Asus MAXIMUS VIII EXTREME User Manual page 46

8. Slow Mode Switch (SLOW_MODE)
Slow Mode Switch is employed during LN2 benching. Some processors have a small
optimum temperature range to run at their highest frequency. Temperatures that fall
outside this band may yield instability. For example, a processor may need to operate
at -80°C under load and only 75°C when idle to maintain stability at 5GHz.
At lower frequencies, the CPU's temperature tolerance increases. It will however
remain stable at lower frequencies at much colder or warmer temperatures. Once
it comes out of a heavy load while transitioning over to a light load, when the
temperature does not warm fast enough, it may crash. To overcome this, simply flip the
switch over to decrease the processor frequency. Switching over to Slow-Mode during
critical moments when Temperature/Max Frequency alignment is off-sync can prevent
a lot of crashes, even when trying to boot into the OS at cold temperatures.
9. PCIe x16 Lane switch (PCIEX16_SW1)
These slide switches allows you to enable and disable the corresponding PCIe x16
slots. When one of the installed PCIe x16 cards is out of order, you can use the slide
switch to find out the faulty one without removing the cards.
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Chapter 1: Product Introduction