• i865PE chipset

This board comes from a large and respected company though it's little known on the retail market. The most noteworthy facts about it are careful maintenance of stable operation and safety while overclocking is realized very poorly. 

The PCB design is convenient enough, though you can notice some flaws such as arrangement of audio-ins in front of the PCI slots and crowded connectors around the memory slots. A peculiarity of this and other boards positioned for the OEM market is that a mATX version can be easily made by cutting off a part of textolite which in the full version contains only expansion slots. It's not difficult to reach jumpers when the board is already installed. But their functions are not indicated on the PCB. The 3-phase switching voltage regulator incorporates 6 capacitors of 2200 uF and 4 of 1500 uF. There are also voltage regulators of the AGP bus (2 1000 uF) and of the memory (2 of 1500 uF). 

The board measures 305x245 mm ("wide ATX", 9 screws fastens it). 

Proprietary technologies: 

• HDD Password and USB Security (password or USB key protected booting);
• Recovery BIOS (automatic recovery of damaged BIOS from a diskette prepared in advance - works with the jumper);
• Silent Fan (automatic regulation of fans' speed of rotation).

Connectors which are left space for: CNR slot (it's unsoldered in other models of this family based on the same PCB) and a connector for a bracket with S/PDIF-In/Out. +5 V supplied in the StandBy mode is indicated with the red LED. System monitoring is supported by the SMSC LPC47M967-NC chip (this chip (Hardware Monitor + Super I/O) is rarely used, we happened to see it only on Intel and FIC models). It controls: 

• processor, AGP bus voltages, +3.3, +5 and +12 V;
• rotation speed of 2 ordinary fans and one in the power supply unit (it requires a special cable connected to the board);
• temperatures of the processor (built-in sensor), the board (built-in sensor) and an external temperature sensor (supplied).

Ports & connectors onboard

• Socket 478 with preinstalled CPU cooler holder;
• 4 slots for DDR SDRAM DIMM (to get the maximum performance level pairs of the memory modules should be installed into the slots grouped together);
• AGP slot (not Pro, with a retention clip);
• 5 PCI slots (32bit, 33MHz);
• Power supply connectors: standard ATX and 4pin for 12V;
• FDD;
• 2 IDE (Parallel ATA) - on chipset;
• 2 Serial ATA - on chipset;
• Connector for a bracket with a second serial port (COM);
• Connector for a bracket with a FireWire port;
• 2 connectors for brackets with 2 USB (2.0) ports each;
• Connector for audio-out from CD/DVD drive;
• Connector for AUX-IN audio source;
• Connector for SMBus devices (external temperature sensor);
• Case open detection header;
• 2 connectors for fans with rotation control and 1 special connector for regulation of the fan in the power supply unit.

Rear panel (left to right, in units)

• PS/2 ports for keyboard & mouse;
• 2 USB (2.0) & 1 FireWire;
• COM port (1), LPT, & S/PDIF-Out (coaxial);
• 2 USB (2.0) & 1 RJ-45 (Ethernet);
• 3 audio connectors (Line In/Out and Microphone).

Accessories

• Package of the standard design; 
• Documentation: user manual in English, German and French);
• Cables: 2 SATA (with two power supply adapters PCPlug-SATA), 2 ATA66/100/133, 1 ATA33 and FDD;
• Bracket with 2 USB ports;
• External temperature sensor;
• I/O Shield (for respective connectors);
• CD with software:
• drivers;
• DeskView OEM;
• SystemGuard;
• LogoFlash;
• DirectX 8.0a;
• Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Integrated controllers

• audio controller based on the Analog Devices AD1985AC'97 codec; 5.1 audio system supported, front audio I/O and S/PDIF connector provided (remember that codecs from Analog Devices are considered to have very high sound quality);
• network controller based on the Intel 82562EZ, 10/100 Base-T (Fast Ethernet) supported;
• FireWire on the Agere FW322-06 chip, 3 ports supported.

Settings

We used the BIOS R1.03 as the latest available version. 

Summary

The board demonstrates a moderate speed, and expandability is not impressive, that is why it can be interesting only as an inexpensive stable system. There are also variations of this model - D1627-G and D1625-A which are deprived of the SATA RAID support (ICH5 south bridge used instead) and a second COM port which is replaced with an unsoldered CNR slot (besides, the D1625-A doesn't support an external temperature sensor). 

Test results: 

• 11 motherboards on the Intel 865 and 1 on the Intel 875P: Part 2

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