soyo-k7v dragon plus

[PCBONEZ]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

My main beef is with Asus and the market share has little to do with it. Honesty of the company does. If you look at the vintage of some of the Asus boards and the variety of models that show up with bad cap problems it seems the Asus approach was to use up the remaining bad caps, pretend there isn't a problem, then buy good caps. I personally haven't used Abit since socket 7 and I only noticed the large number of Abit boards with reported problems in looking up Asus problem boards. I know Abit at least publically admitted there was a problem and made efforts to correct it quickly including RMA'ing motherboards. As far as I know Asus STILL hasn't even admitted there was a problem and I've seen Asus boards manufactured as late as 2004 with bad caps that were due to bad caps and not some other factor. That says a lot to me and I don't buy Asus anymore.

Incidently, my 02/02 Soyo board (in fact all P3 boards) have legit Rubycons on them from the factory. The boards were aquired at different times from different places and none of them are exactly the same model.
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[tazwegion]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

I've never owned an ASUS motherboard (and likely never will) so I wasn't debating their honesty/quality, just the sheer volume of Soyo Vs. Abit products on the market, when converted to percentage represented with issues

IMHO Asus lost a lot of ground to Abit especially in the enthusiast market relating to such issues, bad word of mouth (re: product problems) can undo much marketing hype

Flux made from battery acid & toothpaste? arneson... how'd that work out?

Chiefjoe any pic's of the nasty little offenders? as for a (safe) replacement board... socketA is phased out, you may be able to pick up some old stock or refurbished units, but why not simply recap your current platform? depending on where you are, there are service providers that will do it for you (should you not feel confident), Topcat of these forums provides such a service & D.I.Y. kits for US/Canada also

[arneson]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

Teeth are really white, Brilliant!

[Spacedye69]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

Asus boards rock! When I want a real board, thats all I buy. I have only had 1 board with problems. Unfortunatly, such a strange problem I still can't figure out what is wrong.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

If you like Asus boards more power to ya.
But. "Only one" of how many? Did Asus help you with the problem?
Soyo has been extremely responsive through email even on obsolete equipment.
Asus answers about 1 in 5 times. (Or less.)

Topsy Turvy:

I recently learned that as of a few years ago Asus isn't the manufacturer even of Asus BRANDED motherboards. It's outsourced but to who I dunno.
SHH! - This is a secret. Asus does NOT want you to know!

Abit too:
Are the Abit followers aware that for the last few years 20% or so of Abit boards (all the uATX boards) have been manufactured by ECS and that Abit plans to do something similar with ALL their motherboard products by outsourcing the actual manufacturing?
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=26459

Soyo-vs-Abit,, market share in YOUR country maybe.
Soyo is HUGE in other countries.
This forum is International isn't it?
Soyo has only *2* -for sure- valid cap complaints and on the same model board.

Soyo is actually 3 companies.
Soyo Computer (the origional company) no longer manufactures motherboards.
Soyo Enterprise: Manufactured in Taiwan for Europe and Asia.
Soyo Group: Manufactured in CALIFORNIA for North & South America.
[Haven't looked so I have no clue where mine came from but I'd bet CA, USA.]

I have my preference, ya'all have yours. ~PEACE~ [ And good luck! ]

Does the break room here have doughnuts?
.

[arneson]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

My main desktop is the K7 Dragon Super and you got me curious so I just opened her up to check.
It's very clean, has always been stable and caps "look" OK (SACON's).
This old board has never been stressed at all and has 7 fans in it so it'll probably last awhile. (It's very loud)
All I do is Invoicing and Quicken on it, wanted the raid settup.

[tazwegion]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

Are the Abit followers aware that for the last few years 20% or so of Abit boards (all the uATX boards) have been manufactured by ECS and that Abit plans to do something similar with ALL their motherboard products by outsourcing the actual manufacturing?
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=26459

I was aware of the outsourcing, if Abit do go in that direction for their 'enthusiast level boards' it will be as fatal a decision as to use the low end capacitors they're still trying to make up for

Soyo-vs-Abit,, market share in YOUR country maybe.
Soyo is HUGE in other countries.
This forum is International isn't it?
Soyo has only *2* -for sure- valid cap complaints and on the same model board.

Perhaps, but a Soyo is a rare board indeed here, I've never actually seen one yet, plenty of Abit, Asus, Epox, Soltek, PC Chips, ECS, Gigabyte & MSI... even BioStar

I doubt that US made Soyo boards would be sold here enmass, being part of 'Micronesia' I'd say we'd receive the Taiwan product primarily... so if you can purchase US made quality board good luck to ya'

Jim... why so many fans on a system that doesn't get used for stressful applications, how could you do that to your ears?

[PCBONEZ]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

[QUOTE=tazwegion]

I doubt that US made Soyo boards would be sold here enmass, being part of 'Micronesia' I'd say we'd receive the Taiwan product primarily...

[QUOTE]

Not likely.
(1) A major reason to spit the company like that is to avoid import taxes.
(2) I was researching production numbers for Asus, Abit, and Soyo and although I didn't find what I wanted I came across and article that said Soyo's US FAB is capable of 125,000 motherboards a day. (That's "capable of" mind you, not production. I couldn't find that for anyone.)
.

I do know for sure that Abit and Asus products are manufactured in Taiwan and/or China.

[arneson]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

I know, it's stupid, but I had them soo.
Hard drive has two, case has four,one rear and three front, CPU and PSU.
If they weren't in this machine they would in a corner. The sound is no worse than a big room fan and It's only on for short periods, otherwise I'd be folding with it.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

My main desktop is the K7 Dragon Super and you got me curious so I just opened her up to check.
It's very clean, has always been stable and caps "look" OK (SACON's).
This old board has never been stressed at all and has 7 fans in it so it'll probably last awhile. (It's very loud)
All I do is Invoicing and Quicken on it, wanted the raid settup.

I have a year 2000-ish (I think) FIC board with a sundry of SACON's on it.
4 or more different physical sizes. Various capacitances. All are 10 volt.
I've had no problems with it (yet) but realistically the board doesn't have many hours on it so mine isn't really a good indicator.

[arneson]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

For the little I paid I thought the quality and features were good from Soyo as you said around 2000, but then I was also one that thought Y2K was gonna blow me out of water.

My wife and I actually went underground in northern Montana for new years 2K.
We had food stockpile and went off power grid but still had DSL internet and a shitload of fireworks.
Next day when nothing happened we went skiing in Canada, it was a great vacation.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

When they were sweating the Y2k thing I literally had stacks of motherboards laying around from 8088 thru socket 7. (I had 48 computers of that range networked in my garage to experiment with hybrid networks.) .. So, I tested one of each and every make/model of 386 and above for Y2k compliance. May have just been 'dumb luck' but the 'newest' board I could find that wouldn't do Y2k just fine was an old 486 board from '93 or '94. I had 4 or 5 similar spec/vintage 486 boards that didn't have a problem. Most of the 386 boards didn't have a problem either. (That surprised me.) Based on that I wasn't very worried about hardware problems due to Y2k. Now software, I'm NOT a programmer so all I knew was what I used for 'real stuff' was okay according to the various software companies.

For a long time I avoided Soyo boards myself. Then a friend that's been into computers (professionally - R & D) since the days of vacuum tubes (and who knows FAR more than I EVER will) strongly recommended them to me.

I'm not a person that sticks to a particular brand often and I don't think Soyo is the be-all end-all of anything but I do think the person that put them down as being a shoddy product was completely clueless about Soyo.

I also have a problem with companies (in this case Asus) that build a reputation over several years for very high quality products, but who then play on that and lower the quality without lowering the prices. As far as I'm concerned that's a form of a scam.
.

[arneson]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

a friend that's been into computers (professionally - R & D) since the days of vacuum tubes
.

I saw a vacuem tube computer years ago.
If you fed it 250 punch cards it would do some government Sim game.
Like battleship.
Lost one of the punch cards and it did nothing.
Filled a whole room though.

[tazwegion]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

Not likely.
(1) A major reason to spit the company like that is to avoid import taxes.
(2) I was researching production numbers for Asus, Abit, and Soyo and although I didn't find what I wanted I came across and article that said Soyo's US FAB is capable of 125,000 motherboards a day. (That's "capable of" mind you, not production. I couldn't find that for anyone.)
.

I do know for sure that Abit and Asus products are manufactured in Taiwan and/or China.

After reading your last post, out of curiousity... I went to 2 Australian store/item search engines, ausprices.com.au & shopferet.com.au, and neither could locate me a Soyo board, they did find memory modules compatible with Soyo platforms but that was it, even Aussie eBay turned up nothing

I do know for a fact however, there is an importer in Melbourne who deals a lot with Soyo products, they just don't seem to have established a following, especially after the fake (plastic) & omitted cache chips fiasco of the 386-486 era

[PCBONEZ]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

After reading your last post, out of curiousity... I went to 2 Australian store/item search engines, ausprices.com.au & shopferet.com.au, and neither could locate me a Soyo board, they did find memory modules compatible with Soyo platforms but that was it, even Aussie eBay turned up nothing

I do know for a fact however, there is an importer in Melbourne who deals a lot with Soyo products, they just don't seem to have established a following, especially after the fake (plastic) & omitted cache chips fiasco of the 386-486 era

Soyo has always made their own boards and I have never even heard of one with faked chips.

The fake cache chip boards were manufactured by Hsing Tech (who I'm sure you have never heard of). Hsing Tech is basically the manufacturing branch of PcChips. They manufacture OEM motherboards for many other companies who then distribute them under their own branding. Some are/were UMC, Eurone, Pine, Matsonic, Alton, Amptron, Protac, Ability, Sybercom (a.k.a. TopGun), and MANY others.

So, PcChips has was basically the manufacturer of fake cache boards.
PcChips also made numerous chipsets which were basically counterfeit (unauthorized and sometimes altered) VIA, SIS, or Ali chipsets.

http://www.wimsbios.com/HTML1/xpro.html
http://www.redhill.net.au/b/b-bad.html
http://www.motherboards.org/articles...ions/17_6.html

Pretty much: .. Fake cache chips = PcChips.

The SAME PcChips that ASUS went into business with.

~~ Nuf said on that.

.

Australian sites!
Got news for ya budd.
I've been down under maybe 20 times.
Ya'll ain't exactly in a high flow area of the river called technology.
More exactly:
When a company expands you are close to the last place on their priority list.
Soyo markets in the America's, Asia, and Europe.
I wouldn't expect to see many Soyo boards down Aussie way.
For Soyo MoBos I got 145 eBay hits in North America.
[US + Canada]

------------
Friends don't let friends buy PcChips,, I mean Asus.
.

[tazwegion]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

Soyo has always made their own boards and I have never even heard of one with faked chips.

The fake cache chip boards were manufactured by Hsing Tech (who I'm sure you have never heard of). Hsing Tech is basically the manufacturing branch of PcChips. They manufacture OEM motherboards for many other companies who then distribute them under their own branding. Some are/were UMC, Eurone, Pine, Matsonic, Alton, Amptron, Protac, Ability, Sybercom (a.k.a. TopGun), and MANY others.

I did say fake (plastic) & omited cache chips, Soyo marketed motherboards in Australia with empty cache sockets (to keep manufacturing costs down), the lasting result of which left a nasty taste in the mouths of many PC retailers down here, thus the poor retail market for Soyo, no news there

As for Hsing Tech products, I've owned an Elpina M571... and one of the only unofficial support sites is an Australian site M571 page

Just because we don't have a large Soyo market, doesn't make us a technological backwater... DFI, Gigabyte, Asus, Abit, MSI, Aopen, Soltek, PCchips, ECS, Shuttle, Chaintech, Asrock, Foxconn & Leadtech, are all relatively easy to obtain

[arneson]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

Tech backwater ha haha, that makes where I am the Tech Toilet, I live in the Everglades..
I really think the ausie tech magazines are excellent, get on the Ham radio and If it's English it's an ausie. My first video chat was with an Ausie and an Italian and a Pole, all at the same time. I always thought they were ahead of the curve.

[tazwegion]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

Thanks Jim, my brother has his advanced amateur radio licence (they changed all the levels here), I did the study, but decided computers were more interesting, occassionally I still build an antenna or two but not much else

[PCBONEZ]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

I did say fake (plastic) & omited cache chips, Soyo marketed motherboards in Australia with empty cache sockets (to keep manufacturing costs down), the lasting result of which left a nasty taste in the mouths of many PC retailers down here, thus the poor retail market for Soyo, no news there

It wasn't about manufacturing costs.
And empty cache sockets had nothing to do with the fake cache BS.
Empty cach sockets were NORMAL.

It was about the cost of memory chips at the time.
Most if not -ALL- manufacturers sold motherboards with onboard cache as optional. Asus certainly DID. Memory was EXPENSIVE. At that time motherboards even with minimal cache could cost double what those without cache did. Using cache sockets on the board but with no installed cache was NORMAL. It cut buyer's intial cost and allowed them to upgrade later.
~ Asus (amoung others) was still doing this well into socket 7 motherboards with those 'cache modules' that looked like system memory modules.

The fake cache was about putting chunks of plastic on boards to make it -look- full. The origional idea wasn't even to deceive anyone. It was a legit marketing play. Make it 'pretty' and it will sell easier. (No different than adding trim to a car.) For most of those 'fake cache' boards if the buyer bothered to READ THE BOX it said right on it that there was zero cache installed. The buyers -assumed- there was cache and got pissed when they later discovered there wasn't. They got even more pissed when they tried to return it and the retailer pointed to the specs on the box clearly stating zero cache.
- Yes several companies outright lied but probably not most. The real bad ones actually altered the BIOS so it reported cache when there wasn't any. The only bad cache board I personally came across had the altered BIOS.
.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: soyo-k7v dragon plus

As for Hsing Tech products, I've owned an Elpina M571...

I've been through roughly 250 Hsing Tech boards. These were all socket 7 erra boards. At that time I had a deal with a local retailer. He would give me all his returned motherboards and I'd test them. If I could get them working I'd give him $10 and sell the board for what I could get. (This was a very good time for me. I was selling them easily for $40 to $50 each.) - 90-95% had nothing wrong with them. Most of the time the only problem was the buyer used the wrong jumper settings. To be honest, those boards were fairly well built. The biggest problems were lousy manuals and glitchy BIOS codes. Hsing Tech usually shipped them without a BIOS chip, then the buying company would install their own BIOS code and chip. The ones that got cruddy BIOS codes were the ones that were unstable. It was tricky but I learned for certain make/models of boards if I cross flashed the BIOS I could get a rock solid board.
- What I mean is I'd figure out which (say) Eurone motherboard was on the same Hsing Tech PCB as which (say) Amptron board. Then I'd flash the Eurone board with the Amptron BIOS. (I would only do this if I couldn't get it stable with the origional distributor's BIOS.) I probably salvaged 30 otherwise unusable motherboards that way.
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