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ECS Z97I-DRONE Mini-ITX Motherboard Review

Motherboards/Intel S1150 by stefan @ 2014-12-03

ECS does not disappoint with the release of the cheap ECS Z97I-Drone which allows installation of a powerful Haswell processor which can be paired with RAM up to 16GB and eventually a potent VGA card inside the provided PCI Express x16 slot; be warned however that using a beefy CPU cooler will likely cover the PCI-Express slot completely so we would recommend either sticking with the stock Intel cooler or adopting an all-in-one water cooling solution, which is so accessible these days.

The UEFI Interface Part I

With the latest UEFI BIOS releases, ECS has introduced a secondary EZ interface, from where we can choose between two different profiles (Normal and Performance), see the current system temperatures, voltages but also fan speeds, boot devices and information regarding the current date/time and installed CPU/memory:

The initial EZ model is exactly the same as before:

Coming back to the “Advanced” interface, we will find the main menus on the top side of the screen: Main, Advanced, Chipset, MIB X, Security, Boot and Exit. The Main menu allows setting the system language, but also the date/time:

The Advanced section comes with multiple sub-menus like LAN Configuration, PC Health Status, Power Management Setup, ACPI Settings, CPU Configuration, SATA Configuration, USB Configuration, Intel Rapid Start Technology or Intel Ethernet Connection menu:

Inside the LAN Configuration menu we will only have the option to enable or disable the interface:

The PC Health Status menu shows us the live temperatures, fan speeds and voltages, but we are also able to adjust the Smart Fan Function:

The Power Management Setup menu houses the usual options:

The ACPI Settings menu only offers to adjust the Sleep State:

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