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6. [Change] Use P4M900 based motherboard

Audio Bling highlighted VIA's northbridge P4M900 chipset. Paper recommends P4M890, instead use Biostar's P4M900-M7 SE motherboard (Biostar P4M900 Micro 775 would also work).

Cost is equivalent of 3 CDs. After a fews days allowing for burn-in, I get further sonic refinements. This is not as significant as change 5 (HDD power externalized). If you have problems with ultra low latency playback, this mobo could resolve it as link speed increases from 0.5GB/s to 1.0GB/s (that's 8Gbits/s).

Replacing mobo requires reinstallation of Windows. BIOS is slightly different:

1. Cannot reduce Video RAM below 64MB. This means for initial Windows installation, use 512MB or more. When using 256MB RAM and after optimizations, available memory is ~130MB which is sufficient.
2. Under PCI devices, onboard sound is called Azalia HD - disable this.
3. DDR voltage increases in 0.10V increments. Set to +0.10V (instead of +0.07V as per paper) or to that as required by your RAM specifications.

Thanks Audio Bling.

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