2. Setting up the system

The F845S is an ATX style motherboard but it's actually fairly slim compared to other ATX boards out there. It comes with 1 CNR slot, 1 AGP slot, and 5 PCI slots. AGP support is for 4X speeds. There are 3 slots for SDRAM bringing total support to 3GB of PC133 SDRAM. If this board was targeting a cheap server environment, it would have been nice if the total system memory supported was 4GB.

The PCI Slots	Ports
Chipset and Socket 478	Another view of the ports

2.1 Manuals

The manuals are decent though they do not provide enough information to those who are setting up a machine for the first time. Notably absent are diagrams of how to insert the processor into the board as well as how to insert the other components onto the motherboard. Though the manuals show all the major components and what they support, a good manual will walk you through how to install everything. It does spend a lot of time going over the details of the BIOS which is great for anyone who may not understand the terminologies within a modern BIOS.

2.2 System Components Used

For this review, I had a 1.8 GHz Celeron processor which is essentially a Pentium 4 with only 128 K of L2 Cache. Hence - this is yet another reason I'm staying away from intensive benchmarks. Aside from the Celeron, I've added:
- 1 - 256 MB PC133 SDRAM from Crucial Technologies
- 1 - 40 GB Western Digital 7200 HD
- 1 - Liteon CDRW drive
- 1 - NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 AGP Video Card

2.3 Assembly

Setting up this system was a pure breeze. It should be noted that the pictures you will see here are with the system set up external of a case. The first step was to install the Celeron processor. As with all previous setups, we used some Artic Silver III thermal grease on the Celeron processor and on the underside of the stock Intel heatsink. For those unfamiliar with Thermal Grease - it is essentially a substance used to promote better heat conduction between two objects. In this case, it is between the hot Pentium 4/ Celeron Processor and the heatsink. Why use it? The heatsink surface and the processor surface may not be entirely flat. In fact, the two surfaces when placed on top of one another may not actually be touching each other completely allowing for gaps between the processor and heatsink. Thermal grease is used to seal these gaps thus allowing for a smoother transfer of heat from the processor up to the heatsink.

The Celeron was then inserted into the 478 pin socket. The Intel heatsink/fan was then applied on top of the processor using the heatsink retention clamp mechanism. Those who install socket 370 processors or Socket A processors will love this mechanism since installing a heatsink is such a breeze.

Celeron 1.8GHz Processor	Celeron inserted
Heatsink/Fan on top	Another angle

Once the processor was installed, I installed one stick of 256 MB of PC133 SDRAM from Crucial Technologies. I then attached the Hard Drive and CDROM drive to the IDE channels of the board. The GeForce 4 MX 440 video card was then inserted into the AGP port.

Make sure to have a Pentium 4 capable power supply with you. This board not only has the ATX power supply connector (20 pin) but it also has the +12V 4 pin Pentium 4 connector. A number of the newer boards out there today do not need this 4 pin connector but make sure you have a P/S that has this connector anyhow.

Having installed all the major components, I connected my old 15 inch monitor and started up the board. I was happy to see that everything started up on the first try. The machine POST and I easily got into the BIOS settings to configure the F845S. Here are the BIOS screen shots for those interested:

Everything assembled

POST on the first try

Main Menu	Standard CMOS Features	Advanced BIOS Features
Advanced Chipset Features	Integrated Peripherals	Power Mgmt
PnP/PCI Configurations	PC Health	Frequency/Voltage

2.4 Configuration

I know the first questions that most people will ask me is: how are the overclocking abilities of this board? I'm sorry to say that there are none really. You can not change the processors FSB nor fool around with the multiplier since it's locked. With that said, there really wasn't a whole lot to change within the BIOS. I left the SDRAM settings to auto and proceeded to install Windows XP Professional. XP installed flawlessly and all the on board devices were immediately detected. The onboard AC 97 audio worked fairly well but if your needs demand a better performing audio solution then I would install a PCI sound card. One device that is lacking on this board is the absence of a network interface card.

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