Monday, June 19, 2000

The features (continued)

Additional features of the Chaintech CT-6CTA2 include: Wake on LAN, Wake on Modem Ring, PS2 connectors, USB connectors, RX/TX connectors for infrared communication, start-up from the mouse/keyboard/or at a pre-set time, Suspend to RAM, AC Lost Recovery and Hardware monitoring of fan speed, and CPU temperature is also included as a standard feature on this PC99-compliant motherboard. On thing to note, is that the integrated AudioPCI card included with this board uses the Creative Labs CT5880 - quite a bit better than the standard-fare AC"97 cards that are usually included with motherboards these days.... Finally, take note that the CT-6CTA2 allows for IRQs to be assigned to PCI slots manually.

Below, a photo of the Chaintech CT-6CTA2 that provides us with a nice view of its layout, and components.

Installation

Installation of the CT-6CTA2 is easy enough that most people could do it blindfolded, and half-drunk. There is really very little for most people to do, as the default jumper settings are sufficient for most scenarios. Basically, we put the board in the case, and plugged everything in. Please do note, however, that this is a big card, and demands a casing of similar grandeur. One case in point is that we had quite a bad time getting the ATX cable plugged in, and ended up doing all sorts of acrobatics to get things connected correctly. The fact that the ATX connector is situated in front of the 3 1/2" floppy disk connector, and under the drives bay didn't help much. We had to forcibly redirect the 3 1/2" cable, and contort the ATX cable to get things done. Up until this point, I've never had to go through an installation quite so horrendous as far as the ATX connector is concerned...

The software bundle

The installation CD includes i820 chipset patches, sound-card drivers, a program for flashing the BIOS, Trend antivirus, an electronic version of the user's manual, Adobe Acrobat Reader, and a bonus pack which includes a trio of utilities: Norton Ghost, Norton Antivirus, and XStore Pro.

Next: The test results.

ChipSet	Intel 820 ( Camino ) Three chip AGPset
Processor	Support Pentium II/III up to 750MHz System Clock 100 / 133MHz CPU Type Slot 1
AGP	Supports AGP  2x / 4 X AGP cards
Memory	Socket 184-pin SRIMM  x 2 Type RDRAM Size 1GB ECC Single bit
Award BIOS	ROM Type Intel 4MB Firmware Hub Function PnP , DMI , Multi-device booting Protect Trend ChipAwayVirus Built-in Hard Disk Backup firmware BIOS Wonder technology a. ChipAway Virus b. Flash BIOS write protect, c. Embedded Flash Utility d. Instant Recovery TWIN     BIOS for triple BIOS insurance
IDE	Onboard PIO Mode 4 Multi-word DMA Mode 2 Ultra DMA-66   timings Optional High Point HPT368 IDE Accelerator Ultra DMA-66 IDE with RAID0/1
Audio	Embedded AC'97/98 CODEC Optional Creative CT5880 PCI audio chip
Super I/O	Chipset WB 83627 HF LPC w/System Monitor Hardware Serial port 2 UARTs support and IR support for HPIR and ASKIR (up to 115.2Kbps) Parallel port SPP/ECP/EPP Floppy Support 2.88MB, Japanese 3Mode and 1Mbps transfer mode Other Game / MIDI port for soft-audio Floppy Support 2.88MB, Japanese 3Mode and 1Mbps transfer mode
Expansion slots	5x PCI, 1x ISA( optional ), 1x AGP, 1x AMR
Dimensions	ATX form factor , 305mm x 240mm , 4 layers
I/O Connectors	PC99 compliant colored code PS/2 Mini-DIN Keyboard & Mouse ports Two USB ports Two 9-pin D-SUB Serial ports One 25-pin D-SUB Printer port One 15-pin Game / MIDI port Audio Line-out , Line-in and Mic-in jacks
Features	Innovative SeePU technology for jumperless CPU installation Overclocking technology up to 103/124/150MHz. Embedded system monitor hardware ( 8Voltage , 3 Temp. , 3 FAN speed ) Poly-fuse overcurrent protection for USB and keyboard Fully support APM and ACPI industrial standard Onboard LDCM compliant System Monitor Hardware Advanced Management Capabilities: - Power-on events:             WOL (Wake-On-LAN) network card             Modem ring             RTC Alarm - AOL ( Alert-on-LAN ) network card Supports - Software power-off control for Win95 - Over-ride power button, - Enhanced Power-failure recovery and - Blinking LED in suspend, - FAN power off control in suspend - CPU Present Detect Warning
EMC
Bundle

Rev.0.1
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