Foxconn 45CSX vs Intel D945GCLF2

**BlackStealth** · 11-17-2009, 12:26 PM

I found the Intel D945GCLF2 BIOS to be slow at POSTing and I heard that foxconn motherboards have a reputation for fast BIOS operations so I purchased a dual core Atom 45CSX from newegg.com for $70. These motherboards are extremely similar with the same audio chip, same COM1/Parallel port, etc so I will only list what's different between the two.

Intel:
one fan
8 total USB connections
Supports IDE
3 pin system fan
requires P4 power connector
3 year warranty
comes with 1 long SATA cable

Foxconn:
fanless
6 total USB connections
No IDE support, only SATA.
4 pin system fan
does not require P4 power connector
1 year warranty
comes with 2 short SATA cables
approx $20 cheaper

The Intel BIOS is very slow to navigate and slow to draw screens, it feels slow like an 8088 or XT processor from twenty-five years ago. The fastest I could get the BIOS to boot is 5 seconds after alot of tweaking.

The foxconn BIOS is fast like we are accustomed to when navigating around. There's a lot more options available to turn things off, or do it manually. You can even program the BIOS to turn off your motherboard if the CPU exceeds a certain temperature. From power up I initially thought the BIOS only took 1 second to boot because that's how fast the BIOS information is shown on the screen before it starts loading from Windows. However when I examined closely the BIOS screen is black for 3-4 seconds prior so there isn't much of an improvement in BIOS times.

The four pin system fan socket is new to me, and it is backwards compatible to the 3 pin system fan plug found on my Mo-Co-So computer case fan. However, with a 3 pin fan the foxconn M/B can no longer control the speed and causes the fan to run full blast. So now it runs louder until I can find a 4 pin replacement fan.

The foxconn doesn't require a P4 power connector so you can't accidentally damage your motherboard/CPU which is good, and also saves you a few bucks from having to buy that separately.

I've attached two pictures, one with the foxconn motherboard and M2-ATX power supply attached to the Mo-Co-So bottom case, and the other picture of the D945GCLF2 motherboard by itself.

Here's a video with the Foxconn demonstrating how long it takes to boot from hibernate. Hardware: 512MB ram, 5400 rpm Seagate 60GB EE25 automotive SATA drive.
Foxconn 45CSX taking 11 seconds from power on to Streetdeck software.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dStymNdPRpk[/media]

Conclusion: If you can live with 6 USB ports and planning on only using a SATA HD interface then this motherboard is a better choice over the D945GCLF2.

**Punky** · 11-18-2009, 10:15 AM

this is the reason why before i got hybrid sleep working, i only use foxconn motherboards for carpc. I remembered trying to track down one of these a while ago when i was purchasing a new carpc, but there weren't any of these boards close to north america.

I'm still using a foxconn motherboard (R10-S4 Barebone) with almost the same spec as your except with more sata connection. However the R10-S4's bios was disappointing compared to the CSX-45 in term of boot time. Then i figured out how to use hybrid sleep, which is now like 1 second bootup.

**Sleepyz0mby** · 04-24-2010, 04:28 AM

holy crap 11 seconds !!!

ive got to add that after i updated my d945gclf the post/bois was extremely fast as well.

and after reading and a bunch of testing, i found the hdd is a BIG factor in resuming from hibernate. each hdd differ in how long the bios can initialize them and the read speed of a hdd is the bottleneck while writing to the ram.

but 11 seconds! thats good stuff