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LOSTCIRCUITS		SHORTCUTS: Top Page Dual Channel vs. TwinBank Behind the Errata ASUS P4G8X Features Layout, VRM Connectors etc. BIOS Setup / Sandra Expendable, Winstones 3Dmark, Comanche4, UT2003 ViewPerf Conclusions Any Comments? Find the P4G8X online
ASUS P4G8X Deluxe The Black Obelisk
(Review by MS, December 15, 2002)

Connectors

The backpanel does not feature anything unusual, we have the standard ATX I/O connnector block with two blocks of two USB 2.0 connectors and the RJ45 network jack on top of the lower USB block. Two serial ports and one parallel/printer port are for legacy applications, especially the parallel port is important in the workstation / professional environment where proprietary software still needs to be enabled via hardware encryption, a.k.a. dongle.

Four USB ports integrated into the back panel leave only two more ports in what is supported by the chipset.

Three fan headers designated for power supply, CPU and chassis each have different purpose and configuration in that the PWR Fan can be triggered via a thermistor connected to the TRPWR header above the power connectors and the chassis fan header. This is something to watch out for because it can easily lead to a mix up, the actual power supply fan header is towards the lower edge of the PCB, directly below the ASUS ASIC used for arbitration of IRQs and hardware monitoring.

Otherwise, of course, there are the additional USB 5-6 header, infrared, analog audio-in as well as the header to connect the S/PDIF digital sound interface. Workstation boards almost by definition feature chassis-intrusion alert and the SMBus interface for remote system monitoring.

IEEE 1394 Firewire and SATA

The red 10 pin headers for IEEE 1394 are interfaced with the system bus via the Texas Instruments TSB43AB22 Open Host Controller Interface PHY/link-layer controller chip. We mentioned the 10 pin header earlier since they need the 10-to-6 pin converter cables. SATA interfacing is provided for by the Silicon Image controller. A small but interesting tidbit is the reverse orientation of the SATA connectors on the board, one of which is facing up, the other one facing down, which makes trace-routing to the connectors easier.

Jumpers

We already mentioned the WPCI_USB jumper used for reconfiguration of USB and the BLueMagic PCI slot for wireless operation, additional jumpers are for the reconfiguration the analog audio from the back panel towards the FP_audio (as in Front Panel) header to be used with any appropriate front panel.

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