I got in on that Soyo barebones system back in Nov-Dec at Outpost.com for $149 shipped.
What I got was a decent case/PS, Soyo K7VEM MB, and retail Duron 950.
I'm happy with it as I picked up the other items I needed to make a whole system off
other Anandtech deals (40GB HD, LiteOn CDRW and 256MB). Total cost about $280.
System has integrated video/audio.
Soyo support in case you don't know, sucks.
I've used E-Mail 3 times - nothing except an automated reply.
I tried phone once, but after holding for 20 mins on long distance and no idea
if or when someone would pick up the phone, I gave up.
The questions that I have had I have eventually found answers to - the hard way - trial
and error, many hours on Soyo, VIA, and other techie forums - for instance what
version of drivers to use (I use the VIA 4in1 drivers V4.34 for my Win 98 SE install),
what audio drivers to use, etc. I got most of this info at the Via forums.
Now I am checking the O/C capabilities, and found that besides the well-documented
pencil trick, there is a FSB utility included on the Soyo CD called the Soyo System
Speed Utility. It has no documentation. I also have found nothing about it on any
site - Soyo, Via, Anandtech or others.
Although it gives inaccurate reading for my clock and bus speeds, it is able to crank
the FSB via a slider control, and it does work well and easily.
It also has a speed test increase control that warns you as soon as you go to use it
that it will lock up the system, which was puzzling to me at first, but after I ran it,
I discovered its beauty - it cranks the system in small mhz increments, recording each
iteration in a file. When the system locks up (which mine did), and you reboot, you
now have the highest speed that it was able to achieve recorded.
Mine went to a speed of 105.something (which really is not 105, but is more like
130something because of the aforementioned bad read on FSB).
Then I copied over WCPUCLK and put that on top while I used the slider control.
WCPUCLK told me accurately what my CPU speed was while I slowly raised the FSB slider.
I am able to run stably at 1100 mhz at the 9.5 multiplier.
There is one irritating problem that I have that I would appreciate any feedback on -
when the system boots, it puts out a tremendously load BEEP through my powered speakers.
If I forget to turn the volume on the speakers down, it just about makes me jump
through the ceiling.
The system was not like that from the start, but after one of the iterations of loading
VIA drivers and having a system lockup result, it has remained at this loud level.
I have reset CMOS, but that did not take care of it.
If anyone has a solution to this, let me know, thanks
and I hope the rest of this info has been of use - I would think it would be since I
couldn't find anything at all on this utility or very much on the K7VEM MB either.
What I got was a decent case/PS, Soyo K7VEM MB, and retail Duron 950.
I'm happy with it as I picked up the other items I needed to make a whole system off
other Anandtech deals (40GB HD, LiteOn CDRW and 256MB). Total cost about $280.
System has integrated video/audio.
Soyo support in case you don't know, sucks.
I've used E-Mail 3 times - nothing except an automated reply.
I tried phone once, but after holding for 20 mins on long distance and no idea
if or when someone would pick up the phone, I gave up.
The questions that I have had I have eventually found answers to - the hard way - trial
and error, many hours on Soyo, VIA, and other techie forums - for instance what
version of drivers to use (I use the VIA 4in1 drivers V4.34 for my Win 98 SE install),
what audio drivers to use, etc. I got most of this info at the Via forums.
Now I am checking the O/C capabilities, and found that besides the well-documented
pencil trick, there is a FSB utility included on the Soyo CD called the Soyo System
Speed Utility. It has no documentation. I also have found nothing about it on any
site - Soyo, Via, Anandtech or others.
Although it gives inaccurate reading for my clock and bus speeds, it is able to crank
the FSB via a slider control, and it does work well and easily.
It also has a speed test increase control that warns you as soon as you go to use it
that it will lock up the system, which was puzzling to me at first, but after I ran it,
I discovered its beauty - it cranks the system in small mhz increments, recording each
iteration in a file. When the system locks up (which mine did), and you reboot, you
now have the highest speed that it was able to achieve recorded.
Mine went to a speed of 105.something (which really is not 105, but is more like
130something because of the aforementioned bad read on FSB).
Then I copied over WCPUCLK and put that on top while I used the slider control.
WCPUCLK told me accurately what my CPU speed was while I slowly raised the FSB slider.
I am able to run stably at 1100 mhz at the 9.5 multiplier.
There is one irritating problem that I have that I would appreciate any feedback on -
when the system boots, it puts out a tremendously load BEEP through my powered speakers.
If I forget to turn the volume on the speakers down, it just about makes me jump
through the ceiling.
The system was not like that from the start, but after one of the iterations of loading
VIA drivers and having a system lockup result, it has remained at this loud level.
I have reset CMOS, but that did not take care of it.
If anyone has a solution to this, let me know, thanks
and I hope the rest of this info has been of use - I would think it would be since I
couldn't find anything at all on this utility or very much on the K7VEM MB either.