menu' is what I was told. I'm not sure what that means but it sounds suspiciously like the "PC Health Status' menu which isn't any kind of option to disable or enable, it's the in-BIOS monitoring menu. Inside that menu I can see all sorts of system information but that really doesn't help me in Windows.

I sent another message to tech support again asking for more information and this time I was simply blown away. Instead of helping me find the elusive BIOS option that I don't think exists, they passed the buck. "The Omni-Guardian software possibly needs to be updated this was included in the driver CD just for advertising or marketing purposes so if you wanted to utilize this software, please contact the software developer for update." You've got to be kidding me?!?! Why is it on the CD then? So by now I'm left with a serious bad taste in my mouth and a complete lack of respect for ECS tech support. Luckily I don't have a serious issue, the board is still functional, I just can't see what the onboard sensors are reporting unless I go into the BIOS. I shudder to think what would happen if the board didn't POST or I had problems with setting up SLI.

But there's more to the software bundle than just the drivers and utilities. ECS includes some bonus software as well. One that really piqued my interest, but that I unfortunately can't test, is the ShowShifter software. This software "turns your PC into a home media center' meaning that it provides the ability to watch TV or video and listen to music complete with DVR functionality. If I had a TV card handy, I would definitely try this one out, but for now I'll just have to take their word for it.

Also included on the software bundle CD are two file restoration programs, DPU and Pro Magic Plus. These two programs seem to do the same thing so I'm not sure why two are needed. I guess you get to choose which you like best.

A program called "I'm InTouch' is included as well giving you remote-desktop-like access to your PC when you're away. With XP Pro, you already have remote desktop to do this but if you run XP Home or Windows 2000 Pro, this software could be pretty handy.

Last on the list of included goodies are some pretty standard and familiar applications; InterVideo WinDVD, WinDVD Creator and WinRip2. I know that most people won't get excited about these programs; this type of software is pretty much taken for granted. But when you have a PC without them you really find out what you're missing.!especially when you see the price tag to buy them retail!

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Page 4 of 8

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: Board Layout
Page 3: Bundles and Extras
Page 4: Software (and fun with Tech Support)
Page 5: Test Setup and Synthetic Benchmarks
Page 6: Real-World Benchmarks
Page 7: Overclocking
Page 8: Conclusion

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