Tyan S1854 Trinity 400 VIA Apollo Pro 133A Slot-1/Socket-370 ATX

The Bad

As with VIA chipsets of the past, we did encounter a few problems. First and foremost is a fundamental problem with all VIA chipsets we've encountered - memory performance is subpar compared to the i440BX. The use of Virtual Channel Memory (VCM) is able to narrow the gap, but unfortunately VCM is not widely available at the moment.

AGP incompatibilities haunted Super7 users, and so far it looks like those problems may be back again. Out Trinity 400 had trouble with AGP 4X mode, one of the key reasons a user might choose the VIA Apollo Pro 133A. When enabled, AGP 4x would cause 3D applications and games to lock up with a TNT2 and it would result in visual artifacts when used with a GeForce. The ATI Rage Fury MAXX would lock up immediately upon initialization of the Windows GUI. With AGP 4X disabled, all cards functioned just fine. Fortunately, we've found in the past that AGP 4X offers only minimal performance benefits.

As mentioned previously, the Trinity 400 also lacks the ability to configure the AGP and PCI ratios, so overclocking can be a bit tricky. The best way to push an FC-PGA CPU to 133 MHz FSB is to forget the Socket-370 interface and get an adapter card with jumpers for setting the FSB speed. From there, you can work with the Tyan's jumperless FSB settings.

Complicating issues still further is the fact that once you've pushed the FSB speed too far in the BIOS, there's no easy way to get the system back up. It simply won't boot until the CMOS is reset by an onboard jumper. Tyan should take a page from ABIT's book and include some sort of recovery mode

The last issue is relatively minor - we'd like to see Tyan include a jumper to disable the onboard sound. As it stands, if you decide not to use the feature after purchasing it, you'll have to disable it through Windows' Device Manager, which is not always as effective as physically disabling it in hardware.

USB Compatibility

• Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 0

• Number of Rear Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2

• USB IRQ Enable/Disable in BIOS: Yes

• USB Keyboard Support in BIOS: Yes

Recommended SDRAM

Recommended SDRAM: 1 x 64MB Mushkin SEC Original PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 64MB Memory-Man SEC Original PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 128MB Mushkin SEC Original PC133 SDRAM

SDRAM Tested: 1 x 128MB Mushkin SEC Original PC133 SDRAM

Manufacturer: The Memory Man
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.memory-man.com

Manufacturer: Mushkin
Purchase Website: http://www.mushkin.com