BIOS
Due to its dimensions and layout, this board is aimed squarely at those who want 200FSB operation at minimal cost. Let's delve into the BIOS.
Shuttle continue with the use of AMI BIOses. This one, however, is a little spartan compared to most. The above options present themselves under the sub-screen of Frequency / Voltage adjustment. As the screenshot illustrates, there is no voltage adjustment whatsoever. The CPU clock ratio is only adjustable due to the fact that our 3GHz / 200FSB Pentium 4 is semi-unlocked between 12x - 15x multipliers. Setting the async' AGP/PCI clock to enabled doesn't allow us to alter their respective speeds.
A maximum of 233FSB, via jumper-free BIOS, would have been considered relatively high a year ago, however a number of 200FSB boards have sky-high FSB limits; some approaching a rather unusable 500FSB. It's nice that we can key in the desired number, rather than having to cycle through each individual FSB.
The memory sub-screen is normal fare for most motherboards. Interestingly, running a native 200FSB P4 only allows us to choose either DDR400 or DDR500 memory options. Ensure that you have decent RAM beforehand. Four Corsair XMS3500 C2 and two Mushkin EMS PC3500 modules were tested. Only 3 of the modules could run at DDR-400 speeds with the timings shown above. This board seems to be hard on system RAM. Remember that there's no voltage adjustment here.
It's all jumper-free nowadays, and the various features can be toggled on/off here. There doesn't seem to be a method of toggling the on-board LAN off, not that would really need to.
Shuttle play the game safe by insisting that the user defines an automatic shutdown temperature. There's no method of toggling it off, as is the case with many boards. The moderate load of BIOS gave rise to decent voltages. Under-volting wasn't an issue in this case.
