Intel Core Duo for Desktops

It’s not a new idea to use a mobile processor in a desktop PC. PC enthusiasts were casting interested looks at mobile processors from the Pentium M series ever since Intel had transferred its desktop CPU series to the NetBurst architecture. As opposed to it, the Pentium M was based on the P6 architecture that had been employed in the highly successful Pentium III CPU series. First experiments of installing the Pentium M on desktop mainboards (made possible by ASUS who introduced a special adapter; read more in our article called Intel Pentium M 780 as Heart of Your Desktop PC, with ASUS CT-479 Adapter) showed that this idea did make sense. Senior Pentium M models had a normal performance even by the standards of desktop computers and were even better than CPUs with the NetBurst architecture in other characteristics, e.g. in heat dissipation. Unfortunately, such systems never achieved the status of a mass-user solution, mostly due to opposition on the Intel side. The company didn’t look favorably at experiments of that kind and made steps so that the adapters and mobile processors were not widely available. Moreover, processor architectures began to progress towards dual-core designs, so the efficiency of using mobile CPUs in desktop computers was put in doubt.


PCB Design:


So, the ASUS N4L-VM DH mainboard combines rather rich functionality with the Micro-ATX form-factor. Of course, the developer had to solve a difficult problem of placing every the needed chips and connectors in the limited area, so we can hardly wait that every the components are placed on the PCB in a behavior favourable for the user.
And still, there are very some things most the PCB design of the ASUS N4L-VM DH we can complain about. The important components are every properly located. It is also good that nearly every the connectors, including both the noesis connectors, are placed at the front and left sides of the PCB.





BIOS and Overclocking:
The ASUS N4L-VM DH was tested with the latest version BIOS as of the time of my writing this analyse (version 303 dated April 25, 2005), The BIOS of the ASUS N4L-VM DH mainboard is based on AMI’s code and has the same falsehood interface as other AMI-based BIOS Setups. You can configure the system’s main units here, but that’s not rattling interesting. We were more curious about the overclocking options provided by the mainboard, but were somewhat disappointed on that point. Positioned by its manufacturer as a multimedia entertainment center, the mainboard lacks a bulk of overclocking-related options in its current BIOS versions.



In fact, the BIOS Setup exclusive allows changing the FSB frequency, but you have no curb over the emf and oftenness multiplier of the CPU. And modify this adjustment of the FSB oftenness doesn’t impact too well. The choice FSB oftenness of Socket 479 Core Duo and Core Solo processors is 166MHz, but the peak FSB oftenness the ASUS N4L-VM DH remains steady at is exclusive 182MHz. The mainboard just refuses to start up at a higher FSB clock rate. Besides the choice of adjusting the FSB frequency, modify though in a very limited range, the mainboard allows changing the emf of the module modules. Not quite clearly what for, the BIOS Setup can increase this emf from the choice 1.8V to 2.1V. Besides that, you can manually set up the module timings here. The module frequency, however, cannot be changed. It is always set up automatically depending on the SPD information written in the installed DDR SDRAM modules.