Shuttle AV40R Review

Author : Wayne Date : 31st October 2001

3DVelocity would like to thank Shuttle and especially Don Joe for their help and courtesy in providing this motherboard for review.

Introduction :

Few chipset launches have caused quite as much interest and controversy as VIA's P4X266, but unfortunately for mostly the wrong reasons. The legal wrangle that's happening right now between Intel and VIA over VIA's rights to manufacture a P4 core logic chipset has left many motherboard manufacturers decidedly nervous about adopting this chipset, and for the first time ever, I had to think long and hard about whether we should actually review the board. The reason for our uncertainty was based on our working relationship with Intel, a relationship that we consider to be essential not just for us, but for visitors to the site. In the end however I decided that it's also in the interest of our readers that we look at all viable options for the Pentium 4, and as VIA have yet to be found guilty of any wrongdoing I decided to press ahead.

Although I'll be using results from Intel's i845/SDRAM board for comparison, I think it's only fair to state up front that i845 and P4X266 are not comparable products in that P4X266 uses DDR SDRAM. Intel's DDR i845 solution wont be making an appearance until Q1 next year and so it's not entirely fair to be putting them side by side other than purely as a yardstick.

The board :

Shuttle have always made excellent quality motherboards but they have only recently started grabbing the attention with a range of boards that have really offered features and performance worthy of a place in the spotlight. Of course, being one of the first motherboard manufacturers to publicly support VIA's P4X266 was certain to generate a fair amount of interest, but rather than just hope the publicity would sell the board, they actually went the extra mile and added a host of features that we'd not really seen before on the P4 platform, at least not at this price point.

Board specs :

CPU Support: Socket 478

Intel Pentium 4 in the 478 pin package

Chipsets: VIA P4X266

(North) VIA P4X266: Support Pentium 4 System bus Support DDR 200 / 266 SDRAM interface Support AGP interface Support V-Link interface to VT8233 Support ACPI 1.0b compliant power management Support APM 1.2 compliant power management (South) VIA VT8233 Built in high bandwidth 266MB/S 8-bit V-link Host controller Integrated USB controller with three root hub and six function ports Integrated dual channel UDMA 33/66/100 master mode EIDE controller LPC interface for Low Pin Count interface to Super-I/O or ROM Integrated Keyboard Controller with PS2 mouse support Integrated DS12885-style Real Time Clock with extended 256 byte CMOS RAM and Day/Month Alarm for ACPI System Management Bus Interface Sophisticated PC99-Compatible Mobile Power Management Integrated Plug and Play Controller

Form Factor

ATX

Front Side Bus

100 / 133MHz (Bios adjustable)

Memory

Support DDR 200/266 compliant SDRAM up to 1.5GB (un-buffered) capacity Support DDR 200/266 compliant SDRAM up to 3GB (registered) capacity

Audio: AC97 audio

AC'97 2.1 compliant CODEC on board

Expansion Slot:1 x AGP 2.0 compliant slot

Support external AGP V2.0 compliant VGA device Support 1.5V AGP electrical only Support 1X, 2X, 4X AGP data transfer 5 x PCI slots PCI 2.2 compliant, 32-bit BUS Master Slots 133 Mbyte / sec maximum throughput

IDE interface:On board Promise 265R (AV40R only)

2 x UltraDMA/100 Bus Master IDE from ICH2 2 x UltraDMA/100 Bus Master IDE from promise 265R to support RAID 0, RAID1 function 80-pin Cable Backward Compatible Legacy ATAPI Devices ATAPI IDE CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, and LS-120 Supports

USB 2.0 interface:On board Philip ISL1561 (optional)

Complies with Universal Serial Bus Specification Rev. 2.0 Complies with Open Host Controller Interface Specification Rev. 1.0a Complies with Enhanced Host Controller Interface Specification for USB High performance USB 2.0 host with integrated USB 2.0 transceiver, which supports high-speed, full-speed and low-speed signaling Integrated two USB 1.1 - OHCI and one USB 2.0 - EHCI compliant host controllers: works with all USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 devices 4 downstream ports with GoodLink TM feature Supports peripheral hot Plug and Play as well as remote wakeup Supports individual over-current protection for downstream ports

LPC I/O:ITE 8705F

Comply with Intel Low Pin Count Interface Specification Rev. 1.0 ACPI V. 1.0 compliant Built in H/W monitor feature Two 16C550 UARTs Supports two standard Serial Ports Supports IrDA 1.0/ASKIR protocols Supports Smart Card Reader protocols Built in Smart Card Reader IEEE 1284 Parallel Port Standard mode -- Bi-directional SPP compliant Enhanced mode -- EPP V. 1.7 and V. 1.9 compliant High speed mode -- ECP, IEEE 1284 compliant Floppy Disk Controller Supports two 360K/ 720K/ 1.2M/ 1.44M/ 2.88M floppy disk drives Enhanced digital data separator 3-Mode drives supported Keyboard Controller Game Port Dedicated MIDI Interface Support power-failure resume and power button de-bounce

H/W Monitoring:Built in ITE 8705F

2 thermal inputs from remote thermal resistor to monitor system temperature 1 thermal input from thermal diode to monitor CPU temperature 8 voltage monitor inputs 1 chassis intrusion input Monitors 3 fan tachometer inputs Smart Guardian Controller to provide programmable fan speed automatic control

Power Management

APM 1.2 compliant ACPI 1.0 compliant Support multiple system suspend types - suspend to DRAM, suspend to disk, and all with hardware automatic wake-up

Bios: Award PnP BIOS

Stored in 2 Mb flash memory DMI 2.3 CPU 100 / 133MHz FSB setting BIOS FSB step-less setting from 100MHz to 166MHz with 1 MHz increment CPU core voltage setting from +0.025V ~ +0.20V AGP (Vddq) voltage setting from +0.05V ~ +0.20V I/O voltage setting from +0.1V ~0.2V Support IRQ manual assign table Bootable from Floppy, ATAPI device, USB device, SCSI device

On Board Ports / Connectors / Jumpers / Headers (front/back panel): Ports

Back Panel: 2 Serial Ports 1 Parallel Port (SPP, EPP, ECP) 1 PS/2 Keyboard Port 1 PS/2 Mouse Port 2 USB Ports 1x Game / MIDI Port 1x Line in, 1x Line out, 1x Mic Connectors: 1 x ATX power connector 1 x 4 pin 12V ATX power connector 1 x 6 pin 5V / 3.3V ATX power connector 4 x Fan Power connectors (one for system chipset fan) 4 x UltraDMA/100 Bus Master IDE (2 RAID IDE optional) 1 x Floppy Jumpers: Clear CMOS BIOS Boot block protection Headers: 2 sets of 2 x5 pin Front Panel USB header (1 set is from ISL1561 by optional) Mini CD Audio in TAD in CD Audio in Other Features: Suspend switch and LED Accessory: CD-ROM Disk contains: VIA 4 in 1 Driver CODEC driver ITE Smart Guardian Utility Promise IDE driver (AV40R only) User manuals in PDF format IDE Cable: 1 x ATA 100/66 cable Floppy Cable: 1 x Floppy cable USB cable: 1 x USB 2.0 cable with bracket for header (optional) User manual: 1 printed user manual Chipset heat sink, CPU RM.

Page 2 - A closer look

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