Layout & Features II
Here we see the ATX back panel connectors. From left to right we have 2 PS/2 ports, 4 USB 2.0 ports, 2 firewire, an optical out, the audio jacks and finally an RJ-45 100/10 LAN with 2 USB2.0 ports underneath. It would have been nice if the LAN port was of the Gigabit variety thats found on some of the other KT400 boards out there.
Finally we get to the mysterious black box:
This little gadget is an IDE serial ATA to parallel ATA converter, which ABIT have named the Serillel™ - for obvious reasons. At present there are almost no drives available that support the new Serial ATA format, making the serial ATA connectors on motherboards a bit of a 'future use only' option. However with this little converter box you can connect up your old drives to the new serial ATA cables, although the only benefit you will have over using your normal parallel IDE channels is that the cable is neater and much thinner - ideal for better case air flow and for aesthetic purposes. You will not gain the extra speed that Serial ATA offers, as at the end of the day you are still limited by the UDMA133 protocol of your hard drive.
During my first tests Ii found that I couldn't get the drive to be detected via the converter. I later found out that i must have the drive jumper set to master/slave rather than the default Cable Select (CS) option.
