A cost-effective, high-performance solution from an industry leader.
Written: Jun 30 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Support for upto 3GB SDRAM and plenty of room for expansion.
Cons: None
The Bottom Line: A great mainstream desktop board ideal for all your computing needs.
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| camlover's Full Review: Intel Desktop Board D845WN Motherboard |
Its been about 18 months (and counting) since I purchased the Intel D845WN Desktop board for my second PC, a 1.5GHz Pentium 4-based PC. I opted to buy this online as my previous system, an Intel Celeron system with a SiS chipset, was giving me way too many problems, ranging from memory incompatibility and sound card errors to CPU fan problems. I used to experience frequent lock-ups while booting, strange CMOS error messages and my PC had become extremely slow in virtually all applications. Fearing for my life, I then decided to purchase a PC based on the newly-introduced Pentium 4 processor.
Since I love "building" my own custom PC, I had to buy all peripherals myself. When the time came to buy the motherboard, I was a little confused as there were so many variants available online to choose from. But since I had set things clear first, I had little problems. First and foremost, I was not craving for speed...all I wanted was a reliable and stable platform. Second, I did not want any "integrated graphics" with my board, as not only are the built-in cards slow, they give really poor performance on 3d games and other demanding applications. Thirdly, I wanted to ensure that I was buying an Intel motherboard, not some SiS, ASUS or AOPEN brand as I was of the opinion that Intel was a motherboard expert, with a good reputation worldwide. Lastly, I thought that by doing this, I could ensure the maximum compatibility with my processor.
The D845WN motherboard proved me right in every case. Not only is it really fast with a FSB of 400MHz, it is highly compatible with the Pentium 4 processor and supports speeds upto 1.8GHz.
Prior to purchasing this online, out of the Intel models available, I particularly chose the D845WN as not only did it support upto 3GB of SDRAM @ 133MHz, it also had a free AGP slot and plenty of room for expansion in the form of 6 PCI slots. It also had 4 USB ports, unlike many other boards that only had 2. Not only this but it also had an integrated sound card (SoundMAX with SPX). In short, it was suitable for me in every sense.
I installed the motherboard myself, first ensuring that I was wearing a grounding strap on my wrist to prevent any system damage caused by harmful static charges. With the included quick reference guide, I was easily able to install all the board components, starting with the included I/O shield. The diagrams on the guide were pretty easy to comprehend and I was done quite early. After connecting the fans and attaching the IDE drives, I finally booted up my PC for the first time.
It was a whole new experience for me. My system had become blazingly fast. With the bundled CDROM, entitled "Intel Express Installer," I installed all the software and utilities required for my system running Windows ME. I really liked the "Intel Active Monitor" included on the CDROM. Its a utility that keeps tabs on system and processor temperatures and regulates the fan speeds as well as power supply voltages. Other great programs, such as "Norton Internet Security" (with the latest Norton Antivirus), "RealOnePlayer" and "NTI CD-Maker" are also included with the package.
The D845WN has unique power management capabilities for it fully supports ACPI 1.0 and APM 1.02. ACPI is the key element in OS directed power management as it evolves the existing motherboard configuration interfaces to support advanced architectures in a more robust, and potentially more efficient manner.
Also, the boot capabilities of the D845WN are amazing as it supports booting to CD, DVD, LS-120, ZIP devices and even an interactive network boot.
However, the board is not without its disadvantages. For instance, for some odd reason my modem kept on "disappearing" from device manager. As a result, I could not even connect to the internet. However, on restarting the PC (after turning it off), it used to reappear.
But this is nothing to worry about. Once I went to the Intel website, I updated the Flash BIOS of my motherboard to the latest version and everything returned to normal. The Flash BIOS update is a very handy feature of new motherboards that keeps them up-to-date using the latest BIOS version. This technology was absent from my old PC. Currently, the latest BIOS for the D845WN posted at the site is dated May 25, 2003. So, you can see, Intel still supports this desktop board even though there are plenty of new ones around.
In short, this is one problem-free motherboard. Up to this day, I have not experienced a single hardware fault on my PC. Buy it if you want something stable and dependable. Not only is it quite fast in today's demanding applications, it also has room for future upgrades.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 90
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Epinions.com ID:
camlover
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Member: Tom M
Location: El Dorado, AR
Reviews written: 17
Trusted by: 3 members
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