Asus MAXIMUS VIII EXTREME User Guide - Page 46

Chapter 1 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. 1-28 Chapter 1: Product Introduction