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The Motherboard
| Fujitsu-Siemens D1219A Specifications |
| Estimated Price |
$169 |
| Processors |
Intel Celeron 66 MHz FSB, Intel Pentium III with 100/133 MHz FSB, Read for VIA Cyrix III Processors with 100/133 MHz FSB |
| Chipset |
Intel 815E |
| Board Size |
ATX, 12" x 8", (304.8 x 203.3 mm) |
| BIOS |
Phoenix NuBIOS V4.06 modified and adapted by Fujitsu Siemens Computers
SM-BIOS (DMI), BIOS Update via disk
Quick Boot, Quiet Boot (Silent Screen), Logo Boot (Logo Flash)
Plug & Play, Automatic DRAM and PCI Configuration
Advanced Power Management
ACPI S4 (Save-to-Disk), ACPI S3 (Save-to-RAM) |
| System Memory |
3 unbuffered DIMM Sockets (3.3 V), 32-512 MB, 168 Pin, 133 MHz SDRAM (PC133), no ECC (up to 2 double sided or up to 3 single sided) |
| Graphics (VGA) |
2D/3D Graphics Controller, 64-bit, 230 MHz RAMDAC, Dynamic Video Memory Technology, upgradeable with AGP Graphics Card or Graphics Performance Accelerator (GPA), 4 MB/133 MHz, DCC 2B Support for Monitor Scan |
| On-Board Audio |
Analog Devices AD 1885
AC '97 Audio, HW 3D Stereo Enhancement
SW Soundblaser Emulation (Win98/Win2000) Support
SW Wavetable Synthesis Support |
| On-Board LAN |
Intel LAN Ethernet Controller 82562EM with 10/100 MBit/s, Basic Alert-on-LAN II, Wake-on-LAN (WoL) by Interesting Packets, Link Status Change and Magic Packet, InCom LAN Boot and Intel PXE Support |
| On-Board IDE |
2 IDE Interfaces, up to 4 IDE Drives, Ultra DMA/100, PIO Mode 4, Enhanced Bus Master |
| On-Board I/O |
1 AGP Slot(1/2/4x)
5 PCI Slots (32 Bit, 33 MHz, 5 V and 3.3 V)
1 Floppy Interface
1 CD Audio Input, 1 Aux Audio Input
1 PS/2 Keyboard, 1 PS/2 Mouse
1 LAN (Fast Ethernet 10/100 Mbit/s)
2 USB 1.1 External
2 USB 1.1 Internal
1 Serial Port External
1 Serial Port Internal
1 Parallel Port
1 VGA
1 Game/MIDI, 1 Line In, 1 Line Out, 1 Micro In |
| Special Features |
Support for Soft-Off Power Supplies
5 V and 3.3 V Supply Voltage on PCI Slots
3.3 V Auxiliary Supply Voltage on PCI Slots (Wake Up Function)
Multiple Boot via FDD (Standard, USB, LS120), HDD(IDE SCSI), CDD (IDE, SCSI), LAN
USB Wake Up from Save-to-RAM and Save-to-Disk (with 2 A aux-power PSU only) |
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Integrated Action
This motherboard is pretty much a 815E motherboard with all the trimmings, onboard video, LAN, audio, ATA/100 and system monitoring/thermal management. The video only has 4 MB so playing any sort of graphic intensive games aren't really practical. It does have an AGP 4x slot if you want to upgrade. The onboard sound is nothing special and sufficient for the listening to music, playing some games, and watching the occasional movie. No theatre surround sound here. The integrated LAN is a nice addition though. It's a 10/100 Intel LAN controller which is good if you're on a network. No need to waste a PCI slot on a NIC. Ordinarily I'm not a big fan of integrated components, but for the average consumer the included video and audio are adequate for their needs. All the components can be disabled if you choose to do so. $169 isn't that bad for what you get with this motherboard. Let's take a closer look at what it has to offer.
Fujitsu-Siemens prides themselves on their motherboard production process. This is evident in the D1219A's construction. According to them, their production processes are designed to be environmentally friendly and their motherboards also contain less carcinogens and other toxic substances that might eventually contaminate the environment. The tougher regulations in Europe ensure that this product meets environmental standards. They don't trade-off for quality and stability either, which from my experience has been true so far. As you can see from the above specifications, the motherboard is pretty feature filled. Just like the case, this motherboard has features vital to the Silent-PC package. The motherboard also has good EMI shielding that increases its reliability. The motherboard has a BIOS feature that enables you to set the performance of the CPU fan. You can choose from high performance which means louder or silent which can significantly reduce the noise in your case. The motherboard basically monitors the CPU temp and adjusts the fan speed accordingly. This results in the fan sometimes speeding up and slowing down. We'll see later on how much effect this has on cooling.
Other Features
In addition it also has a Recovery BIOS which allows you to recover your BIOS if an error occurs during the flash process. So you don't have to worry about errors when you flash your bios. It can be interrupted and still be restored to working order as many times as you want. With other motherboards, an interruption can mean a dead board. The mainboard also has a Boot Logo feature where you can add your own boot logo to the bios. System integrators can add their own logo to the system easily. In addition the motherboard has ACPI features and is IA-PC (Instantly Available PC) compliant. This means that the system state can be saved in different ways, to RAM or HD, and be restored quickly. So if you want to power down your system, you don't have to close all your programs or reboot. The motherboard also comes with various applications that can help in system management, which include DeskView and SystemGuard. DeskView allows the local or remote administration of any PC with a Fujitsu-Siemens mainboard. You can easily integrate this software on an enterprise level with other enterprise management software such as HP OpenView or CA Unicenter. So what can you do with DeskView? Well you can monitor certain components of a PC and set alarms etc. to warn of any problems that might occur. Not only can you monitor systems but also do remote booting to shutdown/restart a machine that has crashed or do a network OS installation. SystemGuard allows you to monitor the temperature, fan speed, and voltages on your mainboard. You can set the desired fan performance setting with this application also. It's pretty much like Motherboard Monitor where you can set alerts and check if your system is within specs etc.
>> Installation
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