The Shuttle Spacewalker AE23 i815EP Motherboard
A Diamond in the Rough...

By Jeff Bouton
May 9, 2001


 

Since 1990, the Taiwan based Shuttle Computer Group Inc. has been producing high quality computer components. Providing a wide variety of products ranging from Video cards, motherboards, memory modules, and accessories has allowed Shuttle to profit in an increasingly competitive market. Their Spacewalker series of motherboards has been winning awards for several years for both quality and performance. Tonight we'll be taking a look at yet another addition to the Spacewalker family, the Shuttle Spacewalker AE23.

The AE23 is an i815EPO based motherboard that offers a good balance between quality and performance. We had the opportunity to drop this board into our rig and give it spin. Little did we know, we were in for a few surprises. Read on a little further to see what we found.



 
Specifications / Features of the Shuttle AE23
Intel Inside

 

Chipset
Intel 815EP/82801BA

Form Factor
ATX
Size: 305mm x 241mm

Processor
Socket 370
Intel PPGA/FC-PGA Celeron 300 ~ 533+MHz/ 66 MHz FSB
Intel FCPGA/FC-PGA Celeron 533 ~ 700+MHz/ 66 MHz FSB
Intel FC-PGA Pentium III 500 ~ 1GHz/ with 100/133 MHz FSB

Expansion Slot
1 x 4XAGP
6 x PCI
1 x CNR

Memory
3 x DIMM
Supports PC133 SDRAM up to 512MB

On board I/O Controller
1 x Floppy port
1 x VGA
2 x Serial port (16550 fast UART compatible)
1 x Parallel port (SPP, EPP, ECP port)
4 x USB port
1 x Game port
Li/Lo/Mic
IrDA Header
On board IDE Controller
Supports PIO Mode 4 and DMA Mode 2
Supoorts UDMA 33/66/100 IDE interface
Transfer rate up to 100 MBytes/sec

Ultra DMA/ 100 IDE Ports
2 x Ultra DMA/100 Bus Master IDE
80-pin Cable Backward Compatible
Supports ATAPI CD, CDR, CDRW, LS-120

Onboard audio
AC97 Audio

Bios
4MB Bios with full ACPI, APM, DMI, Green, PnP
CPU FSB/Multiplier Ratio & Boot Media Selections

Hardware monitor
Core voltage monitoring
CPU temperature monitoring
3 x Fan speed control
2 x Fan Power On/Off control

Other features
K/B and Mouse wake up
Wake-On-Ring
Wake-On-Alarm
Power fail resume
Support 1.2MB, 1.44MB, 2.88MB floppy
Hardware monitoring
Support 4X AGP

 

The Shuttle Spacewalker AE23 Motherboard ships with a standard Users Manual, a Floppy Drive Cable, and one 80-Pin Hard Drive Cable.  The package also includes a CD that contains chipset drivers, AC97 audio drivers, and a synthesizer utility. 

We were a little disappointed to see the a USB adapter was not included in the package.  Often with motherboards that boast additional USB connections on the motherboard, an adapter is provided to allow you to easily take advantage of the additional ports.  We've already documented in several other reviews that this adapter has proven to be a little difficult to locate in the after market.  We hope that Shuttle decides to start providing this adapter in future motherboard releases.

Quality, Installation, and The Bios