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Closer look
Rear
From the rear of the board we can find a set of pretty standard connectors. Two PS2 connectors for mouse and keyboard. Two USB2.0 connectors, 9-pin serial and parallel ports. 15-pin VGA connector and next to it RJ-45 providing network connection. Yellow RCA connector for TV-out functions and finally three audio connectors as found in so many other motherboards.
Power
ATX12v connector is located right next to a regular 20 pin ATX power connector. Keeping these two close together will mean less wire clutter inside the case, keeping the airflow clear from obstructions. There are also power supplies meant for Mini-ITX and similar applications that have relatively short wires and this arrangement will make everyone's life bit easier.
IDE
On top part of the image, next to the BIOS chip are the two connectors that provide LVDS capabilities (18-bit dual channel LCD interface). Below the BIOS chip are the power connectors for the LCD. Blue connector in the middle is obviously the regular 40-pin IDE connector for regular 3.5" hard drives. Below that is the 44-pin connector for 2.5" hdds and cd-drives. Dip switches on the bottom part of the image are for selecting the resolution for the LVDS LCD panel.
Rear corner
Both two of the SATA connectors are located in this corner. Good positioning because in most systems the rear of the hard drives will be facing the rear of the motherboard. Here we also have Digital 4-in 4-out I/O connector, header for two additional USB2.0 connectors, system function header for power and reset switches and indicator leds. To top it all, CD-audio header is also located here.
You may think that by placing all these different headers in the same corner would make it hard to utilize them but actually it makes sense to design the board like this. Now all of these thin wires will be coming from the same part of the motherboard and not from here and there, spreading across the motherboard. Lot less wire mess in the long run.
"The other corner"
Between the heatsink mount and the parallel connector is the header for three RS-232 connectors. Again a good placement so that the serial port wires will not need to cross the motherboard in any situation. If you look closely to the very edge of the motherboard you'll notice a slim 26-pin connector that is meant for floppy drive.
The Chips
The Chips
Here are some of the most important chips on the iBASE MB870 motherboard.
Realtek RTL8100 provides 10/100Mb LAN and Winbond 83627HF handles most of the I/O, including COM1 and COM2, parallel port, hardware monitoring and so on.
Most of these chips are pretty common and can be found on many motherboards. RS300M, or Mobility Radeon 9100IGP is still something that can't be found that easily. By choosing this chipset over the Intel's i845G and i865G counterparts, iBASE made sure that the board is a lot more capable on graphics department. Something that has been lacking on many previous Mini-ITX and other small form factor motherboards.
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