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Chaintech 9CJS ZENITH

Chaintech has included almost every imaginable feature with the 9CJS ZENITH including Envy-24 sound. Will it compete with the other i875P-based motherboards by offering the performance and stability we have come to expect from the Canterwood?

Introduction

Established in 1986, Chaintech has been a player in the enthusiast market but not at all times very visible. Their Zenith branded mainboard has some formidable competition here in 2003, but Chaintech has garnered attention with this extremely feature-rich contender.

The 9CJS ZENITH is Chaintech’s flagship i875P product. The primary specifications of this motherboard show that Chaintech is primed for battle. Included is support for AGP8X, IEEE1394 (otherwise known as FireWire), USB 2.0, Dual LAN (Gigabit LAN+10/100Mb LAN), SATA RAID, 7.1-channel audio, SPDIF for digital audio, Pentium 4 533/800MHz processors, and Dual-DDR266/333/400. This board includes practically everything except SCSI.

Main Specifications Overview:

Detailed Mainboard Specification List:

Board Layout

The packaging for the 9CJS ZENITH is over-the-top. The picture above really doesn’t show it, but the box is a full 5 inches thick and includes a plastic carrying handle. The ZENITH “Z” is cut out of the top and backed in clear plastic, offering a small preview of the motherboard stored securely inside. The massive box is stuffed with an impressive assortment of accessories including: 2 blue, rounded IDE cables; 1 blue, rounded floppy cable (all three including a convenient Chaintech pull tab for easy removal); 2 blue SATA cables; a single Y-splitter SATA power connector to support 2 SATA drives (the 2 SATA power connectors are 90-degree for good cable management); an optical cable; and a color-coded rear panel shield.

A second box was embedded deep within the bowels of the motherboard box and contains the CBOX3. This device occupies a spare 5 1/4” drive bay and includes some very useful surprises. There are 3 different front bezels in silver (default), black, and beige that should match the most common case colors available. They are made of plastic and the silver is not as clean looking as the black or beige. Silver plastic is difficult to pull off successfully and an aluminum bezel would be an improvement.

The CBOX3 includes all the appropriate cables to connect the audio (only front channels and MIC in), USB 2.0 and IEEE1394 ports, and the cables necessary to engage the six-in-one card reader, infrared, and “DigiDoc”. The 2-digit LED will display POST Error Codes (80-PORT) which can be extremely useful during a troubleshooting session. The case sticker lists the most commonly occurring POST error codes with a series of possible problems and potential solutions for each. The LED also displays CPU temperature during the boot cycle, but it was sometimes difficult to catch as the POST codes switch rather quickly. Finally, a “Powered by ZENITH” case badge is thrown in for good measure.

Both the motherboard and CBOX3 boxes gave me the impression that a remote control aptly named the Handigator was also included. It was not in the box and, upon closer inspection, it is also not listed in the manual’s packing list. The remote offers the function of a mouse, keyboard, hot keys to Internet access (browser, email, etc.), and WinDVD controls. Without an example unit to test, this is all the detail I can offer.

As you will see in the following sections, Chaintech included a small slot just to the left of the 5 PCI slots. This slot will look familiar to some as the widely unused ACR or CNR slots. According to Chaintech, this is their proprietary Chaintech Multimedia Riser (CMR) slot and is home to the Chaintech Multimedia Card (CMC) you see in the picture above. The CMC offers the center/bass channel audio jack as well as the 4 channels of rear surround sound and the S/PDIF port for digital audio. As an added feature taking advantage of all available space, Chaintech chose to include 2 IEEE1394 ports on this card as well. This seems to be a wise decision as almost every available piece of real estate on the motherboard is occupied. The CMC also has 2 CD-IN connectors for enabling CD Audio playback from CD-ROM drives. The standard placement of CD-IN connectors on the motherboard is absent.

The overall placement of each component on the 9CJS ZENITH is good and fairly standard. I will, however, note a few specific areas of concern as the review proceeds. The capacitors chosen by Chaintech are all from Sanyo (World-wide) and Luxon Electronics (Taiwan).

The area surrounding the CPU socket is practically clear on three sides. The capacitors to the right of the socket posed no problem with a standard OEM HSF, but could cause issue with a larger, aftermarket HSF. Notice that the yellow capacitors directly beneath the HSF hold-down mechanism are shorter than the others. This aids in the removal of the HSF on the right side. The left-side, however, is slightly different. The Northbridge HSF is somewhat close to the socket area and makes for some struggle when taking the CPU HSF off. This shouldn’t be a big issue as most users will not have to worry about removing the HSF after successful installation in their favorite case (until that new chip arrives, anyway). Directly below the socket and to the right is the ATX12V connector. When the motherboard is installed, this location is at the top of the board close to the power supply. The placement has a small potential to impede airflow, but, because of the overall position, proper cable routing will alleviate this minimal risk. Almost hidden from view at the top left and top middle of the picture are jumpers (JP6 and JP6A) to enable or disable a USB keyboard hot key or USB mouse-click computer activation. A BIOS setting under USB Resume in the Power On Management section will allow you to select a hot key of your choice.

The system monitored CPU fan (FAN1) connector is just to the left in between the Northbridge fan (FAN4) connector and the socket. Moving slightly more to the left, you will find a series of two jumpers. Harmless looking guys, until I found their reference in the motherboard manual. These are jumpers allowing the user to select the external clock of a supported chip. In other words, in this world of primarily jumperless motherboards (not including the required CMOS clear jumper), Chaintech chose to move back in time about a decade and bring back the infamous CPU FSB jumpers. This is almost unacceptable, until I realized that the default setting allows the FSB to be automatically detected. The jumpers are available if the need arises to force the setting to 400MHz or 533MHz. The panic is over, and I think it is good engineering foresight for Chaintech to include the manual capacity should one have compatibility issues.

I have included a picture taken after turning the board right by 90 degrees. Other than what I have already relayed, there aren’t many issues here.

To the left of the CPU socket is the Northbridge. The gold-colored HSF with the ZENITH logo and a holographic Chaintech sticker is impressive looking and quiet. It does an adequate job under normal usage, but will it still perform well when the system is pushed to the edge? I’ll get to that.

About 1 ½” below the CPU socket are the four DIMM slots. Two are colored-coded blue and installing matching DDR sticks in these will activate the Dual-Channel DDR capabilities of this board.

In the above picture, you can see the AGP slot just to the left of the Northbridge. Chaintech placed the four DIMM slots in the only free area available on the board and, unfortunately, this will cause plenty of frustration when paired with a full-sized video card. The memory must be installed prior to the video card, for once the card is in place, there is absolutely no room to remove any memory residing in DIMM slots 1 and 2. Careful pre-installation planning and a good period of time between upgrades will mitigate this frustration. Just be prepared to put the system together in the correct order.

A second issue concerning the AGP slot is a single small and otherwise unobtrusive capacitor. Looking closely at the picture just to the left of the white AGP retention mechanism, one can see the capacitor to which I am referring. The retention tab is quite difficult to depress once the video card is installed correctly. A little flexibility or an aid from someone with smaller fingers will enable you to still get the card out. A retention tab is definitely a plus for the quick trips to your favorite LAN party, but this capacitor should be moved.

Just below the DIMM slots is the floppy drive connector and to the left of that is the ATX power connector. In practice, I find a location closer to the rear panel more convenient, but this position isn’t out of reach or in the way.

A second, system monitored 3-pin fan connector labeled FAN2 is directly to the left of the ATX power connector.

The lower left-hand quadrant houses the Southbridge. Just below this chip are the CMOS battery, on-board speaker, and two SATA connectors. The IR connection is to the left of these connectors. The ICH5R supports SATA RAID 0; however, due to an implementation problem, I was unable to enable this for testing. We have a message in to Chaintech about this and will advise once a solution is determined.

The IDE connectors are at the lower edge of the board and make for simple cable routing. Directly above these connectors is the CMOS clear jumper. This jumper is close to the IDE ports, but Chaintech included an extended jumper block moving it to within reach if an emergency CMOS clear is needed. Moving to the left of the IDE connectors, you find a 3-pin block labeled CN17 supporting a blue power indicator LED. Further left is the pin block to connect your front panel power and reset buttons, LEDs, and the usual functions. The BIOS chip is the small, square, reflective chip in the lower right corner just to the right of the Wake On LAN and Wake On Modem connections. Above these is the 80-PORT connection to the CBOX3 as well as the third system monitored 3-pin fan and IEEE1394 connection (also to the CBOX3). The additional USB connectors for the CBOX3 are right above the ICH5R chipset and rounds out our clockwise trip around the Southbridge.

The 9CJS ZENITH includes 1 AGP slot, 5 PCI slots, and the aforementioned CMR. If a double-slot video card is installed, or a card with a large HSF, the first PCI slot to the right of the AGP slot will go unused. Not much out of the ordinary here, but just between and below the fourth and fifth (counting from left to right) PCI slots is the CBOX3 front audio connections. Note that CN24 jumpers 5-6 and 9-10 must be removed prior to installing the supplied cable. Once these jumpers are removed, the back-panel audio jacks (front channels only) are disabled. These jumpers can also be used to connect front-panel audio jacks in cases that offer this convenient front access.

The back panel is arranged in a standard fashion with the PS/2 keyboard and mouse connections on the left. Sandwiched between the two USB and NIC towers are the parallel and serial ports. On the far right of this panel cluster is the MIC IN and audio in and out jacks for front channel audio.