EZ On/WiFi

DFI has really gone out of their way to make the LANPARTY NFII Ultra easy to use. It all starts with their EZ On and EZ Touch features. These features refer to the power and reset switches which are built on to the bottom of the motherboard. This allows enthusiasts (and hardware testers like us) to power on or reset the system with the touch of a button. This of course can also come in handy when setting up the system (for troubleshooting). The ASUS board doesn’t have this feature.

Power and reset buttons, speaker also

Bottom of the DFI board

Building on this feature, DFI also integrates a bank of four LEDs between PCI slots four and five. This is the diagnostic LED.

First introduced by MSI, diagnostic LEDs are used during POST, the LEDs light up in particular combinations which indicate the current status of the motherboard. If for instance, you didn’t install the memory correctly, LEDs one and four would light up. We’ll admit that we don’t know if that’s the correct LED combination for memory failure, as our particular LANPARTY board didn’t ship with a manual for some reason, but you get the general idea. You simply look up the LED combination in the manual to determine exactly why your motherboard didn’t boot up properly. This feature can save end user’s lots of time troubleshooting problems.

In comparison, ASUS’ POST Reporter is designed to bring this functionality to the A7N8X-E Deluxe. Whereas DFI uses LEDs, ASUS uses a female voice -- that’s right, your motherboard talks to you!

What do you think of the ASUS tan?

Southern half of the ASUS board

Unfortunately, like many women, she can be hard to understand. The voice is quite audible, sound level isn’t the problem, but deciphering what she’s saying is, at least in English. ASUS Post Reporter is capable of speaking many languages, so perhaps you won’t have this problem, but to this editor’s ears it was as if she was speaking in a foreign language. The edge on this aspect again goes to DFI.

ASUS counters back with one unique aspect DFI doesn’t address however, wireless connectivity.

ASUS Wi-Fi@Home

If you’ve followed a lot of ASUS’ more recent motherboards, you’ve probably noticed a svelte black connector beneath the last PCI slot on many motherboards. This black gem is ASUS’ Wi-Fi slot.

ASUS WiFi slot

WiFi antenna and card

Once paired with ASUS’ Wi-Fi card, the system can instantly become a wireless gateway to your home network or the internet. Wi-Fi is one technology that has really been taking off lately (in part thanks to Intel’s Centrino commercials) so it shows ASUS’ foresight to include this feature in particular, they’ve been talking about it for years!

For the past several months, ASUS has been releasing Wi-Fi editions of many of their popular motherboards. These motherboards include a Wi-Fi-b card supporting the 802.11b standard and a Wi-Fi-b antenna; everything you’ll need to establish a wireless network.

Of course, critics will argue the limitations of 802.11b’s 11Mbps, but keep in mind that 802.11b is still more numerous. We’d still like to see ASUS move up to 802.11g though. Fortunately the Wi-Fi slot supports 802.11g, so as soon as ASUS updates their Wi-Fi card, the A7N8X-E Deluxe is ready.

If you’re not ready to jump on the wireless bandwagon just yet (or at least with ASUS’ implementation) you can also purchase the A7N8X-E Deluxe basic edition. This board ships without the wireless card/antenna and the fancy packaging.

We took the ASUS Wi-Fi for a quick test and found it was seamless to install and operate. Getting onboard the Wi-Fi bandwagon shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.