Jetway 845EDAK (i845E) Mainboard

i845E chipset

Traditionally, we have received the board of this company in the OEM package. But only a box is lacking. The board looks ordinary - a blue PCB and purple memory slots.

Accessories:

Documentation: user manual in English;
Cables: 2 ATA66/100/133 and FDD;
Bracket for the rear computer panel;
Diskette with drivers for an additional IDE controller;
CD containing:

drivers;
Adobe Acrobat Reader;
Hardware Doctor;
PC-Cillin 2002;
Recovery Genius;
Magic BIOS;
Award Winflash;
DirectX 7.0 è 8.1.

The layout has several typical flaws: additional IDE connectors and audio-ins are not in very good positions, and when a video card is installed it's difficult to handle memory modules. It's not difficult to reach jumpers when the board is already installed. Their functions are shown on the textolite.

The 3-channel switching voltage regulator incorporates 6 capacitors of 3300 uF and 4 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;
Additional IDE controller based on the Promise PDC20275 chip and supporting up to 4 IDE devices via the ATA133 protocol.

The board supports the Recovery Genius technology for backup storing of important data on HDD.

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 - 2 DDR SDRAM; expansion slots - AGP/ 5 PCI/ CNR; I/O ports - 2 COM/ LPT/ 2 PS/2/ 6 USB 2.0; dimensions - 305x245 mm.

Adjustment can be carried out with:

jumpers and switches	Jumper to clear up the CMOS
jumpers and switches	Jumpers to choose a FSB frequency		Auto, 100 and 133 MHz
BIOS based on the AWARDBIOS 6.00PG from Phoenix	Setup of memory timings	+	CAS Latency, Cycle Time, RAS to CAS Delay, RAS Precharge
	Setup of memory frequency	+	Auto, DDR200, DDR266
	Setup of AGP bus	+
	Setup of PCI bus	-
	Changeable scaler of AGP and PCI buses	+	PCI (AGP/2) = FSB/3, FSB/4, FSB/5, FSB/6
	Manual assignment of interrupts	-
	Changeable FSB frequency	+	100-200 MHz in 1MHz steps
	Changeable CPU multiplier	+	x8-x50
	Changeable core voltage	+	1.1-1.85 V in 0.025V steps
	Changeable memory voltage	+	2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8 V
	Changeable chipset voltage	-
	Changeable AGP bus voltage	+	1.5, 1.6 V

We used the latest available version of the BIOS - A04.

This is board demonstrates an average performance; it combines a moderate price and quite good overclocking tools.

Test results:

6 Intel 845E Based Mainboards Roundup

Dmitry Mayorov (destrax@ixbt.com)