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Soltek 75FRV (VIA KT400) Mainboard



This is one more board from the Purple Ray series - a budget solution with a respective orientation. 

Accessories: 

  • Package of a standard design; 
  • Documentation: user manual, brief installation manual, description of the software supplied - in English; 
  • Cables: 1 ATA66/100/133 and FDD; 
  • Diskette with drivers for IDE RAID; 
  • 2 CDs containing:
    • drivers; 
    • several system monitoring utilities; 
    • Boostek; 
    • Adobe Acrobat Reader; 
    • PC-Cillin 2002; 
    • Virtual Drive 7; 
    • RestoreIT! 3 Lite; 
    • Partition Magic 6 SE; 
    • DriveImage 4. 

As the board is quite narrow, its layout is not very convenient: audio-ins, connectors of IDE, FDD, USB, smart card reader and power supply are tightly placed around the PCI slots and other places which are hard to reach, and when a video card is installed it's difficult to handle the memory modules. It can be difficult as well to reach some jumpers when the board is already installed. Their functions are shown on the textolite.  

The 2-channel switching voltage regulator incorporates 10 capacitors of 2200 uF. 

The following controllers are integrated: 

  • audio controller based on the chipset's capabilities and Avance Logic ALC650 AC'97 codec supporting 5.1 audio systems. 

Thanks to the ITE IT8705F I/O controller the board supports (and has a connector) a smart card reader. 

The board incorporates the following technologies: 

  • ABS II (protects processor from overheating). 

+2.5 V supplied to the memory modules is indicated with the red LED. 

Non-unsoldered connectors: network controller (and its connector). 

The system monitoring is supported by the ITE IT8705F chip. What is controlled: 

  • processor voltage, +2.5, +3.3, +5 and +-12 V, VBAT and +5 V SB; 
  • 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 and 3 for unadjustable connection of fans. 

Brief characteristics of the board: memory slots - 3 DDR SDRAM; expansion slots - AGP/ 5 PCI; I/O ports - 2 COM/ LPT/ 2 PS/2/ 6 USB 2.0; dimensions - 305x225 mm. 

Adjustment can be carried out with: 
 


jumpers and switchesJumper to clear up the CMOS 
Jumpers for setting a FSB frequency100, 133 è 166 MHz
Jumper for starting up computer from a PS/2 keyboard 
  Athlon XP, Duron Morgan / Other
BIOS based on the AMI 3.31aSetup of memory timings+CAS Latency, Bank Interleave, Command Rate, Fast Command, Burst Length.
Setup of memory frequency+Auto, 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+100-200 MHz in 1MHz steps
Changeable CPU multiplier+x5-x18
Changeable core voltage+1,1-1,85 V in 0.025V steps
Changeable memory voltage+2,5, 2,6, 2,7 B
Changeable chipset voltage- 
Changeable AGP bus voltage+1,5, 1,6, 1,7 B

We used the latest available version of the BIOS - AN1. 

The strongest point of the board is its overclocking potential, but the performance at the default settings is not shining, which doesn't let me recommend this board for those who strive for speed. 

Test results: 


 

Dmitry Mayorov (destrax@ixbt.com


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