Pine Technology BA1-D Dual BX

The Bad

If you're running an internet business, the BA1-D is probably not the type of foundation you're going to want to build your server on.  Although the BA1-D is a stable motherboard, the design did express some weaknesses when put under the same stress that most dual processor server motherboards were put under by AnandTech.  ASUS, Gigabyte, Supermicro, and Tyan all offer more stable and reliable alternatives to the BA1-D.  The three year manufacturer's warranty on the BA1-D is an impressive commitment by Pine, so the board will last you, however that warranty doesn't mean anything if the board inspires a couple crashes under pressure. 

The positioning of the ATX power supply connector couldn't be worse, as it requires you to stretch the ATX PS cable over both processor slots in order to reach its final destination.  Not only is this a cooling hazard but it makes for a very messy case.  With dual processor systems running considerably warmer than single processor systems, avoiding any sort of cooling hazards should be your top priority from a stability point of view, with the BA1-D you better have some powerful fans on your processors. 

Out of the 5 PCI slots that are on-board the BA1-D, only the 4th one is capable of accepting a full length card.   The other 4 are length-restricted either by the secondary IDE connector, or the front panel connector block that seems to be the expansion slot downfall of most motherboards.  Surprisingly enough, both ISA slots are capable of accepting full length cards.

The BA1-D isn't the type of motherboard you can go out to your local hardware tech shop and buy, nor is it the type of motherboard that will appear on a pricewatch search results page.  Pine has a few vendors listed on their page, seemingly reliable, however currently none of them offered the BA1-D which was a bit of a disappointment as AnandTech was curious to see what the retail selling price for the motherboard would end up being (it shouldn't be any more than $150). 

Other than that and the lack of any written documentation, the BA1-D is a fairly average motherboard that just happens to support dual processor operation. 

USB Compatibility

• Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 0

• Number of Rear Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2

• USB IRQ Enable/Disable in BIOS: Yes

• USB Keyboard Support in BIOS: Yes

Recommended SDRAM

Recommended SDRAM: Mushkin SEC -GH PC100 SDRAM; Memory Man SEC -GH PC100 SDRAM
SDRAM Tested: 1 x 64MB Mushkin PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 64MB Memory-Man PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 256MB Corsair PC100 SDRAM DIMM (for compatibility testing only)

Manufacturer: The Memory Man
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.memory-man.com

Manufacturer: Mushkin
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.mushkin.com

The Test

In recent times, choosing a motherboard cannot be completely determined by a Winstone score. Now, many boards come within one Winstone point of each other and therefore the need to benchmark boards against each other falls. Therefore you shouldn't base your decision entirely on the benchmarks you see here, but also on the technical features and advantages of this particular board, seeing as that will probably make the greatest difference in your overall experience.

AnandTech Motherboard Testing Methodology