Abit BD7II-RAID (i845E) Mainboard

i845E chipset

This board is a typical solution from Abit - it's just quite small; all typical functions are supported.

Accessories:

Package of a standard design;
Documentation: user manual in English;
Cables: 2 ATA66/100/133 and FDD;
Bracket with 2 USB ports;
Bracket for the rear computer panel;
Diskette with drivers for IDE RAID;
CD containing:

drivers;
user manual in PDF;
Hardware Doctor (system monitoring utility);
Adobe Acrobat Reader;
3Deep;
software suite from BuzzSoft;
Norton Antivirus 2002;
DirectX 8.1
WinDVD.

The layout is not brilliant: all functional connectors are placed too close to each other as the board is quite small and contains a great deal of various controllers. It can be difficult as well to reach a jumper when the board is already installed. Its function is shown on the textolite.

The 3-channel switching voltage regulator incorporates 6 capacitors of 3300 uF and 3 of 1200 uF.

The following controllers are integrated:

audio controller based on the ALC650 AC'97 codec supporting 5.1 audio systems and having a connector for front audio inputs/outputs;
network controller based on the Realtek RTL8100B chip supporting 10BaseT/100BaseTX;
IDE RAID controller based on the HighPoint HPT372 chip supporting RAID 0, 1 and 0+1 on the ATA133 protocol.

Non-unsoldered connectors: none.

The system monitoring is supported by the Winbond W83627HF-AW chip. What is controlled:

voltage of processor, AGP bus, memory, +1.25, +3.3, +5 and +12 V, VBAT and +5 V Standby;
speed of 3 fans;
temperatures of the processor (a built-in sensor), the board (a built-in sensor) and an external sensor connected to the board.

There are 2 connectors for adjustable and 1 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 - 305x215 mm.

Adjustment can be carried out with:

jumpers and switches	Jumper to clear up the CMOS
BIOS based on the AWARDBIOS 6.00PG from Phoenix	Setup of memory timings	+	CAS Latency, Active To Precharge Delay, RAS to CAS Delay, RAS Precharge
	Setup of memory frequency	+	at FSB 100 MHz: CPU/Memory = Auto, 1:1, 3:4 at FSB 133 MHz: CPU/Memory = Auto, 1:1, 4:3
	Setup of AGP bus	+
	Setup of PCI bus	-
	Changeable scaler of AGP and PCI buses	+	PCI (AGP/2) = 33 MHz, 37 MHz, 44 MHz, FSB/3, FSB/4
	Manual assignment of interrupts	+
	Changeable FSB frequency	+	100-250 MHz in 1MHz steps
	Changeable CPU multiplier	+	x8-x24
	Changeable core voltage	+	+5%, +10%, +15%
	Changeable memory voltage	+	2.5, 2.6, 2.7 V
	Changeable chipset voltage	-
	Changeable AGP bus voltage	-

We used the latest available version of the BIOS - BIOS 9X.

This is a good board and it will suit a wide circle of users. It is rich in controllers and tools for fine adjustment of the system.

Test results:

6 Intel 845E Based Mainboards Roundup

Dmitry Mayorov (destrax@ixbt.com)