BIOS :To adjust BIOS, press F2 key. The ConRoe 1333 DVI/H does not provide much BIOS adjustment. Overclocking becomes limited to default CPU voltage. As notes on the specifications, the increase of FSB will also increase PCIe bus speed with which the use of SATA HDD and PCIe graphic card could be affected when too high of PCIe bus speed is used.
After better than a good one half day I found that
the 120 PCIe bus speed is pretty much the maximum if PCIe graphic card is used while 120Mhz is attainable for onboard graphic. Any high will result to no boot or corrupted graphic during games.
The sample board came with BIOS M1.1EA version that is not listed at ASRock website where the latest BIOS P1.70 dated August 10th is listed.
Under CPU Configuration is where CPU overclocking could be set.
There are three options; Auto, CPU PCIe Sync and CPU PCIe Async. Choosing the later two will prompt to FSB change in 1 Mhz increment. CPU PCIe Sync will automatically raise the PCIe bus speed while CPU PCIe Async does not. At the end, I found out it was better to follow the CPU PCIe Sync auto loaded PCIe bus speed, otherwise the OC won't post. Some memory will not get SPD correctly. I my case I have to set the timings manually using G.SKILL.
If you use DDR2 667 and CPU overclocking, choose DDR2 667 here. The board will not go over much of the rated memory speed. In another word, if you use DDR2 800, the max this board will work is a bit over 333Mhz. DDR2 800 is pretty much a waste.
Chipset VCCM can be set to Auto, High, Middle or low
Memory VDDQ can be set to Auto, High or low
The rest of the setups are pretty much standard and esasy to follow.
ASRock website offers BIOS flash/update via Windows and Windows Vista. Download the latest BIOS version, users could flash the BIOS without the need for floppy or CD, and without the unnecessary risks associated with on-line live update.
I have no question that this E2140 will hit 400FSB or 3.2Ghz. 355 is the max as PCIe bus speed is now at 122, vcore fefault. At 123, the SATA HDD is lost.