Monday, July 31, 2000

Additional features (continued)

Additional features of the MSI 815E Pro MS-6337 include: Wake on LAN, Wake on Modem Ring, PS2 connectors, 4 USB ports (two on the rear panel, two optional), SB-Link, Power Failure Recovery, Suspend to RAM, RX/TX connectors for infrared communication, and start-up from the mouse/keyboard, or at a pre-set time. Hardware monitoring of fan speeds, CPU temperature, and of voltages is also included as standard equipment on this PC99-compliant board. An integrated AC 97" sound-card, as well as an integrated video card are also included. Finally, there exists on-board a jumper labeled J2, which permits the attachment of a thermal sensor. Note that the D-Led diagnostic troubleshooting system is also integrated on this motherboard. The panel, if you remember from past articles, D-Led is a series of 4 bi-coloured LEDS that indicate the source of any problems during boot-up.

Below, a photo of the MSI 815E Pro MS-6337.

Installation

Installation of the MS-6337 is quite simple, seeing as there is no pressing need to play with jumpers. Simply put the board in a casing, plug everything in, and make a quick jump into the BIOS to finalize any adjustments.

The software bundle

The installation CD includes the .inf patch from Intel for the 815 chipset, a program for flashing the BIOS, Trend PC Cillin 98, MSI PC Alert, MSI 3D Turbo II, NSI Mospeed - which is a utility for optimizing the speed of your modem, MSI Easy Logo, Adobe Acrobat Reader, and a digital rendition of the user's manual.

The hardware bundle

On the hardware side of things, the MS-6337 comes with an 80-pin ATA66/100 cable, and a disk-drive cable.

Next: The Tests

815E Pro MS-6337

Description:

CPU: Socket 370 for Intel(R) Celeron(TM) / Coppermine (FC-PGA) processors of 500, 550, 600, 633, 667 MHz and higher up to 866MHz.

Memory: Four PC133 SDRAM DIMM slots supporting up to 512MB using 16/64/128/256 Mbit technology

Slots: One CNR (Communication Networking Riser) slot; One AGP slot (2X/4X mode); Six PCI slots.

Video: 2D/3D graphics integrated in chip using Intel DVM Technology. Optional AGP In-line Memory Module (AIMM) support.

Audio: DirectSound AC'97 audio integrated in chip.

Form Factor: ATX form factor

BIOS: Plug & Play BIOS providing DMI (Desktop Management Interface) function.

Chipset: Intel(R) 815 + Intel(R) ICH2 chipset. Supports 66/100/133MHz bus speeds

On-Board IDE: Two dual channeled PIO Bus Master IDE controllers supporting UDMA 66/100.

On-Board Peripherals: One floppy port; One serial ports; One parallel port; Four USB ports (2 on board rear connectors + USB front pin header); One VGA port; One Audio / Game port