X-bit labs

Foxconn E-bot Small Form-Factor System Review (page 8)

Category: Mobile

by Platon Scheblykin

[ 05/03/2005 | 10:37 PM ]

Mainboard Features

The developers of the E-bot didn’t bother much about the functionality of the mainboard – how else can you explain their using a Socket 478 platform and six-channel sound? Either the mainboard is part of the original E-bot concept or it was assembled from what was left in their storehouses. Or probably both explanations are correct.

The mainboard is based on the SiS 661FX chipset with the integrated graphics core Real256E. The combination of the 661 (North Bridge) and 963 (South Bridge) chips employed here is rather rare: the 661 is usually accompanied with the more advanced 964 South Bridge. The Bridges are joined with the exclusive MuTOIL bus (16 bits, 1GB/s bandwidth). The memory controller integrated into the North Bridge is single-channel. The mainboard carries two memory slots you can plug modules of DDR400/333/266 SDRAM into. The AGP 4x/8x controller of the 661FX chip supports only 1.5V graphics cards. The integrated graphics core is accelerated by means of Ultra-AGPII technology which, quoting SiS, helps the core communicate with the memory at the speed of the memory, i.e. at 3.2GB/s (if DDR400 SDRAM is installed). The maximum clock rate of the Real256E is 200MHz, and this graphics core doesn’t support pixel shaders at all. The mainboard also offers the following slots and connectors, supported by the South Bridge:

• One PCI slot;
• Four USB 2.0 ports;
• Two FireWire ports;
• One IDE channel for two devices.

The USB and FireWire ports are located on the front and rear panels of the system case – none of them is left as a header on the mainboard’s PCB. The rest of the 661FXSA’s functions are courtesy of external controllers. Realtek’s RTL8201BL chip supports Fast Ethernet (10/100Mbps):

Realtek’s six-channel AC’97 ALC658 codec is responsible for the audio capabilities of the E-bot.

We checked up the quality of the audio section with RightMark AudioAnalyzer and got the following results:

Besides the chipset, there’s another multi-purpose chip on the mainboard. It is an I/O controller IT8705F from ITE. This controller is responsible for hardware monitoring and for the card-reader. The rest of its capabilities are not employed by the 661FXSA mainboard. Well, the monitoring options of the chip aren’t fully used, either.

Lastly, there’s an OZ263T controller on board. This chip from O₂MICRO uses the control program written into the flash memory and makes it possible to listen to audio CDs and MP3 files without booting Windows.

The CPU voltage regulation module is three-channel and uses capacitors from Ost.