Elitegroup
L7VTA (VIA KT400) Mainboard
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ECS brought out a board with quite good functions and offers it at a
moderate price. We are testing today a preproduction sample. Accessories:
- Package of a standard design;
- Documentation: installation
manual for the IDE RAID controller in English;
- Cables: 2 ATA66/100/133
and FDD;
- Bracket for the rear computer panel;
- Diskette
with drivers for IDE RAID;
- 2 CDs containing:
- drivers;
-
user guide in the Microsoft Word format;
- DirectX 8.0a;
-
Adobe Acrobat Reader;
- CD Ghost 21st 3.6;
- Language
Genius 21st;
- MediaRing Talk;
- Page ABC;
-
PC-Cillin 2002;
- Recovery Genius;
- Super Voice;
-
Award WinFlash.
The layout has typical drawbacks: cables plugged into connectors of IDE RAID
and FDD can prevent installation of long extension cards into last PCI slots,
audio cables will stretch along the whole PC case, and the position of the power
connector dooms this bunch of cables to hanging right over the processor's cooler.
It's not difficult to reach jumpers when the board is already installed. Their
functions are shown on the textolite. The 3-channel switching voltage
regulator incorporates 9 capacitors of 3300 uF. The following controllers
are integrated: - audio controller based on the chipset's capabilities
and VIA VT1612A AC'97 codec with connectors for front audio inputs/outputs;
-
network controller based on the chipset's capabilities and supporting 10BaseT/100BaseTX;
-
IDE RAID controller based on the Promise PDC20265R chip supporting RAID 0 and
1 on the protocols up to ATA100;
- IEEE 1394 bus controller based
on the VIA VT6306 chip.
+2.5 V supplied to the memory modules is
indicated with the red LED. Non-unsoldered connectors: an unknown chip.
The system monitoring is supported by the ITE IT8705F chip. What is controlled:
- processor voltage, 2.5, +3.3, +5 and +12 V, VBAT;
- speed
of 2 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. Brief characteristics of the board: memory
slots - 3 DDR SDRAM; expansion slots - AGP/ 6 PCI/ CNR; I/O ports - 2 COM/ LPT/
2 PS/2/ 6 USB 2.0 / 2 IEEE1394; dimensions - 305x245 mm.
Adjustment
can be carried out with:
| jumpers and switches | Jumper
to clear up the CMOS | | | Jumpers for setting
a FSB frequency | 100, 133, 166 MHz | | BIOS
based on the AwardBIOS 6.00PG of Phoenix | Setup of memory timings | + | CAS
Latency, Bank Interleave, Precharge to Active, Active to Precharge, Active to
CMD, Burst Length, Queue Depth, Command Rate, Write Recovery Time, tWTR. |
| Setup of memory frequency | + | By SPD, DDR200,
DDR266, DDR333, DDR400 | | Setup of AGP bus | + | |
| Setup of PCI bus | + | | | Changeable
scaler of AGP and PCI buses | - | | | Manual
assignment of interrupts | - | | | Changeable
FSB frequency | + | 100-199 MHz in 1MHz steps |
| Changeable CPU multiplier | - | | | Changeable
core voltage | + | Normal, -0.6%, +1.1%, +2.3% |
| Changeable memory voltage | + | 2.43, 2.5, 2.66,
2.745 V | | Changeable chipset voltage | - | |
| Changeable AGP bus voltage | - | | We
used the latest available version of the BIOS of 20.09.2002. This is
a typical solution of the low-end market sector regarding the price and speed,
and as for its functions the board doesn't yield to its brand-name brothers.
Test results:
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