FIC AU13 Motherboard - FIC AU13 Motherboard
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FIC AU13 Chameleon Max
LAYOUT AND DESIGN
AU11 Chameleon | AU13 Chameleon |
FIC has changed the layout of the motherboard from the AU11 design. By the way, the AU11 Chameleon is almost identical to the EPoX EP-8RDA+ motherboard down to the circular heatsink on the Northbridge.
The AU13 utilizes the additional 4 pin 12v power connector whereas the AU11 didn't. The AU13 adds a passive heatsink to the Southbridge. The AU11 had none. The AU11 went with a Realtek RTL 8201L LAN chip, the AU13 changes that to a Broadcom® AC101L LAN chip. The AU13 does away with the onboard diagnostic LED readout from the AU11. The IDE, floppy and main power connectors have all been relocated into one cluster near the DIMM slots. Some of the pin headers have also been relocated to make room for the two serial ATA connectors that have been added. You can see the two serial ATA connectors just below the Silicon Image 3112A chip.
Here you see the CPU socket with the thin film temperature probe. Many manufacturers are now using the thermal detection circuitry built into the CPU substrate for temperature readings. There is plenty of room around the ZIF socket for a full sized HSF unit without having to worry about damaged capacitors but with the socket lugs facing north and south, there may be some difficulty swapping out the HSF once the motherboard is installed inside a case. You also get a good look at the Nvidia nForce2 north and Southbridge chipsets with and without the passive heatsinks. The heatsinks were attached with thermal pads. The heatsink on the Northbridge will be replaced by an active fan heatsink with some good quality thermal paste for testing purposes as the Northbridge temperatures climb quite rapidly during FSB overclocking.
One problem that people will find with this motherboard that has been corrected by some other manufacturers is the tight clearance distance for the 3rd DIMM retention lever when used with a full length AGP graphics card. I use a Radeon 9700 and I had problems swapping memory in the last slot because the retention lever can not be fully lowered when the graphics card is in place. I wouldn't mind giving up that 6th PCI slot for more room between the AGP and DIMM slots.
The last thing we'll look at as far as layout goes is the rear I/O port configuration. You can see an effort was made to conserve as much space as possible by stacking ports. You have the standard keyboard/mouse ports, 2 serial ports topped by the parallel port, two stacks of USB 2.0 ports each topped with a IEEE 1394 Firewire port and the Ethernet jack. Finally, you have the three audio ports.
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