Leadtek K7N420D (NVIDIA nForce 420-D) Mainboard
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One more board from this very famous company is based on the NVIDIA's
chipset. We tested a preproduction sample, but it is of very high quality
and has a lot of accessories.
Accessories:
- Package: a standard low-key design;
- Documentation: a brief installation manual (a full version will ship with
production models) in English;
- Cables: 1 ATA66/100/133 and 1 FDD;
- Bracket with gold-plated audio-outs (Front, Rear, Center/Bass), Coaxial
SPDIF In/Out, TosLink SPDIF In/Out;
- CD with software including:
- drivers;
- Adobe Acrobat Reader;
- DirectX 8.1;
- Award WinFlash;
- Leadtek SpeedGear.
Despite the full-sized ATX form-factor there are some drawbacks in the
layout: several connectors are placed in front of the PCI slots and the
power connector is between the AGP slot and the back panel, which can create
problems in their handling when expansion cards are inserted; and in the
lower left-hand corner the connectors and switches are placed too close
to each other. It's not difficult to reach jumpers even when the board
is already installed. Their functions are shown on the textolite.
The 3-channel switching voltage regulator incorporates 2 capacitors
of 2200 uF and 8 of 1500 uF.
The following controllers are integrated:
- audio controller based on the chipset's capabilities and Avance Logic ALC650
AC'97 codec with a connector for front audio-outs and a bracket for the
rear panel;
- network controller based on the chipset's capabilities supporting 10BaseT/100BaseTX.
Thanks to the Winbond W83627SF-AW I/O controller the board supports (and
has connectors for) smart-card readers.
Non-unsoldered connectors: none.
The system monitoring is supported by the Winbond W83627SF-AW chip.
What is controlled:
- processor, memory voltage, +3.3 and +5 V;
- speed of 3 fans;
- temperatures of the processor (a built-in sensor) and the board (a built-in
sensor).
There are 2 connectors for adjustable connection of fans and 1 for non-adjustable
connection.
Brief characteristics of the board: memory slots - 3 DDR SDRAM;
expansion slots - AGP/ 4 PCI/ ACR; I/O ports - 1 COM/ LPT/ 2 PS/2/ 6 USB
1.1; dimensions - 305x245 mm.
Adjustment can be carried out with:
| jumpers and switches |
Jumper to clear up the CMOS |
 |
| Jumpers to choose a channel mode |
Center/Bass Center/Bass/ Bass/Center |
| Jumpers to choose a mode of the 5th USB port |
Onboard/ ACR slot |
| BIOS based on the 6.00PG version from Phoenix-Award |
Setup of memory timings |
+ |
CAS Latency, Memory Timings |
| Setup of memory frequency |
+ |
Auto, 200, 266 and 333 MHz |
| Setup of AGP bus |
+ |
|
| Setup of PCI bus |
- |
|
| Changeable scaler of AGP and PCI buses |
- |
 |
| Manual assignment of interrupts |
- |
|
| Changeable FSB frequency |
+ |
Default, 102, 103, 105, 107, 109, 110, 111, 114, 133, 135, 138,
139, 142, 146, 147, 149, 153 and 157 MHz.
NB: when memory is set to 333 MHz you can't change a FSB frequency |
| Changeable CPU multiplier |
+ |
x5-x12.5 |
| Changeable core voltage |
+ |
-0.05, -0.025, +0.025, +0.05, +0.075, +0.1 and +0.125 B relative
to the rated value |
| Changeable memory voltage |
+ |
+0.1 and +0.2 V relative to the rated value |
| Changeable chipset voltage |
- |
|
| Changeable AGP bus voltage |
+ |
+0.1 and +0.2 V relative to the rated value |
We used the latest available version of the BIOS of 12/03/02.
Unfortunately, we couldn't test operation of the board with the DDR333
memory because the system worked very unstably. At the rated frequencies
the board performs excellently: it is fast enough, offers a good suite
of tools for adjusting and overclocking the system, stable and of rather
high quality.
Test results:
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