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 USB There was nothing that was encountered during the setup process that diminishes form the boards overall nature as setup was a breeze with the AN51R. The board has very clear silk-screened lettering enabling the user to easily see where all the case connections and cables go making for quicker setup times with less hassle. We used the same setup configuration for these tests as we did all the other boards in this platform for accuracy in the comparisons charts and the only difference would be in the VGA drivers as we try and use the latest available for each test. As a platform matures and new BIOS releases and patches become available the motherboards inevitably become faster and more stable as time passes and we always flash the boards to the latest BIOS previous to testing. The reason I say this is that usually the first board I review shows slightly lower scores than the last board I review due to these factors. The capacitors around the CPU are quite large, but do not seem to get in the way of using some of the larger style heatsink/fan combos so that is good.  IEEE1394 Make sure if you are new to this to read the entire manual as it will save you time in the long run when you have questions as to what goes where and why. Also make sure you download and install the latest chipset and system drivers as in many cases the divers on the included CD are now old and new ones are available on the net. Installing the Windows XP SP1 patch can add stability and help the functionality of the USB 2.0 standard. The Windows based software allows you to custom configure your sound environment in a limited way when compared to other suites, but it does the job nonetheless. In the photos below you can see the various interface screens that you will encounter when shaping and fine tuning your audio. The ALC650 is not my favorite on-board audio solution as there are definitely others that are better, but for the average user it will probably work just fine. If you are a gamer and want the best for gaming I would suggest buying a Creative Labs Audigy2 ZS as it supports all the latest versions of EAX and provides a more accurate sound environment. All in all this was a easy to accomplish task to get the board up and running and most users should have no problem installing it.  NV Mixer  NV Spectrum Analyzer  NV Information  NV Equalizer  NV Volume System Hardware
Test Software
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