Soyo Dragon+ ... good or bad board????

[Tooter]

I've read all the reviews on this board and it seems to be a great board, but when I went to Fry's (San Diego) to buy it all the boards were returns (about 8). So I'm wondering if this is such a good board after all.

Please let me know your thoughts...good and bad about this board.

Thanks!

 

[CraigRT]

Only read reviews and read peoples opinions on the board, but haven't seen too much negatives on it!

Only common negative is the hefty pricetag... Soyo is a good name, I wouldn't hesitate to buy this board myself.

 

[stevens]

I like mine!

 

[Conscript]

I've got mized feelings on this board. Seems like all the reviewers of this board want to have its baby, but I've heard a disproportionate amount of negative critiques from actual users on many different boards. First off though, I wouldn't even look at a board like that unless you planned on using all the extras (onboard LAN, pc card, etc...)

 

[oakfan]

I've been running this board for about 6 weeks now and the only issue I've had is not being able to get the smart card reader to work under XP.

Apart from that I am very pleased with the board.

When I bought my board at Fry's in Palo Alto they had a huge pile of these boards out on the floor. The pile is much smaller now and a lot of those boards have return stickers on them. I don't know what it is about Frys, but a lot of their computer products always have return stickers on them.

 

[Dogmeat]

Oakfan,

Now you know where all the RMA boards go to die. Fry's buys them from the DOA distributer.

 

[RagingGuardian]

I love mine...by far my best board to date.

 

[MistaTastyCakes]

My K7V Dragon was pretty nice, I liked it.. the built in extras were actually pretty nice, too.

 

[SuperT]

dude, i gotta tell ya this board is pretty cool, i just installed it (actually my g/f and i built it) the board and the install seem quite nice. yes its expensive but well worth the money. i started my 1.2 up at 1.392 and have alot to play with. The built in sound (overall) is very nice and the lan comes right up. What more could you ask for?

 

[Tooter]

Hey everyone, thanks for the input. I plan on using the extras that this board comes with, that way I can use my other components for another system.

I guess I'll order it online cuz Fry's only has returned boards and some with the extras missing and selling them for full price.

Any suggestions for online stores? I know of Newegg and Outpost. Any other places that have good prices and cheap/fast shipping?

Thanks again!!!

 

[JameyF]

I used newegg for mine. I should ge tit next week.

 

[WhiteWizard]

Epox, SOYO, same crap, if you like problems, its your money...
Don't post your problems here after your purchase please.
Mobos that works good: ASUS A7V133 , ASUS A7A266, ASUS A7V266-E, ASUS, ASUS, ASUS, or you can get an Intel too, but don't try to put your Athlon in there!

 

[RagingGuardian]

WhiteWizard you sound like an idiot. Have you tried the Epox and Soyo KT266A boards or are you just an ASUS zealot? If you feel like spending your money on the ASUS name feel free but don't misguide forum members with your trash.

 

[WhiteWizard]

I have tryed several SOYO boards, including the latest SOYO DRAGON, wicht I brought, its working good, with Windows 2000, but I can't understand wy it refused to power up a USB external ZIP 250, I really need that damm thing, however, when I plug it in the ASUS A7A266 it work like a charm. Perhaps its the VIA chipset, but I like to blame SOYO.
Second, wy the Dragon Plus refused to overclock my Athlon 1200, just whanted to make 1333Mhz (10x133Mhz), my old A7V133 is working with thats setting for 6 months now.
And when I changed the PLUS for the ASUS A7V266-E, wy the ASUS accepted the overclock?, and wy the SOYO when the overclock fails refused to power on until the BIOS is erased with the jumper procedure?, the ASUS boots in default settings when the overclock fails, just press reset button.
And in Epox case, I'm getting tired of comenting the "green line issue", an incompatibility between Epox 7KXA (slot A) and 8KTA (first socket A) and MS-Backup in Win98SE, these problem is easily fix, just delete a couple of .VXD in the Windows\systems directory, look in the FAQ.
I'm relly don't know what to think about all these problems, but making an Athlon system, that supports 266Mhz bus, with a 10% overclock (without incresing voltages), a RAID subsystem, AGPx4 in 32bits mode, and perfect stability is the minimun what a spect for a mobo, perhaps you people don't push a litle those thing you buy...

 

[ACK!]

 

[ACK!]

sorry bout last post. I have one of those fry's (from anaheim) mobos. Here's my take:

did an upgrade to old win 98 sys (specs below),
now have dual boot win 98/win xp sys

problems:
If I plug in my cyborg joystick at boot-sys will not post, otherwise if I wait till after boot, it works. I thought it was defective mobo, so i returned it, got a second (neither of mine were marked rma- maybe I shoulda got one of those) had same problem so either whole batch is bad, or it really hates my joystick. No one else has had this problem but me.

win 98 - the little smartcard reader wont work, and the sound/graphics are glitchy(pause alot) when playing directx games. (both age of empires and independence day2)
win xp - sound is better and the smartcard reader works. On the down side, when more that 2-3 voices are going simultaneiously, the sound starts popping and crackling- very annoying in games.

otherwise it is rock stable
I got my board at fry's in anaheim, so I figure they may be same batch. Over half the board s there are rma'd too. My 2nd one was the last of the new ones.

I spent 20-30 hours trying to fix glitches and no success. Otherwise system is rock stable. I am using all onboard components except raid controller. I think the big problem is that the soundcard drivers suck. This is the fourth system I've built (first athlon based, plus I've helped with a few others (including one of the new nvidia based boards). To give you gauge of experience.

Also, doing system upgrade was trickier than I though. Windows didn't catch that I had athlon system now (not p3 intel anymore) and it ran funny,needed new mobo drivers. Took me a few tries to get the win98 op system to recognize that. Had to delete the enum key in regestry. Anyway,
Check out www.amdmb.com and www.viaarena.com they have dedicated soyo mobo forums that spend alot of time w. people talking about these problems. some people claim to have them beat.. I don't.

I'd appreciate it if anyone else who has this board(Dragon plus) could speak as to whether they have experienced similar problems.

Thanks

Jason

 

[Tooter]

Jason,

Thanks for the input. I'll definitely check out the viaarena site...didn't know about that one. I guess someone somewhere will always have problems with their boards be it Epox, Asus, Iwill, Abit and so on.

The Tooter

 

[JameyF]

<< Jason,

I guess someone somewhere will always have problems with their boards be it Epox, Asus, Iwill, Abit and so on.

The Tooter >>




Very well said.

 

[SilentRunning]

ACK! Also, doing system upgrade was trickier than I though. Windows didn't catch that I had athlon system now (not p3 intel anymore) and it ran funny,needed new mobo drivers. Took me a few tries to get the win98 op system to recognize that. Had to delete the enum key in regestry

It sounds like you swapped the motherboard in your system and didn't reformat the drive and reinstall windows. While I know that many people here do that, it really isn't the best way to do this upgrade. Different motherboards handle hard disk geometries differently and this can lead to corruption when swapping a hard drive between systems(motherboards). Furthermore, remnants of the old drivers may be causing the problems you are experiencing.

 

[ACK!]

<< It sounds like you swapped the motherboard in your system and didn't reformat the drive and reinstall windows. While I know that many people here do that, it really isn't the best way to do this upgrade. Different motherboards handle hard disk geometries differently and this can lead to corruption when swapping a hard drive between systems(motherboards). Furthermore, remnants of the old drivers may be causing the problems you are experiencing. >>



I think your right. I tried to do it right - I deleted the hkey_localmachine/enum registry key, deleted all the .inf files and all the drivers in the windows directory just prior to the swap. It forced me to reinstall windows, but it did seem to install all the right drivers and save all my other settings and software links to windows. I didn't know about the issues with the drive geometry, though... Maybe it's time to buy a new hard drive :>

For the xp install, i fdisk'd one of my partitions and did a clean install. It went much smoother (but still get scratchy sound when multiple channels are open). I think that is a driver issue, though.

The joystick problem (occured on 2 mobo's) is definately hardware related. I'm going to send soyo a support request and see what they say.

Finally- just an fyi - it appears that soyo has released a new hardware monitoring utility this last friday- It may fix the problem many of us were having where the utility would absorb 100% of your processor's time, thus causing pauses and delayed feedback in games/tasks.

Thanks for the support.

Jason

 

[DARTHSINDER]

I've had mine for awhile now, and it's been nothing short of great. I highly recommend it!!!

 

[DefRef]

I've had mine for a couple of weeks ($150/shipped from newegg) and I'm still shaking it down. I've have some funkiness and spontaneous reboots, but those may've been from funky RAM timings in the BIOS. There's a ton of things to tweak on and the huge manual doesn't really telling you the pros & cons of each. It's my first Athlon system, but I appreciate the RAID providing me the 2 extra IDEs for my 4 HDs and on-board LAN. I would've used the audio if I didn't want an Audigy Platinum even more (which also allowed me to take out my FireWire card.

 

[Abyssiann]

I got one a little while ago and at first I had a few issues with it but after a BIOS flash everything worked great. Definetly would recommend to someone who wants to use all the little goodies that come with it.

 

[carpman]

Hi All

On the advice of others I bought one from newegg, it arrived today but I couldnt get it working.
I tried everything under the sun, removed and reseated all devices ect ect.
It just gives one long bleep and shuts off.
Anyway this is the first thing I have ever bought from Newegg so i guess i have to see what their RMA service
is like.
The annoying thing is that it comes with so many extras it took me ages to strip it out of my case and repackage it.
Wish me luck on the second try.

 

[DefRef]

carpman: What kind of HSF are you using? I had the SAME problem, but it was because the Volcano 7 I use either turns at such a low RPM rate or because it's not drawing power, it's causing the BIOS to think the fan has failed and shut down.

You'll either have to disable this feature in the BIOS, or hold down the Ins key while powering up. The problem with the latter is that it'll fire up at a 100 FSB times your Athlons multiplier (in my case, the 1800+ clocks in at 1150MHz). When you reboot, it'll automatically work at whatever speed you've set, but it's a drag having to spend five minutes cold booting and rebooting. You can disable this setting, but if your HSF dies, the power cut could save your $200 CPU. Your call.

This isn't in the manual and I figured it out after some trial and error. Searching around here could've helped as well, cuz I've seen the issue mentioned before.