Review - EPoX 4BEAV i845D Motherboard + Bluetooth

Techware Labs gratefully recognizes EPoX's support in making this review possible!

Review by Edward Chang, call sign: Big_E

August 30, 2002

Industry-leading EPoX endorses Bluetooth technology, raving it as a major step in advancing wireless communication technology. Although EPoX bundles a Bluetooth header exclusively with their 4BEAV motherboard, we tested this with other Intel 845-based motherboards, as well as an EPoX 8K7A+ (AMD 761) and FIC AN11 (VIA KT266A) motherboards,  and it was fully compatible. Developed to take advantage of the new USB 2.0 standard, this Bluetooth device seems to work with any motherboard that supports the minimum USB 1.1  requirement.

This is how the Bluetooth comes packaged. The header with the adjustable black antennae is a Bluetooth acts as a receiver/transmitter. A thin cable connects the header to the add-on Bluetooth adapter, which is plugged onto a USB port on physically on the motherboard, like so:

The Bluetooth adapter may be plugged into any USB port, such as this one below the right end of the last PCI slot.

Any network requires a sending end, and a receiving end. Thus, a proper network necessitates two Bluetooth pieces. EPoX is selling an optional Bluetooth USB dongle for $29.95. Here's how it looks:

This optional Bluetooth Dongle package includes the dongle, USB cable, Installation CD, and instructions sheet.

Bluetooth Performance:

Transfer Rate

Our tests show an average transfer rate of about 31.2 kilobytes per second or 250 kilobits per second. The drivers we tested with are not the final shipped version, so we expect faster speeds in the end. From an average users' standpoint, 31.2 k/s is a decent rate; relative to a DSL connection on a slow day or heavily trafficked site . That's still about 7 times faster than traditional 56K dial-up modem download speeds. Where it would have taken someone 15 minutes to download a 3 megabyte MP3 song on 56K, using Bluetooth, one can get it in less than two minutes. In addition, most 56K upload speeds are restricted to a mere 33.6 kbps, so Bluetooth is even faster when it comes to uploading files, as there is no performance hit switching between uploading or downloading.

The speed of Epox's Bluetooth devices is impressive for a wireless communication cable considering one won't have to worry about laying out stretches of Ethernet cables between computers and adding another cable to add the labrynth of cables behind a PC. Furthermore, since this uses a Radio Frequency, it can travel through walls too!.  In conclusion, Bluetooth is an ideal short-range wireless network solution for mobile devices like laptops, PDAs, and cellular phones. Bluetooth is also capable of file-sharing small files, such as documents or JPEG images.

	Conclusion
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