The Giovani's BIOS provides plug-n-play support for peripheral devices.
The Intel P4 Giovani is an older model micro-ATX motherboard used in several models of Compaq desktop computers. The Compaq Presario S6000V CTO (P8656U) computer used two variations of the Giovani motherboard that are referred to as the Giovani GL6 and Giovani2 GL6 models by Compaq. The manufacturer's name for this board is MS-6577 M-ATX. The two versions of this board -- Giovani and Giovani2 -- are respectively referred to as revisions 3.1 and 4.0 by the manufacturer. Support for the S6000V CTO and the Giovani motherboard was stopped by Hewlett Packard as of March 31, 2007.
Processing
The Giovani motherboard uses a socket 478 processor interface that supports Intel Celeron processors using the Prescott processor core and P4 processors using the Williamette or Northwood processing cores. The Giovani supports P4 processors rated up to 2.8 gigahertz (GHz) and Celeron processors rated at speeds up to 3.06 GHz -- with a 533 megahertz (MHz) front side bus (FSB). The Giovani's onboard chipset is an Intel 845GV that supports a 400/533 MHz FSB and DDR RAM modules rated at 200, 266 or 333 MHz. The Giovani's Intel ICH4 integrated controller hub supports USB 2.0, AC'97 2.2, three UHCI host controllers and one EHCI host controller.
Memory
The Giovani motherboard has two RAM slots that support DDR DIMM modules with a maximum memory size of one gigabyte per slot. Each slot supports PC2100 or PC2700 non-ECC unbuffered memory sticks. The Giovani supports a maximum of four hard drives -- or optical drives -- using two ATA 100 IDE slots.
Ports and Slots
The Giovani provides support for a variety of external connectors used to connect peripherals to the motherboard. The ports supported on the Giovani motherboard include a pair of PS/2 ports, four front and two rear USB ports, one VGA port, one RJ-45 LAN port, a serial port, a parallel port and audio line in, line out and microphone in ports. The Giovani also supports the use of expansion cards with three available internal 32-bit PCI slots.
Integrated Devices
The Giovani motherboard provides several devices as integrated parts of the board. Network connectivity is provided by a RealTek RTL8101L integrated 10/100 Ethernet card. Audio output on the Giovani is supplied by the AC'97 audio controller built into the ICH4 controller hub while video output is handled by the integrated Intel 845GV chip.
Tags: Giovani motherboard, Celeron processors, Giovani Giovani2, Giovani supports, Intel 845GV, Intel Giovani