Included Extras and Software
Asus is known for including unique extras and features with their motherboards as well as providing just about everything you could need to take advantage of them in the box.
There are all kinds of goodies seen here, starting with the remote control in the center and the USB IR receiver above it. The remote allows you to turn your PC on and put it into sleep mode or turn it off (but it won’t respond to an on command) as well as launch applications, adjust the volume, etc. I’ll touch on that below in the software section. We also see here the white disk that is the wireless antenna for the integrated WiFi 802.11g on the board. The white and blue pin-looking devices are for the Asus Q-Connector feature that makes installation a bit easier (see the next page for how!).
The green header and cable allow you to connect an MP3 player or other stereo headphone output to your computer speakers, even with the system off.
Asus also has included one FireWire and one USB dongle to add additional ports for peripherals. There are enough SATA cables and power adaptors to populate all of your SATA connections, IDE cables and a floppy cable.
Software
To take advantage of the Asus DH Remote, Asus has included some simple software that will let you configure it to work how you want.
The main control panel for the remote software allows you to set what hitting certain buttons actually does and configure other exectuable files to run when you access the remote.
Hitting the “App Lauch” button on the remote brings up this screen that allows you to start up applications that are preset and what you define.
The Asus application even lets you open a file with an application — but after the app is loaded access other files is kind of a pain, so I’d just use a playlist of MP3s or whatever you are doing.
Here’s the file browser as it appears using the remote. Overall I see the Asus DH Remote as useful, but its certainly not going to replace anyone’s Media Center remote controls.
