Thursday, February 28, 2002

Introduction

While they're not too well known among tweakers, Overclockers, and the performance crowd, ECS is a motherboard manufacturer that has built-up a solid reputation among OEMs, assemblers, and system integrators. In fact, they're already one of the biggest board-vendors on the planet, with more than $980 million in annual revenue; not bad for a company that only hit the scene in 1987. Their newest Pentium 4 board, the L4S5A - which we'll be reviewing presently - is another example of ECS' diverse product line; it's based on the SiS 645 chipset, supports DDR333 memory, and includes an (optional) Realtek RTL8100 network controller.

Let's see what this baby has to offer, shall we?

Configuration

As you may be able to tell simply by glancing at the table, configuration of the L4S5A is a pretty simple affair. At first glance, it appears to feature a totally Jumperless design, and in fact, not a single PCB jumper relates to the configuration of the CPU. Closer inspection will however reveal two jumpers, which can be used to reset, and write-protect the BIOS.

As to adjusting the L4S5A's settings, most tweaks are performed from within the "Frequency/Voltage Control" BIOS menu, which includes options for changing the FSB, and memory-bus frequencies.

The "Advanced Chipset Features" menu, for its part, also offers a number of options for adjusting various memory timing settings.

Otherwise, there is very little to be seen. The L4S5A's Overclocking abilities are simple, and to the point.

Next: Technical details