I basically had all the parts at home to build a micro ATX system with an Athlon XP 3200; I just needed a case. This was a spare parts system, so the budget was next to nothing. Checking with my distributor netted me the Asus TM-231 Micro Tower for a whopping $43 Canadian.

Here are the specs:

Dimension w/Bezel (W x H x D)
170 x 355 x 385 mm

Case Size
MicroATX Mini Tower, Flex ATX

Chassis Material
0.6mm SECC

MB Form Factor
Standard MicroATX

Drive Bays
5.25″ Ext Bay x 2
3.5″ Ext Bay x 2
3.5″ Int Bay x 3

System Fan (mm) Support
Front: 80 x 1
Rear: 92 x 1 or 80 x1

Expansion Slots
PCI Expansion Slot x 3
AGP Slot x 1

Weight w/Power Supply
N.W. 6 kg
G.W. 7 kg

Color Options (Front/Band/Side)
TM-230 White/White/White
TM-231 Black/Black/Black
TM-236 Silver/Silver/Black

Power Supply Options
PS2 250/300/350/360W

Front I/O Options
1) W/O front I/O
2) W/ USB x 2 + Audio x 2
3) W/ USB x 4 + Audio x 2 + 1394 x1

It doesn’t look too bad spec wise; the configuration I received was with the 300 watt power supply and front USB and audio connections. Let’s take a look from the outside in.

The front bezel is a hard plastic with a rippled surface, and seems quite sturdy. Sides are black 0.6 mm steel and are both removable. On the front we have two 5.25” drive slots and one available 3.5” drive slot, plus a molded floppy slot. The slot covers are removed by taking off the front bezel and pushing tabs on either side. One button on the front for power that illuminates when on, plus a hard drive activity light and one more for whatever you’d like. Two USB ports and a line out and microphone port finish off the front.

Sides are very straightforward, with each held in place by two normal screws. Three quarters up each side is a hand hold to swing the door off once unscrewed.

Moving to the rear we see a standard microATX configuration with an 80 mm cooling fan. The expansion slot covers are the “Snap” variety. The Enhance 300 watt power supply is generic and quite loud in operation. Of course this is a budget unit and as such we can’t expect whisper quiet operation. No ATX port cover was included, but since every motherboard now includes their own this wasn’t a loss.

The interior is clean and simple. Drives run along the right in a column, with space at the bottom for an air intake fan. The problem is the front bezel doesn’t allow for any air to come in, so it’s a no go and really designed for other models in the TM-200 series. Standard motherboard brass mounts with proper mounting holes. One really nice feature is the cables for the front panel: both the audio and USB are in the standard block formations and individual pins if your motherboard is out of character. A really nice feature that should be in all chassis shipped.

The Asus TM-231 is a nice, simple budget case with an included 300 watt power supply and rear fan. Lots here for the price, but maximum airflow and minimum noise took a back seat on this ride.

This piece should be prefaced with the comment that this is a commentary on user experience with the Asus A7M266-D motherboard, not a full blown review.

I’ve always been a fan of dual CPU designs: the prospect of all that extra power just captivated me. Being a fan of AMD as well the Athlon MP line was too good to pass up. The draw of dual AMD CPUs and 64 bit 66 MHz PCI was strong: the focus of the site was moving to ATA RAID controllers and those PCI slots were needed for definitve benchmarking.  Initial MP chipsets were expensive and required unique power supplies, but with the release of the 760 MPX chipset dual Athlons were ready for prime time. Or so it seemed.

Right after the release of the MPX chipset it was discovered there were problems with the USB 1.1 implementation, causing hangs when they were used. Most companies already had the motherboards finished, so a stop-gap measure was put in place: motherboards came with a USB 2.0 PCI card. Checking online specs and reviews I decided on the Tyan Tiger MPX, which was out of stock in Southern Ontario for over two months. This let to option b: the Asus A7M266-D.

More specifically I ordered the A7M266-DL model, which included 10/100 ethernet as well. Imagine my surprise when it arrived and the ethernet came in the form of a small PCI adapter. Now I had five PCI slots, two being occupied with USB and LAN, both of which should have been onboard. Not a huge deal, but annoying none the less.

This is a dual CPU workstation board, and as such has onboard six channel audio via a C-Media chip. Since I’ve used this board as the basis for a server, the audio hasn’t received much of a workout; just system sounds.

With four DIMM slots there’s a lot of headroom for RAM. If you’re using standard DDR RAM, only the first two slots can be utilized. If using registered DDR RAM all four slots can be filled, which is what I did with four PC2700 ECC Registered 512 MB DIMMs. For some reason, no matter what type of ECC Registered DIMMs I used the BIOS always showed registered non-ECC RAM. Switching brands and slots made no difference. My other machines recognized the RAM as ECC, but this board wouldn’t.

For a workstation or server board, Asus should know it needs to have at least three fan headers plus one for each CPU. Modern powere supplies have one fan connection, plus one for the rear of the case and one for the front. The board has two plus two for the CPUs, leaving the front fan covering hard drives unmonitored.

The Asus A7M266-D holds up very well under heavy loads. I’ve used it for days on end running benchmarks and have never experienced a hiccup, blue screen or lockup. The Athlon MP is fading into the sunset with the release and push of the Opteron, but still a great contender for a low cost dual CPU system. Asus has removed mention from it’s site, except for specific searches of the model number. The last BIOS update was March 18th 2003, so don’t expect any more updates.

Editors note: this review was migrated from the old eBabble.net site and the photos updated. Originally published February 25th 2004.

Installation was straight forward, as everything is well positioned on the board and the manual gave all the pertinent details.  For it’s initial home I installed it into an Antec Atlas case, using every onboard function I could and only adding RAM, hard drive, DVD-ROM and PCE-E video.  Performance was good; pretty well matching my Nforce4 motherboard with the same CPU and RAM.  Life was good, except the system saw no usage and I needed the case elsewhere so out everything came and sat around.

The opportunity arose to sell a system so this motherboard went into a new system built inside an Antec SLK3700BQE case: one of my all time favourites and the last I had hanging around the shop.  The build was smooth without a hiccup.  Loaded Windows XP, drivers and updates and still no issues.  I passed the system along to the new buyer.

The system came back: no sound.  Checked the drivers and software setup: Windows XP believed the sound was working as advertised.  I compared the two systems: the Atlas had front audio and the SLK3700BQE didn’t.  Pouring over the manual gave no indication of fault, but that had to be the issue.  I checked for default jumper configuration for the front audio connector but there was no mention.   In the PDF of the manual (since the print copy was with the owner) I zoomed into the front panel audio connector and noticed some pins darker than the others: I took this to represent jumpers, so I put two on as the manual ever so slightly illustrated.  Bang on, audio was working.

Motherboards are a difficult item to review, for good reason. After listing the features from the manufacturer’s web site, what do you discuss? Installation is pretty well the same for all boards, depending on form factor. Benchmarks are difficult unless you have a lot of different boards to test. This is best left to dedicated motherboard sites like Anandtech, which does and excellent job and covers most of the boards on the market. What’s left are the idiosyncrasies and odd bits that make an impression. That’s what we’ll review at eBabble.

I picked up the Asus A7Pro because it didn’t have RAID built in. I’ve been steadily impressed with the price / performance ratio of AMD processors and own a few. I wanted a quality motherboard to use for my home system, but didn’t need RAID and didn’t want to pay the extra for something I wasn’t going to use. I wanted a full size ATX board for the five PCI slots, so that left out the bargain micro ATX boards. At the end I had two choices: the Asus A7Pro and the Gigabyte GA7XZ. I ended up buying both, but we’re strictly on the A7Pro here and now. At the time good Intel boards were using the 815E chipset and getting ATA100 support, but Via was using the 686A South Bridge that only provided ATA66. Tests have shown minimal to no improvement between ATA66 and ATA100, so I wasn’t worried.

Upon opening the package I saw the usual: ATX motherboard, installation CD, a floppy cable, one 80 wire 40 pin IDE cable, one standard IDE cable, and a user manual. One addition caught my eye; an Asus sticker in the same vein as “Intel Inside”, with the Asus logo and a Pegasus. The front of your case can get pretty cluttered; stickers for processor, motherboard, case and who knows what else.

Installation was straight forward and painless. Layout is pretty good, with my only problem arising from the odd placement of the fan connectors. Normally case fans would be at the lower front and the rear middle; Asus has put two at the top front. The board has an auto fan off feature when the system goes into sleep or hibernation mode that I liked the “sound” of ( ouch ), since I leave my system on all the time. Unfortunately the placement left me using case fans with Molex connectors instead.

My other beef with Asus’ line of socket A motherboards is the lack of support for the iPanel. Basically it’s a small box that fits into a 5.25” bay and shows current temperatures and voltages on an LED screen, plus motherboard status via lights. All the socket 370 board support it, as do the newest DDR socket A boards; what’s left out are the boards I have.

Yet a third odd happening; the BIOS said the board was an A7V, not an A7Pro. I scoured the Asus web site but couldn’t find an update; going to the Taiwan site rewarded me with a version 1.04 BIOS update. I flashed the board and upon boot showed it was an A7Pro. Looking at the board, you can see it’s an A7V with a few features missing, like the Promise ATA100 IDE connectors.

Some interesting tools included on the CD, including a temperature monitor, internet BIOS updater and software DVD player. I’ve used Asus Probe to monitor motherboard temperature and fan status for some time, and it gets the job done. I have yet to get the BIOS updater to work; it always says “can’t find ftp.asus.com.tw” or close to that. The DVD player looks good, but I’ve got a full surround sound system in the living room and don’t watch movies on my PC.

After running the board for the past two months, I’d have to say it’s very stable. No problems or odd behavior; just trudging away. In the end, isn’t that the best recommendation?

Editors note: this review was migrated from the old eBabble.net site and the photos updated. Originally published April 19th 2001.