FIC AN11 Stealth Socket A Motherboard (KT266A) review

Posted by Toby Crundwell on February 14, 2002
Company: FIC     Product: AN11 Stealth KT266A motherboard

Check AN11 Stealth prices OR motherboard prices list.

Integrated Sound

I was a bit confused by what the onboard audio actually consisted of. The technical specification sheet I was given stated the chip was the Realtek ALC201A, AC97 codec, yet the website listed the audio as part of the KT266a system, VIA8233. Furthermore, the BIOS & drivers list the Device as VIA 3058. I emailed FIC asking for clarification on this matter but got no reply. In any case, the offering would seem to be just utilising the onboard sound features of the Via KT266a. This is quite unlike the C-Media chips I've been used to seeing on KT266a boards, and in my opinion not as good. FIC have only included one output Jack, limiting the board to stereo, even if a better standard was supported. Although the sound quality really isn't too bad, it is still not capable of any kind of "real" surround-sound (virtual surround is NOT applicable). As such I would not really recommend using the onboard audio if you have anything resembling decent speakers.

Technical Specifications

• AMD Athlon/Duron 600 ~ 1.4GHz @ 100/133MHz DDR FSB

• AMD Athlon XP 1500+ ~ 2000+ @ 133MHz DDR FSB

• VIA KT266A & 8233 chipset

• 3 DDR DIMM; up to 3GB PC2100 DDR SDRAM
  Integrated audio in the VIA 8233 (Audio could be disabled via BIOS)

• 2 serial ports, 1 parallel port, 1 PS/2 mouse and keyboard connector, 2 USB conectors + 1 USB front pin-header supports 2 devices, 1 media connector (Line-in, Line-out, Mic-in, Game port)

• Ultra DMA 33/66/100

• Optional Promise RAID 0,1 support or dual Ultra DMA 100

• 1 AGP (4X), 5 PCI, 1 ACR

• ACPI 1.0B, APM 1.2, PnP 1.0a, SMBIOS 2.3, DMI 2.0 , WfM 2.0 , Smart for HDD, USB 1.1, PC99, PCI 2.2,Y2K compliant BIOS

• Size: 9.8" x 12"

• ACPI ready (STD)

• CPU Voltage and Multiplier switches

• Hardware Monitoring: Temperature/ Voltage/ System fan control monitoring

• Hardware based intelligent anti-virus protection Auto Power Failure Recovery

• WOL / WOR

• Keyboard/Mouse wake up

• Novus

Package Contents

• 1 manual

• 1 CD-PRO (driver CD)

• 1 CD-Plus (feature CD)

• 1 ATA100 Cable, 1 ATA33 IDE Cable and 1 FDD Cable

Select FIC AN11 Stealth mobo impressions Integrated Sound & Tech Specs DDR RAM, Processor Support and NOVUS Performance & Benchmarking Conclusion, Pros & Cons

Go to next page !