Thursday, October 26, 2000

Introduction

The Transcend TS-ASL3 is a member of a new generation of motherboard that utilize the Intel i815E chipset, and the ICH2 Southbridge, which supports ATA100 hardrives.

The TS-ASL3 also stands as a viable all-in-one solution for budget conscious consumers, thanks to the i815E's integrated sound, and graphics circuitry. Still, there is more to a board than a pretty feature list. So without further ado, it's off to the labs we go, and on to the analyses.

The features

The TS-ASL3 is expandable via 6 PCI slots, an AGP port, and a CNR slot. There are also 3 168-pin DIMM slots available, with can support upto 512MB of PC100, or PC133 memory. Unfortunately, no ISA slots have been provided, which may be inconvenient for long-time computer owners, who may very well have an ISA-card or two laying around.

Configuration of the TS-ASL3 is accomplished - for the most part - from within the BIOS. There is one jumper of note, however: JP4, which can be used to force the Front-Side Bus to operate at 66MHz, 100MHz, or 133MHz. Users will likely spend most of their time in the BIOS however, and in the "Frequency/Voltage Control" menu in particular. From there its possible to set the FSB to frequencies ranging from 66MHz to 166MHz, in 1MHz steps - quite a bit of versatility, to say the least. Another option also permits the processor's Vcore voltage to be set to -.05v, -.1v, +.05v, +.1v, +.2v, +.3v, or +.4V. Another permits the clock multiplier to be set between 3X, and 8X. Finally, within the "Chipset Features Setup" menu, there lies an option permitting the memory-bus frequency to be set to Auto, 100Mhz, or 133Mhz.

Note: A jumper labeled JP28 is also present on the TS-ASL3, which apparently allows users to vary processor voltages. Unfortunately, the manual is a bit vague on this point, and only refers to the possible settings as "Low", "Medium", and "High"... Not too helpful, really.

Technical details

The space provided around the CPU socket is a bit tight, and doesn't really permit for the installation of the larger heatsinks.

The memory slots have been situated far enough from the AGP port that there is no risk of the memory retention bard coming into contact with the graphics card.

Fifteen 1500Mfd capacitors have been sprinkled around the CPU socket, which is quite good in our opinion.

The CPU retention lever is made of metal, so there is no risk of it breaking. That said, it is shaped in such a way that it may interfere with the proper installation of heatsinks, so users are warned to make doubly sure that their favorite slab of aluminum/copper is seated properly.

Three fan connectors are available, which is quite enough in our books.

Manual assignment of IRQs is available on this board.

Remarks

Before continuing, we have to make note of a problem we encountered when using the TS-ASL3.

That is, as soon as the graphics card drivers were installed, it became extremely difficult to access several benchmark programs, including Winbench99, Content Creation 2000, and Ziff Davis' Winstone99. On the other hand, we've used the exact same set-up with literaly dozens of other boards, without problems.

In fact, to be precise, upon launching Winbench99, Content Creation 2000, or Winstone99, each program would scan the system for the presence of hardrives , as well as the 3.5" floppy. At this point, the disk drive fails to respond, or - at the very least - the system freezes up so as to appear as if the disk drive hasn't been recognized. In order to continue with our analysis, we were forced to restart the system many times, simply because it would function properly only 1 time out of 15.

Note that the system also froze-up during our 3D tests, which don't access the floppy at all...

Innumerable changes were made over the many, long hours in an attempt to identify the source of the problem, but no number of BIOS changes managed to squelch what was quickly becoming a very annoying bug. It is interesting to note, however, that if one of the three Ziff-Davis programs is functioning correctly, so do all the others. However, if one of them fails to function, so do they all...

Please note that it might very well be that this bug exists only within our sample board, and has already been rectified in the production units.

Next: Additional features.