Conclusion

I never knew how the Chaintech 60JV2 motherboard performed since it came to me DOA. I'm not sure if it was damaged during the delivery or if it was already dead at the factory. The box was a little dented but the motherboard didn't seem to be physically traumatized. Ahh... well, this isn't the first time I received a dud board.

From what I can see, the Chaintech 60JV2 appears to be your typical everyday i815E motherboard. It has the basic features of all i815E motherboards. The only significant feature that differentiates this i815E motherboards from its rivals is the 3BIOS technology.

As mentioned in this "review", this 3BIOS technology is different from competing dual BIOS solutions. While other dual BIOS solutions merely allows you to repair a corrupted BIOS due to a botched flash job or virus attack, 3BIOS actually allows either BIOS chips to be used at boot up. This translates into flexibility although I can't think of a use for that flexibility other than allowing for a quick restoration of the system to full use.

This is because the undamaged BIOS can be used immediately. In other dual BIOS solutions, you have to restore the uncorrupted BIOS copy from the slave BIOS chip to the master BIOS chip, thus delaying the use of the motherboard after the master BIOS is corrupted.

It also comes with an embedded flash utility, thereby making it Windows Me, 2000 and XP compatible. Finally, 3BIOS also comes with an instant hard disk recovery utility. Because the board was DOA, I have not tested the claims (and I hope I will never have to actually use this utility!). Still, if it works, this would be a must-get motherboard for those who worry about hard disk failure a lot!

So, if 3BIOS really pans out to be the ultimate dual BIOS solution as Chaintech claims it to be, the Chaintech 60JV2 will be an i815E motherboard you should consider if system uptime is a critical factor. Otherwise, the user-friendly features (jumperless setup) and value added features (extra IDE controllers, etc...) of other i815E motherboards would probably have more appeal for you.

 

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Adrian Wong
Adrian's Rojak Pot
http://www.rojakpot.com/
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