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Review: Asus CUSL2

by David Ross on 7 December 2000, 00:00

Tags: ASUSTeK (TPE:2357)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qacd

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Asus CUSL2

On with the Specs...

  • Chipset- Intel i815E

  • FSB Speeds- 66-200

  • Multipliers= Auto( should support high celly 2)

  • Dimm Slots = 3

  • PCI Slots = 6

  • ISA Slots = 0

  • AMR Slots = 0

  • CNR Slots = 2

  • AGP Slot = 4x/PRO

  • SB Link = Yes

What's in the box?

  • 1x Asus CUSL2 Mainboard

  • 1x UDMA 66/100 Cable

  • 1x UDMA 33 Cable

  • 1x Serial port lead

  • 1x 3 USB thing( erm sorry its a bit vague)

  • 1x user Manual

  • 2x Driver CDs ( one for Yamaha stuff, one for 815 stuff)

Official Specs ( the most interesting part of course :)

Processor Socket 370 for Intel® FCPGA Pentium® III 450MHz~933+MHz processors and Intel® PPGA CeleronTM 333~566+MHz.

Chipset

  • Intel® 82815 Graphics and AGP Memory Controller Hub (GMCH)

  • Intel® 82801BA Enhanced I/O Controller Hub 2 (ICH2)

  • Intel® 82802AB Firmware Hub (FWH)

  • Support 4x AGP, 4MB AIMM, PC133/PC100 SDRAM, UltraDMA/100 IDE Devices

Super I/O & USB Hub

  • ITE IT 8703F LPC Chip

  • AU9254 USB Hub

FSB

  • 66/100/133 MHz Front Side Bus

System Memory

  • 3x 168-pin DIMM supporting 8MB to 512MB 3.3V PC133/100 SDRAM

  • Maximum 512MB PC133/PC100 non-ECC SDRAM

Expansion Slots

  • 1 x 32-bit AGP Pro/AGP 4X slot

  • 6 x 32-bit PCI

  • 2x CNR (Communication and Networking Riser)

  • Supports AGP Pro Slot with Universal AGP Connector and additional Power Connectors to Support Highend 3D or Workstation Class Graphics Adapters

VGA

  • AGP Pro/4X/2X/1X Graphics Adapter Compatible

  • Integrated 4X AGP Graphics

IDE Ports

  • 2 x UltraDMA/100/66/33 Bus Master IDE Ports

  • Supports DVD-ROM, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, and LS-120 Drives

Special Features

  • Power Loss Restart

  • ASUS JumperFreeTM CPU Throttle

  • STR (Suspend to RAM)

  • SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection)

  • Vcore & VIO Adjustable

Back Panel I/O Ports

  • 2 x USB Ports

  • 1 x Serial Ports

  • 1 x Parallel Port (ECP, EPP Port)

  • 1 x PS/2 Keyboard Port, 1 x PS/2 Mouse Port

  • 1 x VGA Port

Onboard I/O Interface

  • ASUS® iPanel Connectors

  • 3 Headers to Support Optional 5 USB Ports

  • 24-pin ASUS® Panel

  • SIR/CIR

  • CPU/Power Supply/Chassis Fan

  • ATX Power

  • IDE LED

  • COM2

  • TV/Out/LCD Module Connectors

BIOS

  • Award® 4Mb BIOS with Full ACPI, SM BIOS 2.3, Green, PnP, Trend® ChipAway Virus (TCAV) & Symbios® SCSI BIOS

Industrial Standard

  • PCI 2.2, USB 1.1

Manageability

  • Wfm 2.0, DMI 2.0, WOL (Wake-on LAN), WOR (Wake-on Ring), Chassis Intrusion, SM Bus

Accessories

  • User's Manual

  • UltraDMA/66 Cable

  • IDE Cable

  • Floppy Cable

  • 3-Ports USB Bracket

Board Size

  • ATX Form Factor with Size : 20.8cm x 30.5cm (8.2" x 12")

Wh00p on to the review (hurrah finally there)

Before I start the review of the board, I will go through a bit about why i chose the i815e( the 'e' bit is important) over the other Via chipsets and intel chipsets. First of all Via. Before i even heard about the Solano, the Via 133A chipset was the only decent chipset around, however its performance was hardly exceptional. It suffered from many AGP problems, and appalling memory speeds. Second, was the new i820 chipset( well it was quite old by then) with its MTH issues and RAMBUS-only "features", and coupled with the extremely high price for Rambus RIMMs, I soon abandoned that idea. Enter the Solano and Solano2, now known as the i815 and i815E chipsets. After the huge farce with Rambus, Intel was producing an abundance of 133Mhz bus Pentium 3s, but nothing for the average user to run them on, apart from Via. Now the Solano and Solano2 was here Intel could hold their head high again.. or maybe not. The CUSL2 was one of the first i815E motherboards to hit the market. The major difference between the 815 and the 815E(apart from the price) is the inclusion of the ICH2 rather than the ICH. This allows for 2 more USB ports and more importantly UMDA100 support. The i815 chipset itself is based on Intel's brand new idea of its ICH(I/O controller hub), a Firmware Hub(FWH)( a 4Mbit place where firmware is stored) and the GMCH( the Graphics and memory controller hub), rather than the old North bridge, which comprised the AGP and system memory, and the South bridge, which constrained pretty much everything else. These two were connected through the PCI bus. This maximum speed this could manage was 133Mb/sec. This new architecture is called the Intel Hub architecture. Basically this new feature allows the GMCH and the ICH to "talk" to each other across a 266Mb/sec link, over the conventional 133Mb/sec PCI bus. The i815 chipset is also very highly integrated. It features on board graphics( based on the i810 graphics chip, which was OK for normal use, but TERRIBLE for games, however it can be slightly increased by the inclusion of a 4MB AIMM card into the AGP slot. AIMM= AGP In-Line Memory Module) and an on-board 6-channel sound. Also it comes with support for soft-modem/adsl/network as well. These may be accessed through the 2 CNR slots. These are the brand new version of the completely useless AMR slots, which no-one ever used( well i think). These allow for low-cost inclusion of network adapters or modems for example. There are two versions of the CUSL2.. the original and the CUSL-M, the only difference being the M variant includes the on-board audio. There is also a NEW flavor, the CUSL2-C. This uses the new 1815EP Chipset. This only difference between this and the standard E, is that this one has no on board graphics, forcing the price down a bit.

Oh in case your asking why the motherboard is called the CUSL2, is because first two letters CU, stand for Copper mine, and SL2 is for Solano2. Simple eh!

I'd never bought an Asus motherboard before, tending to stick to Abit and Soyo. after the pretty dismal reviews of the SE6( Abit's i815 solution) I decided to buy the board. When it arrived it came in a pretty crappy blue box, which hardly impressed me. Opening it up though, i was suitably impressed. The board came with huge amounts of things, far more than I ever hoped for. first up, the board itself is not actually that big, but it comfortably fits inside my generic midi-tower case. After I had some _major_ problems getting the computer running due to the COMPLETELY EVIL GORB. damn thing was broken. I didn't notice, comp was booting but kept beeping. Then I had a look in the BIOS. CPU Temp = 110 Degrees.. NOT GOOD! Still got the burn marks on it :( Anyhow when I finally got it all running fine, the first thing that comes up is the BIOS screen, asking me to choose which chip I had. It gave me the option of 650 or 866.. quite kind of it. Anyhow back to the review.. first time I booted up... everything went well. When windows booted up.. it installed A LOT of new drivers (ICH and the like). I had just bought the CPU ( from OcUK) and knew it would do 866 just fine. Great i thought. rebooted and everything was fine. But 866? In this day of 1.4Ghz P4s that’s just not cutting it. Next I tried 140Mhz FSB. 910Mhz at default voltage. Thought i should go higher. 145.. great.. 148.. great( only stable @ 1.75v though) 150.. had to increase voltage to 1.85v, but YES a FULL 50% OVERCLOCK! In fact the CPU could just about boot into windows at 1001Mhz , but sadly it crashed. Picking up an Articooler, and some Artic silver.. this WILL hit a Ghz! I have to say one thing about stability: its been completely top-notch. Only had a few crashes... mainly due to the Voodoo3 not over clocking high enough =).

This board is not entirely perfect, but nothing that cant really be fixed. A new BIOS comes out every week or so, adding new features, and increasing performance. The biggest flaw is the problems with Intel’s ATA drivers. If you install then, then for some bizarre reason the performance seems to go down. In order to fix this all you do is uninstall it , and reinstall it. Pretty simple, but still a bother. Also there is a small bug( which I will explain later) which makes the memory performance decrease after 140mhz Bus.

Benchmarks!

Memory Problems

Another major thing I admire about this motherboard is the huge community( mainly based at www.cusl2.com) which provide help with the board. After many complains about the decreasing performance, one user found a way to get around it. This involved using the program WPCREDIT. A program by H-oda, the author of WCPUID. This programs allows a user to directly configure registers on the motherboard. When he was looking he found that after 140Mhz, it enabled a few options in order to stabilize the computers, but slightly decrease the memory performance. By simply chancing these, the memory performance gets back to normal levels. Here is an example of my computers, taken at ,140Mhz FSB, and 145Mhz FSB, before the tweak.

Here are the pictures of 145Mhz tweaked, and my normal running speed of 148Mhz, when tweaked.( The highest speed where I can run 2-2-2 with my RAM). As you can see, quite a healthy performance increase! As you can see in the final image, its on par with the 200Mhz bus of the Athlon, and completely blitzes past the P3+RAMBUS!

Conclusion.

Pros

  • Fast

  • Stable ( I’ve seen these things hit 170+Mhz FSB and work fine)

  • UDMA100

  • 7 USB Ports

Cons

  • Cost

  • Integrated video is POOR!

  • Bizarre memory bug

  • Bizarre ATA Bug

Conclusion

In my opinion the good points far out weigh the bad ones. The board proved to be an excellent home for my P3, and with options such as UDMA100 and more USB ports than I have fans (ok well equal) this board looks as though it will be staying in my system for a *long* time.