Installation and Testing:
 

Let's fire it up

Installing motherboards hasn't changed much these days. About the only thing that has affected installations has been the change where Windows is unable to find the pci.sys file and requires it to continue installation. Otherwise, you'll end up with a nice blue screen. Well to help people along with this odd problem, you'll be happy to know that a valid Windows disc with Service Pack 2 will remedy that issue. Any Windows installation with a PCI Express motherboard will thank you.

The system basically didn't have any issue from install and patching to operations. After the OS was patched and drivers installed, I browsed the BIOS to see how it compares to something like the ASUS P5K3 BIOS. The P35T-A BIOS is much simpler and doesn't have any of the more detailed tweaks needed to overclock. The major differences noticed were the very limited voltage options. The voltage needed to come close to pushing the E6600 processor anywhere near its half way overclocked frequency, is just barely there. The memory voltages topping out at 2.0V is also on the low side which means extreme frequency memory kits may not be able to really top out.

Main Advanced Settings

 

Advanced Chipset	Integrated Peripherals	PC Health
Frequency/Voltage	CPU Voltage Options	Memory Voltage Options

The best thing to do if you aren't sure of your own component's voltage requirements is to leave the BIOS options all set to AUTO. As with all components, if you select a lower voltage, it will cause system instability and possibly damage. AUTO settings are your friend if you aren't sure.

No matter where the board falls in the user's spectrum, performance shouldn't be hampered by the advanced features and options. Since it has the P35 chipset, memory bandwidth is little different from the P5K3 Deluxe which has the bells and whistles. A good CAS 4 DDR2 memory kit will do quite nicely on the P35T-A board just as it does on the P5K3 Deluxe.

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