ABIT KV7 - ABIT KV7

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KV7

 

 

 

Layout

I thought I was going blind. Yup, that's what I thought when I pulled the KV7 from its anti-static bag. Something just didn't look right about the board. And then it hit me, this motherboard sure looks short. Not short like a micro-ATX board but short as in some PCB real estate was missing. I had never dealt with the ABIT KT400 boards, so it was off to ABIT's website to do some digging and "lo and behold," I find that the KV7 is just a KD7A with an improved chipset. Take a look at the pics below. They tell the story. Now a lot of you are probably saying "big deal, 2 lousy inches". But if you ask some women, you'll find out differently. And in this case, those two inches play a lot into how this motherboard is laid out.

 

(The KV7)

 

(The KD7A)

 

(The KV7 compared to an FIC AU13 Chameleon full ATX mobo)

 

(You can really notice the difference the missing 2 inches makes)

 

(here you have it, 7 and 1/2 inches)

 

The reason I made such a big fuss about the size of the motherboard is because component placement could give some "plump-fingered" folks real problems during assembly or maintenance.

 

 

Now let's take a quick jaunt around the motherboard to point out component placement and some issues I have with the layout.

 

Above you see the front view of the motherboard with two IDE connectors placed horizontally along the front edge. The back view shows the I/O ports cluster, the front panel audio jumpers, the BIOS chip and the Winbond hardware monitoring chip. If you look at the rear panel I/O ports you will notice that is no video out, only one serial port, and no onboard IEEE-1394 port. On the upside, you get four USB v2.0 ports, the 6 channel audio port cluster and the standard PS2 mouse and keyboard connectors. If you look closely at the main ATX power connector you will notice that one of the system fan headers and the Northbridge fan header are placed right up against the 20 pin power connector. This could cause some difficulty in the removal or installation of the fan connectors once the main power connector is in place. Next you see the 4 pin 12V connector. you see that it is placed within a grouping of two capacitors, a coil and a jumper. This is another very tight placement that is not friendly to fat fingered consumers. The CPU socket is well placed and has lost of room around it for normal sized HSF's and waterblocks as you notice the four motherboard mounting holes on the periphery of the socket. Also notice the small silver strip along the edge of the socket to protect the motherboard from the errant slip of a tool while installing a heatsink. next you see the highly touted VIA VT-8237 Southbridge chip with the two front panel USB v2.0 headers and the two serial ATA connectors located close by. Next is the Phoenix Bios chip and the Winbond Hardware Monitoring chip. Lastly you see the CMOS battery located behind the second IDE connector and the front panel controls header, two auxiliary 3 pin fan headers, and the floppy drive connector all located along the bottom edge of the motherboard.

 

I've already stated my dislike of the placement of the two fan headers next to the main power connector and the tight location of the 4 pin 12V power connector. Now I would like to point out two things that I really didn't like at all. First is the AGP slot release lever, it's located behind the first IDE connector and between two sets of tall capacitors. Even people with skinny finger tips will have a problem pressing this down to relase an installed video card. if you have a video card that is longer than the Radeon 9700 in the picture, your task will be that much more difficult. I had to resort to using the eraser end of a pencil to press it down. I didn't want to take the unnecessary risk of using a screwdriver tip. The other really glaring problem I found was that even though it looks like there is plenty of room surrounding the CPU socket, once I placed the Vantec AeroFlow cooler on the CPU, I found that there was virtually no clearance at all with one of the four clustered capacitors next to the CPU socket. A very tight fit indeed. I'm glad I didn't have to mount my Volcano 9 on this motherboard.

 

One last thing that I should mention that is both good and bad is the clearance around the memory slot release levers. On the side close to the AGP slot, there is enough clearance to depress the release levers with no interference from the AGP card. On the side close to the top of the motherboard, the CPU fan header is located beside the middle memory slot release lever. In order to fully depress this lever you may be forced, as I was, to disconnect the fan connector before pushing the lever down fully. now that I have fully vented on the physical layout of the motherboard, let's move on to the BIOS.

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