The products from this company are usually deprived of extensive feature sets
or accessories, but their prices are not "skyscraping" as well. And we are not
expecting a jump from FIC on this budget SiS's chipset.
Accessories:
- Package of a standard design;
- Documentation: user manual
in English; brief installation manual in 5 languages;
-
Cables: ATA66/100/133 and FDD;
- Bracket for the rear computer panel with
Rear, Center/Sub audio-outs and SPDIF outputs of the TosLink and Coaxial types;
-
2 CDs containing:
- drivers;
- Audio Alert II;
-
Clockometer;
- LogoGenie 2.1;
- Media Ring Talk 99;
-
Norton Antivirus 2000;
- Norton Ghost;
- Norton Virtual
Drive;
- Appio;
- AutoSave;
- X-Stop;
-
Cute Dialer;
- ImageMore;
- Adobe Acrobat Reader.
The layout has several typical flaws: the audio-ins are in front of the PCI,
and when a video card is installed it's difficult to handle the memory modules
and cables in the IDE connectors. But it's not difficult to reach the jumpers
when the board is already installed. Their functions is shown on the textolite.
The 3-channel switching voltage regulator incorporates 7 capacitors of 3300
uF.
The following controllers are integrated:
- audio controller
based on the Avance Logic ALC650 AC'97 codec supporting 5.1 audio systems and
having an output for front audio connectors;
- network controller
based on the chipset's capabilities.
Non-unsoldered connectors:
none. The system monitoring is supported by the ITE IT8705F chip. What is controlled:
- processor voltage, +3.3, +5 and +12 V, +5 V StandBy;
-
speed of 2 fans;
- temperatures of the processor (a built-in sensor)
and the board (a built-in sensor).
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/ 6 PCI; I/O ports
- 2 COM/ LPT/ 2 PS/2/ 6 USB 1.1; dimensions - 305x245 mm.
Adjustment
can be carried out with:
| jumpers and switches | Jumper
to clear up the CMOS | |
| Jumper for password
reset for BIOS Setup | |
| BIOS based on the
AwardBIOS 6.00PG from Phoenix | Setup of memory timings | + | CAS
Latency, DRAM Addr/CMD Rate, System Performance |
| Setup of memory
frequency | + | 100, 133 and 166 MHz |
| Setup
of AGP bus | + | |
| Setup of PCI bus | - | |
| Changeable scaler of AGP and PCI buses | - | |
| Manual assignment of interrupts | + | |
| Changeable FSB frequency | + | 100, 105, 108,
112, 133 MHz |
| Changeable CPU multiplier | + | x8-x50 |
| Changeable core voltage | - | |
| Changeable
memory voltage | - | |
| Changeable chipset
voltage | - | |
| Changeable AGP bus voltage | - | |
We used the latest available version of the BIOS - SAB42.
This
is a typical board for FIC with a not very abundant set of functions, quite good
quality and an average speed of operation.
Test results:
