Chaintech VNF3-250 NF3-250 Mainboard Preview (2)
Gortok 8 May 2004

Installation

Here's what she looks like installed...hopefully you'll pardon the PCI video card...it IS just a folding box...

Here is  the Chaintech Multimedia Riser (CMR) at work. It supplies 2xCDROM input and 1 aux input internally and RCA-style input, Rear surround and center/sub for 5.1 channel sound and a Game port. Make note this card only fits the Chaintech CMR. It may be too far down on the board for some shorter CD audio cables

Moving forward is the Single chipset NF3-250 under a modest heatsink. I am somewhat surprised that Chaintech did not put some sort of active cooling on the chip since it does so much and gets so warm. I'm sure it has something to do with clearance for cards put in the PCI slots...  Anyway, there are pinouts for 4 USB 2.0 ports and front panel case connectors, two fan connectors (kinda hidden) and red ClearCMOS jumper...

Please pardon the dust...old case...new board...no patience...

Moving up, we find...

Socket 754...I've installed Athlon64 3000+ (Newcastle core), retail HSF and 512 MB of Kingston DDR400. The board's power regulator supplies 3-phase power and includes ATX2 12V 4-pin (P4 style) connector for steady reliable power to the CPU. Normally, in this area, you'll find some sort of fan header for a rear exhaust system fan...not here. It's actually all the way over on the other side of the board...

Even stranger is that there is no fan monitoring at that header... I like the placement of the IDE and FDD headers, however. They make for very tidy cabling and do not require long cables.

This picture show the AGP slot, the two SATA ports above it and the Realtek 8100C responsible for the onboard 10/100 LAN. As mentioned before, this board does not have Gigabit Lan or firewall, but appears to be a package designed for the budget enthusiast looking for stability and speed.

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