Dip switches and jumpers

In essence, the K7V is a jumperless board, that is, it can be completely configured through the BIOS as long as the jumpers and switches are left in the default position. On the other hand, there are situations where it is preferable to hard-set certain values and the K7V offers plenty of possibilities for that. Even though it is trivial to mention it, the JEN jumper must be set to jumper-free in order to access the settings in the BIOS.

To start, auxiliary power for PCI cards can be enabled by jumper 3VSBSLT above the CMOS battery in the upper right corner of the PCB. Further voltage settings comprise the V I/O (e.g. DIMMs) that can be set to 3.3V, 3.4V (default) and 3.56V. Higher V I/O sometimes stabilizes the memory performance, particularly in overclocking situations but bears the inherent risk of damaging the DIMMs.

The external CPU frequency can be selected via the DSW dip switch block. Documented in the manual are only the settings for 100, 103, 105 and 110 MHz. Interestingly, the default is set to 105 MHz. Along these lines, the V re can be set in 0.1V increments whereby each setting contains two voltages that are then generated according to the CPU. In other words, selecting 1.6V will either give 1.6 or 1.65 V depending on the CPU. Interesting but in this case I really prefer the soft setting in the BIOS. The built in audio codec can be disabled via a jumper block.

To conclude, there are several jumpers available, however, except for the V I/O selection, the BIOS offers the equivalent options and it is much easier doing it from there.

Other connectors

The K7V sports four fan connectors, two of which are on the inner side of the DIMM slots (CPU and F fan). The power supply fan hook-up is straight above the ATX power connector and whoever looks for the case fan connector at its usual position in the lower right corner will have to re-think since that one is between the floppy connector and the CMOS battery in the upper quarter of the PCB.

Because of the presence of the onboard audio, the necessary headers for CD, AUX and Video input are draped along the left edge of the PCB, further audio-related headers include microphone-in and headphones-out. The audio part of the AMR (if present) can be disabled by a separate jumper. To top all of this, the K7V has a SPDIFIOUT which stands for digital audio interface connector using Sony/Philips Digital Interface format.

Rather unique is the USB situation in that the K7V offers 2 USB ports integrated in the ATX I/O block. These ports are supplemented by 2 USB headers and the (bundled) USB back panel bracket. If that isn’t enough yet, there is a third USB header that can be used to connect a front panel USB port. Wake-on-LAN, Wake-on-Ring, infrared connectors are standard. In addition the classical ASUS case intrusion connector can be used to log opening of the case.

As mentioned already, ASUS did not rely on the 686A South Bridge for hardware monitoring and has added their own ASIC hardware monitoring chip to the K7V. The ASIC receives information mainly from the two sensor connectors for the ASUS P2T thermal probes included as an optional feature in the shipping box, however, not present in the version we received.

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