December 28, 2001
The hard drive is mounted
in the case via a slide out tray that can be removed by unscrewing two
thumbscrews on the back. With the hard disk tray removed, we can
see the motherboard with all of the ports going into the I/O shield.
Let's talk about the I/O's
of this motherboard. When you say the phrase "integrated on the motherboard"
most people roll their eyes and groan. This is because "integrated"
usually means "poor quality". In the case of the SV24 and the FV24
motherboard, the integrated components work fairly well depending on how
picky you are. The sound quality from the sound card is acceptable
for casual listening with headphones or regular computer speakers, but
has too much line noise to be blasting over your home theater speakers.
If you plan on using the SV24 as a MP3 server in your home theater, it
would be a good idea to add in a higher quality sound card like the Sound
Blaster Live! or Audigy.
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Here we can see more of the
hard drive assembly.
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The floppy drive and two
IDE connectors are located near the front of the motherboard which means
that the data cables have to rise over the RAM module in order to reach
the floppy and HD drive. If you're not careful with the data cables,
you could put undue pressure on the RAM modules and cause them to dislodge.
It's a good idea to make sure there isn't any pressure between the RAM
and the data cables.
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Click image to enlarge
In the SV24, we encounter
the unique problem that standard data cables are too long, so we are supplied
with much shorter cables to work with. Even with the supplied shorter
cables, a bit of cable origami that was required to connect the hard disk
to the IDE port on the motherboard. In the pictures, we don't have
a PCI card installed, but if we did, the space would be even tighter.
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Click image to enlarge
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