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Soltek SL-85DR-C Motherboard Review

Author: Dennis Garcia

Published: Friday, March 29, 2002

Motherboard Features Cont.

Motherboard Features

For those of you upgrading to a P4 system it should be noted that the i845 chipset requires that only 4x AGP cards to be used. Soltek has helped us identify if this is a problem by including a small red LED. This LED will light up and the motherboard will refuse to start if a non-compliant video card is installed.

There are a total of 3 fan headers on this motherboard and all 3 are yellow, which means they can be RPM monitored from the bios or the included hardware monitoring software. The Northbridge also has one of the largest passive heatsinks that I've ever seen.

Soltek also included a dual power option for users of non ATX 2.03 or higher power supplies. Normally you would use the P4 specific 4-pin power connector to supply 12volt power directly to the processor. If this plug is absent you have the option of using a standard Molex plug though Soltek recommends against this if you have a processor is over 2.0GHz.