| ECS A780GM-A Black Series AMD 780G Motherboard
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The BIOS:
After a quick tour around the BIOS I realized this was not going to be anything like an enthusiast grade motherboard. Some of the features were so basic and foreign to me that I actually went online to see what other people were saying about it. Once I was convinced that I hadn't received an early prototype and that this sample was just like all the others out there, I went about trying to configure the system for basic operation before getting into any tweaking.
The next set of images will take a look at some of the more interesting screens in order to highlight the capabilities of the A780GM-A.
The below left image shows the Advanced Chipset Setup screen where most of the settings are related to the system memory. Here you are supposed to be able to select the memory frequency, as well as setting the various timings. What I found was that the 533MHz (1066MHz DDR2) option was unusable, and that no matter what I did the system would fail to boot and all other settings would be lost if I tried to use 533MHz as the memory frequency. I mean every setting, including the date, meaning that I had to set everything up again with every attempt to make this work. 400MHz was usable, and I wound up being able to overclock a bit from there, but all the high speed memory kits on hand went to waste since this setting did not work. It wasn't until after I had struggled with this for quite some time that I noticed a note in parenthesis on the product page that says "Whether 1066 MHz memory speed is supported depends on the CPU being used".
 
The above right image shows another screen from the same page, this time while trying to adjust one of the timings. You are presented with this huge list of "Reserved" entries, as if the BIOS was not finished before it was released. If you scroll down far enough you get to numeric entries, but I found that the range of values wasn't always complete.
By just looking at the memory settings I could tell that tweaking this board was going to be sketchy, but then I saw the CPU and memory voltage adjustment section.
The below left image shows the Frequency/Voltage Control tab where you can adjust the CPU and memory voltage input. I'll admit that I still don't have a strong grasp as to how to use these settings effectively, and I continue to get boot failures when making adjustments. And just like the memory frequency issue, a boot failure here also results in all BIOS settings being lost. What you get for both the CPU and memory is that in order to increase the voltage, you select a number that corresponds to a certain multiplier in millivolts. For the CPU, for example, you can select a value from 1 to 63, where each step corresponds to a 4mV increase. Selecting 1 adds 4mV, selecting 2 adds 8mV, all the way up to selecting 63 which adds 252mV. Even if you can do the math in your head, and have some idea where you want to set the voltage, you don't know what the base line is. An AMD 5400+ X2 processor and memory at 800MHz DDR2 booted up with the settings shown (5 for CPU and 30 for memory). You wind up needing to know your component's specifications, and through trial and error finding your way with a series of reboots to check something like CPU-Z against what the BIOS says.
 
The above right image shows the same screen, this time focused on THE overclocking setting. You can raise the frontside bus in 1MHz increments, and I found that despite the issues of setting memory speed and selecting appropriate voltages, that this worked properly. The 5400+ X2 processor was able to overclock from 2.8GHz to about 3.3GHz with minimal effort, and with extra effort and pateince it should be capable of much more.
The final two images in this section take a look at screens in the hardware monitoring section of the BIOS. The below left image shows the various settings available for "SMART" control of the CPU cooling fan. The below right image shows the screen where CPU warning and shutdown temperatures can be set, as well as where you can monitor various temperatures, voltages, and fan speeds.
 
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