Transcend TS-UWH31 microATX i810 Socket 370

When first examining the layout of the board, this board is different from some other microATX boards. The AMR slot is placed on the outside of the PCI slots, but, more noticeably, the floppy connector is above the socket. The TS-UWH31 sports three fan connectors which shows that cost cutting is not the first priority. There are thirteen 1500uF capacitors which are located immediately around the CPU slot and a few other capacitors are placed sparsely all over the board. The popular green heatsink is mounted on the i810-DC100 via spring clips. Due to the onboard video, one of the serial ports is replaced by a monitor connector. If you need the second serial port, the board includes an expansion slot bracket with a second serial port.

Overclocking options on Transcend's i810 are not as numerous as they could be, with only four FSB settings of 66/75/83/95 MHz for 66 MHz Celerons. Although our test bed Celeron 333 has run at 500 MHz, it would not boot at that speed in the TS-UWH31. However, Transcend claims speeds up to 150 MHz in their manual. The board is practically jumperless, with a jumper to set 66/100 MHz. The clock multiplier can be set in the BIOS from 3.0x - 8.0x; however, clock multiplier support isn't a big issue anymore with Intel processors now that all Intel CPUs are multiplier locked.

The jumperless setup is a function of the Award BIOS utility that is part of the board's i802AB FWH (Firmware Hub). The TS-UWH31 uses the updated revision 6.00PG of Award's popular BIOS. The 6.00PG is much easier to navigate with descriptions of the settings in the right panel of the screen and also provides many more system settings allowing optimization under extreme overclocking situations, definitely a plus for hardcore hardware enthusiasts.

Fortunately, the TS-UWH31 was extremely stable both at 433 and 484 MHz, making it a strong competitor in the motherboard market. For anyone looking for a solid, reasonably priced motherboard without needing a plethora of overclocking options, this board is one to look into.

For hardware monitoring, the board sports the Winbond 83627 HF-AW chip -- which provides adequate hardware monitoring. In fact, the TS-UWH31 monitors 7 voltages, 3 fan speeds and CPU temperature. Also, the temperature should be read from the CPU's on die thermal diode but is instead reported via a thermistor below the chip.

The power management options are the same as most other boards these days. For the users who wish the computer to turn on in the presence of network activity or an incoming, both wake on LAN and wake on modem ring headers are available. Also, the BIOS can be set to turn on the system at a specific time so the computer can wake up before you. The CPU fan can be shut off when the system suspends to quiet things down a bit. ACPI support is built into the BIOS for added power management under an ACPI compliant OS like Windows 98 or Windows 2000. The system can be configured to power on via hot key or mouse click as well.