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Abit BD7-II RAID (i845E P4) Motherboard

Join the community - in the OCAU Forums! Date  24 July 2002 Author  Chainbolt Manufacturer  ABIT Computer Corp. Package, Board Layout Package: The box design and content is simple and straightforward without cosmetics. The box is not adorned by the so common fancy graphics with spaceships or monster heads. It contains nothing else than the cables, an additional USB bracket, and the manual. Even the installation CD is down-to-earth with just the necessary drivers, the frugal Winbond monitoring utility, and some very minor pieces of software. The USB 2.0 driver has to be downloaded from the ABIT website.     Layout: The board layout is clean and clear; all connectors are where they should be. Like most P4 boards the BD7-II requires the additional ATX 2.03 4-pin connector. Without this cable plugged in it does not power up. In good ABIT style the BD7-II is jumper-less with the exception of the CMOS. The user will also appreciate that the BD7-II is rather small in comparison to the more feature-loaded competition. That makes installation easier, in particular for owners of mid tower cases. One of our previously tested boards was so big that when installed in a mid tower case certain connectors could not be reached without de-installing devices in the 5-inch bays. Such a problem does not exist with the BD7-II. The only little surprise is the “standing” battery. This is unusual and no good to be honest. Why? The socket is fixed only by 3 thin solder pins and because it’s standing prone to be broken out. When we opened the box with our new BD7-II, we found the battery socket already broken out and we had to re-solder it into the PCB. The board works of course without the battery, but the BIOS does not hold the set values in case the power is interrupted and is defaulting. As usual with 845E/G boards, the BD7-II has a large heatsink on the Northbridge, but comes without active cooling. The heatsink is fixed with clips and can easily be removed in case somebody deems it necessary to remove the Intel required pinkish heat compound and spread some Artic Silver over the surprisingly small Northbridge die. The lack of a fan does not constitute any problem as long as extreme overclocking doesn’t come into play. More about this later.     << Back Next Page: >> Select Page Page 1 - Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 - Page 5 - Page 6 -

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