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Layout

So that's all with the box, now let's look at the motherboard itself. The board is made of dark brown (almost black) material, has average dimensions (30.5 x 23 cm) and can be easily installed into a case. Comfortable location of power connector in board's corner under DIMM slots allows placing power cables comfortably.

And now a few words about processor socket. It is located rather close to board's edge and this is not good (I had to take the board out of the case to remove Volcano 7+ cooler). There is a thermal sensor for measuring air temperature under processor. But there is no support of internal thermal sensor of Athlon XP at all.

There is enough room around CPU socket to install coolers like Volcano 7+, however it is more difficult to install bigger Volcano7. A condenser must be turned down a little to make it possible. Unfortunately there is no protective backing under socket's dents. But there is a sticker on the socket itself, which warns about necessity to cool processor (this idea was adopted from Soltek).

Now, a few words about north bridge and its cooling. A massive heatsink with an ornamental plate is used to cool the north bridge. This plate resembles Chaintech's logo (or sun as it may seem).
Well, this is nice but not functional. For example Zalman cooler can ventilate north bridge heatsink and even memory. However, on Chaintech 7VJL, the plate can obstruct air flow. Anyway it's not difficult to remove the plate.

Unfortunately there is no an additional connector to plug north bridge fan. That is why those who will install active cooling themselves, will face this problem. There are 3 fan connector altogether: the first one is for CPU cooler, the second one is near IDE connectors and the third one is near FDD connector.
Now goes some information about memory. There are 3 DIMM slots placed on the board that allows to install up to 3 Gb of PC1600/PC2100/PC2700 RAM. The slots are colored in the same bright yellow color like IDE connectors and PCI slots (I have already told about different color schemes for AMD and Intel boards). Unfortunately, there is no memory power supply LED indicator.

The distance between AGP slot and memory slots is sufficient to install memory with installed videocard. By the way, AGP slot allows to install both 1.5V and 3.3V videocards and has a latch for reliable fixation of videocards.

Now we'll discuss IDE connectors. They are located successfully and it's a pure delight to plug round cables into them. It's no good that they are both yellow and Primary and Secondary channels cannot be distinguished. It's clear that different colors would harm the board's appearance but they could write it clear on the board's surface or place big digits "1" and "2". I must note that PCB design does not cover RAID controller installation. It is installed only on Zenith boards. I'll note distant location of FDD connector; it is at the edge of the board. As the result there could be not enough cable length to reach FDD. In this case, the user will have to buy an ordinary flat FDD cable, which is obviously undesirable.

Now let's talk about extension capabilities. Here the board is seen from a very positive side. There are 6 PCI slots in all and no any CNR/AMR/ACR slots (unlike on Chaintech 7VJA4).

Besides, the board supports up to 6 USB ports and all of them are USB 2.0.

Connectors for 4 extra USB ports are placed near first and second PCI slots. And two more ports are installed on the back panel. By the way, the back panel looks traditional, however connectors are golden and look great.

Now I'll tell about onboard sound. There is a CMedia 8738 chip, which supports up to 4 channels. The JP8 jumper is used to disable onboard sound.

PCB design covers presence of AC'97 codec nearby, but our board doesn't have one. It seems like this codec will be installed onto board of cheaper "Summit" version instead of CMedia 8738.

Actually there are not many jumpers on the board. Besides standard jumper for CMOS clearing (JP1, near the battery) there is a pair of jumpers to allow wake-on USB 3,4 and USB 5,6 devices (JP6A and JP6B respectively between first and second PCI slots). Another pair of jumpers is used to set FSB frequency (JP3: 100/133 MHz, JP31: 166 MHz on/off). They are located near IDE2 connector. Finally, there are JP5 and JP6 jumpers near PS/2 sockets. The former one is designed for wake-on keyboard and the latter one is for wake-on USB 1,2. There are Wake-on-LAN and Wake-on-Modem connectors (CN5 and CN5A respectively) and a connector for IR-port (IR) at the edge of the board.

I must note that each jumper has a plastic "tail" for more convenient installation.

Now I'll tell you about BIOS. It is based on Phoenix AwardBIOS v. 6.00PG. As the result, the selection of settings would satisfy basic needs of system tuning.

We are looking at the most important things. These are memory settings.

Well, the necessary minimum presents. Let's go on.

I/O subsystem is based on ITE IT8705F, which fulfils functions of system monitoring as well.
By the way, I don't have any complaints on system monitoring except absence of Athlon XP thermal sensor support.

• Page1 - Specifications
• Page2 - Box Contents
• Page3 - Layout
• Page4 - Overclocking and Stability
• Page5 - Performance and Conclusions