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.

Features :

BIOS :

Under the hood you'll find what appears to be your fairly standard Award BIOS, but dig a little deeper and you'll find that Shuttle have taken a leaf out of Abit's book with a range of tweaks and options that would be welcome on a SocketA board, but to find them on a Pentium 4 board is all the more impressive.

Four power management settings are supported, S1 (Snoop), S3 (Suspend to RAM) and S5 (Soft-Off) plus OS Direct Power Management (OSPM) where supported.

Rather than wade through the whole BIOS, I've concentrated on the more interesting options.

Frequency/Voltage Control :

CPU VCore Select
This item allows you to select CPU VCore.
> The choice: Default, + 1.100V 1.850V.

DDR Voltage Select
This item allows you to select DDR Voltage.
> The choice: Default, 2.55V, 2.60V, or 2.70V.

Chipset Voltage Select
This item allows you to select Chipset Voltage.
> The choice: Default, 2.55V, 2.60V, or 2.70V.

Auto Detect PCI/DIMM Clk
This item allows you to enable/disable auto detection DIMM/PCI Clock.
> The choice: Enabled, or Disabled.

Spread Spectrum
This item allows you to enable/disable the spread spectrum modulation.
> The choice: Enabled, or Disabled.

CPU Clock
This item allows the user to adjust CPU Host Clock from 100 MHz to
132 MHz by 1 MHz step.
Min: 100 MHz
Max: 132 MHz
> Key in a DEC number: (Between Min and Max.)

CPU Ratio
This item allows the user to adjust CPU Ratio .
> The choice: x8 ~ x23.

NOTE : Multiplier setting is a feature that you won't be able to use until Intel unlock their CPU multipliers or until somebody finds a way around it..

Advanced Chipset Features :

Current FSB Frequency
This item show Current CPU Front Side Bus speed.

Current DRAM Frequency
This item show Current DRAM speed.

DRAM Clock
This item allows you to control the DRAM speed.
> The Choice: 66MHz, 100MHz, 133MHz, or By SPD.
When CPU speed set to 66MHz, DRAM speed can be set to 66MHz(by Host Clock), or 100MHz (by Host Clock + 33MHz).
When CPU speed set to 100MHz, DRAM speed can be set to 100MHz (by Host Clock), or 133MHz (by Host Clock + 33MHz). When CPU speed set to 133MHz, DRAM speed only set to 133MHz (by Host Clock).

DRAM Timing
This item allows you to select the value in this field, depending on whether the board using which kind of DDR DRAM.
> The Choice: Manual or By SPD.

SDRAM CAS latency
When synchronous DRAM is installed, the number of clock cycles of CAS latency depends on the DRAM timing. Do not reset this field from the default value specified by the system designer.
> The Choice: 3, 2.5 or 2

Bank Interleave
The interleave number of internal banks, can be set to 2 way, 4 way interleave or disabled. For VCM and 16Mb type dram chips, the bank interleave is fixed at 2 way interteave.
When the dram timing is selected by SPD, it will be set by the value on SPD of the RAM module(SDR).
> The Choice: Disabled, 2 Bank, or 4 Bank.

Precharge to Active (Trp)
This item allows you to Precharge Command to Active Command Period.
> The Choice: 2T or 3T.

Active to Precharge (Tras)
This item allows you to Active Command to Precharge Command Period.
> The Choice: 5T or 6T.

Active to CMD(Trcd)
This item allows you to Active to CMD.
> The hoice: 2T or 3T.

DRAM Burst Length
This item allows you to select Dram Burst Length.
> The Choice: 4 or 8.

DRAM Command Rate
This item allows you to select the DRAM executed rate.
> The Choice: 2T Command or 1 T Command.

APG & P2P Bridge Control
Options are in its sub-menu.
Press < Enter> to enter the sub-menu of detailed options.

AGP Aperture Size (MB)
Select the size of Accelerated Graphics Port (ACP) aperture. The aperture is a portion of the PC1 memory address range dedicated to graphics memory address space. Host cycles that hit the aperture range are forwarded to the AGP without any translation.
> The Choice: 4M, 8M, 16M, 32M, 64M, 128M, or 256M.

AGP Mode
This item allows you to select the AGP Mode.
> The Choice: 1 x, 2x, or 4x.

AGP Driving Control
This item enables the system to automatically select its output buffer drive strength or make it manually selectable by an end user.
> The Choice: Auto or Manual.

AGP Driving Value
This item enables an end user to manually select the AGP output buffer drive strength.
> Key in a HEX number: Min = 0000, Max = 00FF.

AGP Fast Write
This item enables an end user to manually select the AGP output buffer drive strength.
> The Choice: Enabled or Disabled.

AGP Master 1 WS Write
When this item enabled, writing to the AGP(Accelerated Graphics Port) is executed with one wait state.
> The Choice: Enabled or Disabled

AGP Master 1 WS Read.
When this item is enabled, reading from the AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) is executed with one wait state.
> The Choice: Enabled or Disabled.

CPU & PCI Bus Control
Options are in its sub-menu. Press < Enter> to enter the sub-menu of detailed options.

CPU to PC1 Write Buffer
When this field is Enabled, the writing from CPU to PC1 bus is buffered, to compensate for the speed differences between the CPU and the PC1 bus. When Disabled, the writing is are not buffered and the CPU must wait until the write is complete before starting another write cycle.
> The Choice: Enabled or Disabled.

PC1 Master 0 WS Write
When this item enabled, writing to the AGP bus is executed with zero wait state.
> The Choice: Enabled or Disabled.

PC1 Delay Transaction
The chipset has an embedded 32-bit posted write buffer to support delay transactions cycles. Select Enabled to support compliance with PC1 specification version 2.1.
> The Choice: Enabled or Disabled.

Memory Hole
In order to improve performance, some space in memory can be reserved for ISA cards.
> The Choice: Disabled or 1 SM-1 6M.

System BIOS Cacheable
Selecting Enabled allows caching of the system BIOS ROM at F0000hFFFFFh, resulting in better system performance. However, if any program is written to this memory area, a system error may result.
> The choice: Enabled or Disabled.

Video RAM Cacheable
Selecting Enabled allows caching of the video RAM, resulting in better system performance. However, if any program is written to this memory area, a system error may resu It.
> The Choice: Enabled or Disabled.

PC Health Status :

Shutdown Temperature
Enables you to set the maximum temperature the system can reach
before powering down.
> The choice: Disabled, 601C/1 40'F, WC/1 49'F, 7WC/1 58'F.

System Component Characteristics
These fields provide you with information about the systems current operating status. You cannot make changes to these fields. The fields include
CPU Voltage Vcc + 5V IN
5V SBVIN
3.3V VIN
Vcc + 12V IN
Vcc - 12V IN
Voltage Battery
CPU Temperature
System Temperature
CPU FAN Speed
System FAN Speed

Maximum respect is due to Shuttle for what can only be described as a thoroughly impressive set of BIOS options. It's great to see that Shuttle's claims that the AV40 is jumperless are accurate with the only jumper on the board being the "Clear CMOS" jumper.

From over-temperature shutdown to CMOS battery voltage, Shuttle have covered pretty much all bases in one of the most fully featured set of options I've ever seen on a Pentium 4 board.

 

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