ABIT BH7 (i845PE) Mainboard
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This is one of the "officially overclocked" boards based on the i845PE
chipset, but according to the manufacturer it's able to support modern
Pentium 4 processors with FSB 800 MHz (tough the memory controller is still
single-channel). In this way it is a direct competitor of boards based on
the i865 family.
Accessories:
- Package of the standard design;
- Documentation: user manual in 6 languages;
- Cables: one Serial ATA (without power supply adapter), one ATA66/100/133
and FDD;
- I/O Shield;
- CD with:
- drivers;
- user guide in PDF;
- Adobe Acrobat Reader;
- ABIT FlashMenu.
This is a well designed PCB. Thanks to horizontal IDE connectors
(relative to the PCB plane) you can easily connect all peripherals
and do not let the cable inside get entangled. However, the additional power
supply connector is situated in the central PCB part, and the audio connectors
are in front of the PCI slots. It's not difficult to reach the only jumper
when the board is already installed. Its functions are indicated on the PCB.
The 4-phase switching voltage regulator incorporates 6 capacitors
of 3300 uF and 3 of 1200 uF. There are also voltage regulators of the AGP
bus (2 capacitors of 1000 uF and several less capacious ones) and of the memory
(2 of 1000 uF).
Integrated controllers:
- audio controller based on the chipset and Avance Logic ALC650
AC'97 codec; 5.1 audio system supported, S/PDIF-In/Out connectors provided
- network controller based on the Realtek RTL8101L chip supporting
10/100Base-T (Fast Ethernet);
- IDE-SATA bridge based on the Marvell 88i8030-NNC chip
(the SATA hard drive connects via this bridge instead of the Secondary Master
IDE thus reducing the number of IDE devices to three).
+5 V supplied in the StandBy mode is indicated with the green LED,
the red one goes on when the system turns on.
No wasted space for components that didn't get included in the final
design.
System monitoring is supported by Winbond W83627HF-AW chip. It controls:
- processor, AGP bus voltages, +3.3, +5 and +-12 V, VBAT and +5
V Standby
- rotation speed of 3 fans;
- temperatures of the processor (built-in sensor) and the board
(built-in sensor)
There are 2 connectors for regulated and 3 for unregulated connection
of fans.
Summary: memory slots - 3 DDR SDRAM; expansion slots - AGP/ 5 PCI; I/O
ports - 1 COM/ LPT/ 2 PS/2/ 6 USB 2.0; dimensions - 305x225 mm.
Settings:
| jumpers and switches |
Jumper to clear the CMOS |
|
| BIOS based on Phoenix AwardBIOS 6.00PG |
Setup of memory timings |
+ |
CAS Latency, RAS Precharge, RAS to CAS Delay, Active to Precharge
Delay |
| Setup of memory frequency |
+ |
By SPD, 266, 320, 400 MHz (with FSB 800 MHz) |
| Setup of AGP bus |
- |
|
| Setup of PCI bus |
- |
|
| AGP/PCI frequency setup |
+ |
AGP(PCIx2) = 33, 37, 44 MHz, FSB/3, FSB/4, FSB/5, FSB/6 |
| PCI IRQ manual assignment |
+ |
|
| FSB frequency setup |
+ |
100-250 MHz in 1MHz steps |
| CPU clock ratio |
+ |
x8-x50 |
| CPU voltage control |
+ |
Default, +5%, +10%, +15%, +20%, +25%, +30% |
| DIMM voltage control |
+ |
2.55-3.05 V in 0.1V steps |
| NB voltage control |
- |
|
| AGP voltage control |
+ |
1.5 and 1.6 V |
We used the BIOS 14 as the latest available version.
A good speed and a low price will help this board become a popular
substitute for modern and expensive i865 based boards. However, its
functionality is of the last generation, and you won't find here much new.
Test results:
Dmitry Mayorov (destrax@ixbt.com)
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