Foxconn X38A (Intel X38)
Expansion options
Foxconn X38A uses the south bridge ICH9R with a radiator. In the end, the board supports six SerialATA II ports (blue connectors) and allows merging hard disks into RAID arrays of levels 0,1,5, and 10 (MatrixRAID).
Besides, two more SerialATA II devices can be plugged in to the JMB363 controller made by JMicron. The same chip provides support for an additional ParallelATA line.
Additional SATA connectors are brought to the board's rear panel
Therefore, as many as 10 hard disks (8 SATA + 2 PATA) altogether can be plugged in to Foxconn X38A.
Then, the board offers merely 8 USB 2.0 ports. Four ports of them are on the rear panel, with 4 more plugged in with brackets (the board comes bundled with 1 bracket for 2 ports). It is not quite clear why engineers at Foxconn have given up implementation of all the twelve ports which support the ICH9R. Perhaps, based on the PCB of X38A one more model on which the "missing" ports will be enabled for other features may be released. Although the PCB itself offers a wiring for additional USB connectors.
Besides, Foxconn X38A supports the IEEE1394 ("Firewire"). For that, there is a Texas Instruments' TSB43AB22A controller onboard.
Therefore, the board offers support for 2 Firewire ports: one located on the rear panel, with another one connected with a bracket (available in the package bundle).
Then, Foxconn X38A offers 8-channel integrated Intel High Definition Audio, with an ALC888S chip used as the codec. Note that engineers at Foxconn have implemented the Dual Digital Audio technology which allows outputting two independent audio streams.
A few words on the network support: the board uses two high-speed LAN controllers: first - Realtek RTL8111B (Gigabit Ethernet),
second - RTL8110SC (Gigabit Ethernet), also made by Realtek.
The board's rear panel has the following configuration.
Above all, we first note the lack of LPT- and COM-ports, whereas one COM port is implemented with a bracket (missing in the bundle). On the rear panel, there are four USB 2.0 ports, a Firewire port, two SerialATA ports, as well as an optical and coaxial SPDIF outputs.
Here is the traditional layout of the board:
On Foxconn X38A, there is only one CLR_CMOS jumper meant for clearing the CMOS and is positioned near the battery.
Of the additional features, we note three buttons on board: power-on and system reset, as well as one to clear the CMOS. Besides, there is a 7-stage POST indicator with which the user can perform an initial diagnostic (but the documentation lacks a description of the codes).
Now on to the BIOS settings.
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