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Posted by
Toby
Crundwell on February 14, 2002
Company: FIC
Product: AN11
Stealth KT266A motherboard
Check
AN11
Stealth prices OR motherboard
prices list.
Motherboards giant, FIC has released
their latest AMD motherboard based on the VIA KT266a chipset,
which has been seeing a lot of action recently. The KT266a
offers support for all current Socket A processors, and
additionally PC1600 or PC2100 DDR RAM, as well as all the
now orthodox standards like ATA100 and AGP 4x. However,
motherboards based on this chipset are not particularly
similar, and some can be a lot more stable than others (in
fact two out of the three previous KT266a motherboards sent
to me have been rather inadequate). The AN11, like many
others, features optional inbuilt IDE-RAID controller and/or
integrated sound, amongst other features. The review board
was fitted with only the integrated sound.
The AN11 package is a little sparse on
features. Apart from the expected manual, drivers CD, IDE
and floppy cables the AN11 didn't come with much. The retail
CD-Pro version was 5.1, but FIC were good enough to include
a CDR of version 5.2 (which will be shipping with the board
when it comes out). An extra CD, CD-Plus, includes Norton
AntiVirus 2001, Norton Personal Firewall 2001, Norton Ghost,
VCOM autosave and Intervideo WinDVD amongst other useful
utilities, more than is found on most motherboards.
Interestingly, the CD-Plus is very similar to the
"8-in-1" CD found on Soyo motherboards. I would
imagine FIC and Soyo have both done a deal to supply these
CDs as OEM inclusions to their products.
There isn't really anything especially
distinguishing about the motherboard itself. Like the Soyo
Dragon Plus I reviewed not so long ago, the AN11
features a dark brown/black PCB. If you are into stylish
components, this is certainly one of them. The five PCI
slots are the orthodox white, not that you'd be able to see
it when cards are installed. Away from vanities, and
interestingly FIC have chosen not to include CNR nor ISA
slots. This shouldn't matter though, as such slots really do
go unused most of the time, and PCI alternatives are usually
a much more favorable alternative. However, they did include
an ACR slot, disguising itself as the top PCI slot, but you
can't fit PCI cards into it. Other board manufacturers mark
it out in other colours, blue is usually the norm, but the
only thing that sets it out in this example is the way it is
offset with the other PCI slots. I'd never actually come
across ACR until now, although it seems to me to just be a
more comprehensive offering than CNR, as it can cover
Ethernet, Home PNA, Audio and modem functions all in one
ultra CPU intensive riser card. A full article on ACR, its
history and its usefulness can be found here.
The AGP slot is not Pro, a slight
disappointment given the generally high specifications of
the board, but in common with the lack of both ISA and CNR
this shouldn't be a concern. I generally prefer Pro because
of the way it holds in larger cards, and although the AGP
2.0 slot had no retention mechanism (as employed on the
Shuttle AK35GT-R), I did not encounter any problems due to
this, even with my large OCZ
Titan 2 Ultra. The Northbridge part of the KT266a was
not fitted with a fan as is common on other boards. Although
not necessary, it certainly wouldn't do any harm for FSB
overclockers.
Layout is generally sensible. The UDMA
and floppy ports are near to where the 3.5 inch drive bays
are usually located. The RAID IDE ports (where available)
are located right down the bottom of the board. This would
cause a rather untidy wiring if just one of the hard disks
to be used with them would be located higher up in the case.
The three DDR-DIMM slots are located in the now customary
position vertically above the AGP slot. The position is cut
fine, and the teeth rest on the AGP card when open, but
memory can still (just) be inserted or removed without the
need to remove the AGP card first. The CPU socket is again
customarily centrally placed at the top of the board. The
connector to attach the extra backing plate with two USB
ports is placed well away from the PCI slots. Nearly all
other motherboards I've had have had this connector
in-between slots, meaning I have to remove PCI slots before
I can add the cable. The two main bugbears with the layout
are both in respect to the Heatsink. The ATX power connector
which is vertically above the AGP slot, which causes the
power loom to drag over the Heatsink. I was able to pull my
(long) loom around the side of the heatsink I was using (a
FOP 32), but this position could easily cause problems to
some users that have a higher placed PSU, or a shorter loom.
Also, one side of the socket is completely covered with
capacitors, making installing a heatsink an unnecessarily
hard affair. Usually you would attach the short clip of the
heatsink and then lever in the other clip. This was not
possible on the AN11 as there is not enough space to lever
in the main clip. I had to do it, with great difficulty, in
reverse order, using the minor clip to secure the heatsink.
I could have easily slipped and done some damage at any
time. If a large heatsink is to be used, forget it with this
motherboard.
The dipswitches and jumpers are rather
badly placed, but these are rarely used, if at all, and the
board can easily be run jumper-free from the BIOS setup
program anyway. On the plus side, the board comes with a
connector for an optional Bluetooth antenna, or whatever
will be used when Bluetooth connectors are available. This
connector is located by the ACR slot, although surprisingly
the manual makes absolutely no reference to this. Speaking
of which, the on the whole comprehensive manual has brief
sections in German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese and
simplified Chinese as well as an extended English section.
The board isn't particularly diminutive,
and it took a bit of a struggle to get the board fitted into
my awkwardly small case, but it still took no longer than
five minutes. Other than the aforementioned points of
conflict, installing peripherals went without issue. The boot up
beep came as a surprise to me, as I do not use a PC Speaker.
The AN11 comes with an built one though. The system went
through POST first time, and after adjusting some BIOS
settings I could boot straight into Windows, which installed
all necessary drivers straight away. The AN11 is definitely
one of the easiest boards I've set up.
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