5 New SocketA Boards With UltraATA/100

MSI K7T Pro2-A

BIOS-Version:

Board-Revision: n/a

The K7T Pro2-A allows the adjustment of the system bus in 1 MHz steps. However, the options for this in the BIOS are not very user-friendly. Furthermore, you can change the multiplier between 5.5X and 12.5X. There is one tiny shortcoming. Due to space restrictions you have to close the DIMM sockets 1 and 2 to install your VGA card. Installing more memory can become a though challenge too. The voltage of the DIMMs can be adjusted between 3.3 to 3.6 V. The new 686B-Southbridge integrated on the K7T Pro2-A makes an additional UltraATA/100 controller unnecessary.

Finding boot-up errors is an easy task thanks to four diagnostic LEDs. A detailed list of the different signals during booting or in case of an error can be found in the well-structured manual. Six PCI slots give you a lot of upgrade space, which is one reason more why the K7T Pro2-A belongs to the preferred motherboards.

Finally there is one thing left to say: There is already a BIOS update on the MSI website. Version 2.01 (12/2000) contains write protection for Windows 95, new algorithms for DRAM SPD timing and it solves problems with energy saving under MS-DOS. The L2 cache size will now be recognized correctly as well.