Albatron PX845PEV-800 Mainboard (i845PE)

i845PE chipset

The board is similar to PX845PEV Pro; this is a special edition released in limited quantities for Albatron's anniversary. The PCB is black, the heatsink sports funny color music, and one extra centimeter of textolite is graced with board's full name and CEO's signature (Jack Ko).

Accessories:

Package of the special stylish design;
Documentation: user manual, and poster with brief installation steps - all in English;
Cables: FDD, 2 ATA66/100/133 (all are black with the company's logo);
Bracket with 4 USB ports;
Triplex sound card on C-Media CMI8738/PCI-SX chip with support of 4.1 audio systems and a CD-In connector;

CD containing:

drivers;
PC-cillin 2000.

The layout is different from traditional, though it doesn't make the board more convenient in PC assembling. But it makes it narrower. As a result, IDE slots are placed behind PCI and several connectors are shifted to the left edge. A video card inserted may lock memory modules. It's not difficult to reach the only jumper when the board is already installed. Its functions are shown on the textolite.

The 2-channel switching voltage regulator incorporates 7 capacitors of 2200 uF and 3 of 1500 uF. Also, there are voltage regulators for the AGP and memory buses.

Integrated controllers:

network controller based on 3COM 910-A01 chip with 10BaseT/100BaseTX supported.

The board has protection from video cards which do not support 1.5V power supply.

Non-unsoldered connectors: audio codec chip and its connectors.

System monitoring is supported by Winbond W83627HF-AW chip. It controls:

processor voltage, +3.3, +5 and +-12 V, VBAT and +5 V StandBy;
speed of 3 fans;
temperatures of the processor (built-in sensor) and the board (built-in sensor).

There are 2 connectors for adjustable connection of fans (one of them is connected to a fan on the north bridge's heatsink) and one for unadjustable connection.

Brief board's characteristics: 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.

Settings:

jumpers and switches	Jumper to clear up the CMOS
BIOS based on Phoenix AwardBIOS 6.00	Setup of memory timings	+	CAS Latency, Active To Precharge Delay, RAS to CAS Delay, RAS Precharge
	Setup of memory frequency	+	DDR/CPU = 1.5, 2.66 at FSB 100 MHz; 2, 2.5, 2.66 at FSB 133 MHz; 2, 2.5 at FSB 200 MHz
	Setup of AGP bus	-
	Setup of PCI bus	-
	Changeable scaler of AGP and PCI buses	+	AGP(PCIx2) = Auto, 66 MHz
	Manual assignment of interrupts	+
	Changeable FSB frequency	+	100-248 MHz in 1MHz steps
	Changeable CPU multiplier	+	x8-x50
	Changeable core voltage	+	1.1-1.85 V in 0.025V steps
	Changeable memory voltage	+	Default, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8 V
	Changeable chipset voltage	-
	Changeable AGP bus voltage	+	Default, 1.6 V

We used the BIOS R1.00 as the latest available version.

The board might be interesting for collectors and those who need the guaranteed support of the new FSB at a relatively low sum of money.

Test results:

Pentium 4 on FSB 800 MHz, and new flagship i875P

Dmitry Mayorov (destrax@ixbt.com)

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