Socket A Is Coming: Test of 10 Boards

Chaintech 7AJA

BIOS-Version: August 2, 2000

Board Revision: S102

While we were looking for a more current BIOS once again, we discovered information on Chaintech's Website stating that the board is available with the VIA Southbridge 686B and UltraATA/100. This was not the case with our test sample. It works with the 686A - just like all other candidates.

Chaintech equips the 7AJA with two ROM chips. If the main BIOS is corrupted by a virus or an unfinished update procedure, the board can boot from the backup BIOS. This is a very effective way to guarantee that the system will always work.

The sound system is based on the PCI chip CMI8738 from C-Media that supports AC3 instead of simple codecs. The board has a digital input and output (SPDIF), and offers one internal audio input - a second input would be nice.

The menu option "Frequency/Voltage Control" in the BIOS is for overclocking. Unfortunately it only lets the user change the clock frequency but not the voltage supply of the CPU.