Layout
Click for a larger image
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Starting as always at the top left before working our way across and down, the KV2's first major feature is the ATX12V auxiliary power connector, tucked right in at the corner of the board, with the CPU power circuitry between that and the socket. The socket sits high up on the board, compared to other Socket 939 designs, with the socket lying east-to-west.
Four DDR DIMM slots, coloured so that you can install two sticks of memory at a time in the correct way, starting with the pair of purple sockets nearest the CPU. After those, on the right hand side, sit the ATA ports from the VT8237 and the 20-pin ATX power connector.
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ECS cool the K8T800 Pro northbridge ASIC with a heatsink and fan combination. The fan itself isn't loud, but what does offend my senses is the triplet of flashing LEDs that are housed underneath the fan blades. While I don't mind the odd tasteful blue LED, I do mind red, green and blue flashing LEDs in the same small place. Of course, you might love them.
Marvell GigE chip, VT6103L Ethernet PHY, AGP8X port and VT8237 southbridge occupy the same slice of mainboard, all roughly level with each other. The AGP port also has a pair of LEDs just above the right-hand port edge. One lights up (yellow) in AGP4X mode, the other (blue) if you've got an AGP8X card in there.
The VT8237's SATA ports are to the right of the bridge that powers them, just before the CMOS battery on the board edge.
The PCI slots all have LEDs attached too. This time they're blue and they flash if there's no card in the slot, or they stay lit if there is. Don't run any PCI cards usually, happy with the features your mainboard provides? If that mainboard is the KV2, that's five flashing LEDs for the PCI slots, three flashing LEDs in the northbridge heatsink and fan assembly, each a different colour, and a further LED depending on what specification of AGP card you own. Nine LEDs, all lit up bright and usually flashing, in normal board operation. Horrid to my tastes, but you might be jumping up and down in a blue LED induced orgy of joy at the thought.
The SiS180 and VT6307 supporting ASICs, along with the ATA and SATA ports that the 180 drives, are the last main board features. The floppy port is tucked in next to the SiS180's ATA port on the bottom edge of the board. I hate it there, easpecially when the ideal place for it is occupied by a branding plate, but it could be worse.
Overall it's a fine layout with an aesthetic that makes me think of bad things, not good. You could desolder the LEDs if you were enterprising enough I guess, but mind that warranty.
