Yep, Your PC Probably Has an ASUS Motherboard Inside!
ASUS is one of the biggest computer motherboard manufacturers, and a leader in the industry. In the year 2006, almost sixty million motherboards made by ASUS were shipped out. In this year, one third of the computers manufactured in the world had an ASUS motherboard installed. The impressive array of ASUS motherboards available meet all needs and purposes, including the mainstream, high end, and low end value markets. Manufacturers who have chipsets incorporated into ASUS motherboards include Intel, SIS, ULI, VIA, ATI, and NVIDIA.
Asus Makes things Easier, Faster, and ‘Cooler’ for You
One of the newest products introduced by ASUS on their motherboards are Energy Processing Units, or EPUs. These motherboards allow system startups to happen much more quickly, and they use less power. The ASUS Express Gate only needs five seconds to complete the startup process. EPUs allow a user to access the Internet in a fraction of the time, because it does not need to access the hard disk or wait for the Windows loading process. ASUS also introduced CPU coolers and other thermal inventions. CPU heat can be reduced by as much as thirty percent with the ASUS Lion Square CPU cooler.
Motherboards are not the only products manufactured by ASUS, they also have a full line of electronics available, such as graphics cards, LCD monitors, networking devices,computers, notebook computers, audio cards, the “Eee PC,” storage devices,PDAs, servers, mobile phones, and webcams. Notebook PCs manufactured by ASUS were the first ever to receive TCO’99 certification, which requires certain criteria including battery consumption, ergonomics, radiation emission control, and ecology.
ASUS has more than eight thousand employees around the world, with offices located in the USA, Canada, Taiwan, India, Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, Indonesia, Bangladesh, United Kingdom, Spain, Poland, Malaysia, South America, Turkey, UAE, Vietnam, Singapore, Italy, the Netherlands, and Hungary. ASUS is a company which has won a number of awards. These prestigious awards won include a listing in Business Week’s list of the InfoTech 100, and the Wall Street Journal giving ASUS a number one spot for the quality products and services offered.
Even though the primary focus of ASUS is motherboards and PC devices, including ASUS drivers, the company also offers other high tech and innovative products, like an Internet radio that allows the user to connect wirelessly, so that thousands of global Internet radio stations can be received and listened to. The product needs no PC and stands alone. And there are also MP3 player ports allow the user to perform MP3 playback from a connected device.
The mission of ASUS is to provide solutions for IT that are innovative and modern. The strong foundation of ASUS rests on innovation, service, quality, speed, and cost efficiency. The company core is a passion for both quality and technology, and that is why it is so successful.
One of the newer products from ASUS is the ASUS EN8600GTS, and it has a 675 MHz clock speed, a 2.0 GHz memory, and a 1.45 GHz Shader clock. The bus is only 128 bits wide, but can transfer 32Gb per second and includes 256Mb megabytes of memory on the bus.
What are ASIO Drivers?
The acronym ASIO stands for Audio Stream Input/Output. The ASIO is a sound card driver standard that is used for digital audio which is aimed towards the music professional instead of the home PC user. ASIO standards are used by musicians and sound engineers for processing audio files with PC software instead of using an external drive.
ASIO offers a high appeal to the professional music market because of the properties integrated, including high fidelity and low latency. ASIO goes right past the many layers of OS software and processing and instead goes straight from the application being run to the sound card. Because the various layers are bypassed, delays are minimized and the latency is reduced. Because there is a direct path that is high speed, there is a higher fidelity sound involved.
ASIO – How It All Began…
ASIO is the pet project of a leading personal computer third party developer named Steinberg. During the mid 1980s, ASIO was first started with a passionate interest in music and a Commodore 64 machine. As technology relating to computers evolved, Steinberg was a moving force to bringing PCs and music together. The Cubase software program allows music production to be brought to the personal computer and rapidly rose to a major competitor to analog tape equipment. In 1995, WaveLab was introduced by Steinberg, and is an essential online editing tool for audio files that is used by numerous professional musicians.
ASIO was released in 1997, and was an open standard combined with Virtual Studio Technology. ASIO is the core of the Virtual Studio technology, and it supports both variable bit depths and sample rates,multi-channel operation,and synchronization. Many hardware manufacturers besides Steinberg have adopted ASIO. This standard offers high fidelity, low latency, easy use, and stable audio capabilities.
Pinnacle Systems acquired Steinberg, then Yamaha acquired Pinnacle systems, but the Steinberg name still lives on, just as the ASIO standard does. There was a product introduced in 2007 called Sequel that allows entry level PC users to use professional level audio technology.
Not All ASIO Drivers are Created Equal
When downloading and installing ASIO drivers, make sure that the driver and the operating system or application is compatible. This is not always the case, such as with the Digidesign ASIO Driver 6.1.1 and the application Pro Tools TDM 6.2 or lower, or if Pro Tools LE version 6.1 or lower is installed on the system. If the Pro Tools LE 6.1 or a lower version is installed on the system, remove it with the Add or Remove Programs Control Panel, then install the latest version to prevent problems with some ASIO drivers.
The Acer Company – A Backgrounder
Acer drivers were created by the Acer company, which was started in 1976 in the city of Taiwan called Multitech. The company exhibited leadership, establishing the Microprocessor Training Center, which was created by the company in 1978 for the purpose of training and preparing three thousand engineers to work in the Internet Technology field. The company also offers corporate stock options to employees, and other benefits which Personal Computershave made Acer so successful.
Acer was the first manufacturer of mass produced personal computers intended for export in Taiwan, the first eight bit home PC in the country, and the creation of the Acerland, which was the first computer retail franchise chain in the country. The company changed the name from Multitech to Acer in 1987, and has become one of the biggest PC technology brand names in the world. The company focus is on simplifying operations, technological innovation, and the goodness of people has help continue the success story of this company.
The Acer company has almost six thousand employees in over one hundred countries. The sales for the year 2007 topped fourteen billion, and the company is the number two ranked globally as a laptop vendor and number three as a personal computer vendor. Acer has shown the quickest growth pattern out of all the top five vendors. The company has merged with Packard Bell and Gateway, giving the company a stronger position in the U.S. and Europe market.
Acer Dominates the Computing and Mobile Niche
In the year 2000, the Acer company spun off the manufacturing operations to allow the company to focus available resources on the development of solutions which are user friendly yet technologically advanced. A decision was made by the company to use specific marketing activities to support the product line sales that put distribution channels to the best use have helped the Acer company become even more successful. The Acer company also takes pride in overcoming barriers that stand between technology and people. The Acer company ranks number one in thirteen countries for notebook sales, including Holland, Switzerland, The Czech Republic, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Poland, Russia, Portugal, Hungary and The Slovakian Republic.
The Acer company makes a large variety of products. This includes notebooks, tablet PCs, desktops, handheld computers, monitors, servers, storage devices, digital cameras, projectors, and televisions. The desktop PCs offered for businesses have a professional level capability which enhance the multitasking and productivity of the PC while giving value and more features. Acer PCs can be found under the names AcerPower trimlines and Veriton. Home Acer PCs offer enhanced performance, home entertainment, multimedia, and communications options and features. Consumer desktop PCs are available under the Aspire product name.
Acer also offers notebook PCs, including the product names Aspire, TravelMate, and Ferrari. Aspire notebooks are famous for their multimedia features, usability, and style, while TravelMate notebooks are designed for business use, with enhanced security, communication, reliability, and professional features. The series of notebooks named Ferrari are the result of a partnership between Acer and the Scuderia Ferrari company, and these products are full of the newest technology and carry the Ferrari logo.
Acer makes many other products as well, most of which require Acer drivers. There are handheld devices like PocketPCs, portable navigators, and Personal Digital Assistants. Some of the devices have the capabilities of more than one type. The PocketPC Travel Companion device offers a trip navigator combined with a PDA, plus allows Bluetooth technology, MP3 playback, and wireless capabilities.