Thursday, August 03, 2000

Introduction

Chaintech certainly doesn't appear to be dragging its feet when it comes to developing new products. After all, the moment that the Intel 815 chipset hit the streets, Chaintech was there build a motherboard around it. Thanks to the i815's inclusion of an integrated AC"97 audio, and i752 AGP 3D video, their newest product is among the new breed of all-in-one motherboards. In short, for a minimal investment, it becomes possible to build a complete system, complete with audio & video support. That said, let's take a look at the newcomer: the Chaintech CT-60JV.

The features

The CT-60JV is expandable via its 6 PCI slots, AGP port, and CNR slot; sorry, no ISA slot to be found here. The CT-60JV also sports 3 168-pin DIMM sockets that can hold upto 512MB of PC100 or PC133 memory. Please note that the board we received for testing is actually a pre-production model. The final version, we're told, will have 5 PCI slots - something that was confirmed by Chaintech.

Configuration of the CT-60JV is accomplished, for the most part, from within the BIOS, as there are few jumpers related to CPU located on the board itself. Effectively, there only are JP14 and JP15, which can be used to force the FSB to operate at a frequency of 66MHz to 100MHz, or 133MHz, or to allow the system to determine the FSB frequency automatically. The rest of the configuration work is done from within the BIOS menu labeled "Frequency Voltage Control", wherein one can change the FSB setting, the clock multiplier, and various other settings. On the subject of FSB settings, by setting SW1 to Auto, or to 100MHz in conjunction with a CPU with a 100MHz FSB, no Overclocking frequencies present themselves. When set to 133MHz with a CPU meant for that frequency, though, it becomes possible to select frequencies of 133MHz, 138MHz, 140MHz, or 150MHz. This is a slim selection of frequencies, to be sure, and in no small part thanks to Intel, who designed the i815 to function this way.

As for altering the Vcore voltage, while the specifications mention that options are available for the adjustment of the Vcore, and Vtt voltages, we could not find them. Again, it has to be noted that our review board was a pre-production board. As such, its quite possible that features are missing but be present on the final, completed product.

Remarks

The Chaintech CT60JV also possess a few unique features which it shares in common with its sibling - the CT-6AJA4. Among them:

Hardware Reset Protect

This function allows the user to disable the Reset button, and thus avoid accidental reboots. Often, systems such as servers are expected to operate 24hrs/day, and an accidental reset can be extremely inconvenient, if not damaging to important data.

HDD Instant Recovery

This feature ca be activated by the user, in order to store a cache of all of the vital bits of a system's OS. At need, the user can then restore the system after a fatal system crash.

Flash BIOS Protection

This particular feature helps protect the system's BIOS from being accidentally erased, or deliberately harmed by a viral intrusion.

Twin BIOS

By including two BIOS on the motherboard, combined with the BIOS Flashing protcetion, Chaintech is actually giving a triple BIOS protection. As a fact, in the event that the Flash BIOS Protection wouldn't have been turned on and that a virus attack would have destroyed your boot BIOs, then the second BIOS would be ready to come to your rescue et re-enable your motherboard to work in its initial condition within a minute.

Next: Additional features.