Thursday, February 28, 2002

Technical details

The standard amount of space has been provided around the CPU socket in order to fit a P4 heatsink.

The memory slots -- except for DIMM slot #1 -- are located far enough from the AGP port that there is little chance of a retention bar coming into contact with the graphics card when installing memory.

The CPU locking lever is made of metal, so there's little chance of it breaking.

The voltage regulation circuits are of the triple phase, bi-Mosfets variety.

Six 3300Mfds and two 2200Mfds capacitors have been placed around the CPU.

The Northbridge is capped with a heatsink, but no fan.

The 12v, and ATX connectors are located to the East of the Northbridge, behind the audio ports. This isn't an ideal position, as it forces users to contort the power cables around the CPU in order to avoid hindering its proper ventilation.

Three fan connectors are included, all of which are controlled by the hardware monitoring system.

Hardware monitoring is controlled by an ITE IT8705F circuit.

It's possible to manually assign IRQs.

The AGP port does not support AGP Pro graphics cards, but does come with a handy card-retention mechanism.

An (optional) Realtek RTL8100 network controller is included.

Finally, and unfortunately, the BIOS cannot be rolled-back to the last batch of valid settings by simply pressing "Insert", or a similar hot-key at start-up. If the system refuses to boot after fiddling with the BIOS, therefor, it becomes necessary to reset the whole kit & caboodle via an on-board jumper.

Next: Additional features