Asus has announced a series of new motherboard that feature safety and data security technologies.

Available on the P5Q series and other motherboards, these features include ESD and Overcurrent Protection for safeguarding users against electrostatic discharges and overcurrent; as well as the ASUS Data Guardian (TPM) and Drive Xpert for data security and backup.

Electrostatic Discharge Protection (ESD)

When users walk on carpets and rugs, leave their cars, or remove some types of plastic packaging, there may be a buildup of electric static charge ? sometimes as high as a few kilovolts. When contact is made to electronic devices at this time (especially computers), the accumulated electrical charge can then "jump" into the system through the fingers ? creating either a system crash or other errors, or worse still ? electrical damage to internal components. As depicted with the image below, the IC?s damage was caused by electric static discharge.



The European Union (EU) was the first to require testing for static discharge tolerance, and created a set of standards of protection through strict guidelines and rules (contact discharge of 4 kilovolts and air discharge of 8 kilovolts). Asus has designed motherboards that surpasses the EU?s strict static electricity standards; and provide users with protection against such static discharge in the most commonly used scenarios ? for example the front USB ports. Each USB port on the motherboard is protected against static electricity discharge.

Overcurrent Protection for Safe Computing

An overcurrent is a current that exceeds the amperage rating of the external device (flash memory, hard disks and etc.) or other active components in a circuit (e.g. ICs). When you connect an external device (e.g. external HDD) with a flawed circuit into your PC system, it might cause an overcurrent. Without adequate protection, an overcurrent can seriously damage components on the motherboard (e.g. ICs) or even the external device itself. Asus' motherboards are designed with an installed circuit that acts like fuses and circuit breakers to detect an overcurrent condition when the current reaches a value that will cause an excessive or dangerous temperature rise in conductors ? and in doing so, protecting your external devices, ICs and the safety of the users themselves.

Asus Data Guardian (TPM) for Data Security

The Asus Data Guardian (TPM support) provides data security protection for the user?s personal data by creating a virtual folder that is protected by an encryption key, and then stored on a USB portable drive ? allowing users to store their data safely against unauthorized access.

Drive Xpert

Users usually store their precious photos and favorite music in their computer hard disks. Due to the complexity in traditional backup solutions, and the long amount of time taken for backups, it is seldom convenient or easy to manage these backups; even traditional RAID options ? which solve these problems, suffer from hard and complex setup processes. Thus most users do without any form of backup, and run the risk of losing their data in the event of crashes or accidental data loss. Without any need for drivers or complex setups, the Asus exclusive Drive Xpert solves all these dilemmas, and is ideal for anyone who needs to secure their data on their hard drives or enhance hard drive performances without the hassles of complicated configurations. With Drive Xpert?s user-friendly graphical user interface, users can easily arrange hard drive backups or enhance their hard drive transfer rates.