Need to Rant... Soyo motherboard

[mr.photoguy]

Ok so I have this Soyo P4x400 Ulra Plantinum Motherboard, and I sware to god it is the most annoying motherboard I have ever seen operate in my life. From day one this thing does nothing, but freeze up on me, no matter what type of memory I have in it. I sware I was about 2 minutes from throwing this thing out the window.
I tried to copy a dvd yesterday just to test out my new DVD burner, and the stupid pc just kept freezing on me, and locking up... I have 1.25 Gigs of memory, and plenty hard drive space. The thing is ... I had a Asus board running on AMD 1.8 with all the same components, and I switched boards, and have had nothing but problems.

I don't know why listened to my friend, and purchased this Soyo.

[4nR]

what kind of memory are you using? sometimes unrecommended mem can screw up your pc. also, what kind of power supply are you using? a low power supply can also lock up your pc.

[Jackal]

Why is this in the photo sharing section?

I use an Abit Ai7 where with my litte oven a.k.a the 3.2ghz P4 Prescott core. Everything runs fine! I'd recommend Abit or Asus over anything else. Both are super excellent.

[mr.photoguy]

what kind of memory are you using? sometimes unrecommended mem can screw up your pc. also, what kind of power supply are you using? a low power supply can also lock up your pc.
I am running Kinston Memory 2 512's.. I don't have the exact specs right now.
As for power supply, I am running a 350, or 400 watt unit that came with the pc case.

[mr.photoguy]

sorry, about posting this in the wrong section,
could the moderator please move this ..
I thought I clicked off topic.

thanks
B

[dannym]

I've had problems with that motherboard. Had to replace 2 of them at my expense. Try Soltek, it's a good stable MB. I get my stuff from newegg.com. Decent prices and fast shipping.

[mr.photoguy]

Thanks Danny.. I am just highly annoyed at this point.
I am gonna order another board the first chance I get.
Bad news is, I don't know what to do with this board.
I may just send it back to Soyo, but I doubt it's still under warranty, and it's only like 2 years old, or less.

[Rob612]

Motherboards today have only 3 names: Asus, Abit and Intel. The rest is just a joke. IMHO, of course.

[mr.photoguy]

So true ...
that's why I just ordered these.
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131484
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811133132

Soon I am going to order a better video card, and a 200 gig Seagate hard drive (strictly for my photo's)

[felix21685]

yeah i had a soyo ultra board and it gave me errors like you wouldnt believe now i have a abit and this thing is smooth..like its supposed to be..

[Citizensmith]

Motherboards today have only 3 names: Asus, Abit and Intel. The rest is just a joke. IMHO, of course.

Funny, never used any of them, and a large number of computers later (I build them for family and friends) never had any problems.

Saying any one manufacturer is good is like saying all Fords are good. They all build lemons, you've just got to know how to spot them.


And getting back to the original post. I assume you reformatted between switching motherboards, and loaded at the least the drivers that came with the board. Anything less is asking for trouble.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Especially when you leave out my favorites..
Tyan and SuperMicro... but that's for Duallies... I do like Abit.. my first Abit was waaaay back,.. there very first jumperless "softmenu" board.. with an AMD K6 233 :lol: :lol:
The first "Overclockers" board ;)

Mr> Photoguy,. one question.. from your posts it sounds almost as if you swapped Mobo's without a reinstall of the OS?.. am I just reading it wrong? Doing that would surely be likely to lead to trouble.

[Rob612]

I admit that I forgot SuperMicro. :D With Tyan I had horrible experiences.

[Moppie]

Im a real Gigabyte fan.

A mate has an old gigabyte board from 1995. It no longer sits in a complete case, just a frame that holds the power supply. The M/B and HDD are sitting on the frame, with the HDD sitting where ever it falls inside the frame, usualy on top of the M/B.
The CPU is no longer held in by its orginal clamp, instead its tied into its socket with some cotton, and the fan is held ontop of the heat sink with blutack, the heat sink itself is still held on to the chip by the orginal heat transfer material.
As you can imagine its not the prettiest looking pile of jumk, BUT, it still works.
It still boots up, infact he still use's it as part of his network, and its one of the most stable PC's Iv ever known. Its even survived two power supply failures, one of them explosive.

[lostdoggy]

I hope you have alot of fans and the power supply is stable. Did you check the CPU temp. Your problem sounds alot like overheating. If it is an OS problem which I have alot of experience in crashing my computer it would boot erraticly. I also had experience in overheating bought a xtra fan and then bought a power supply w two fan but I'm only running 2.8G. The other problem would be the CPU is not sitting tight against the Heat sink or the heat transfer paste has expired when you used it. Just my thoughts.

[mr.photoguy]

Especially when you leave out my favorites..
Tyan and SuperMicro... but that's for Duallies... I do like Abit.. my first Abit was waaaay back,.. there very first jumperless "softmenu" board.. with an AMD K6 233 :lol: :lol:
The first "Overclockers" board ;)

Mr> Photoguy,. one question.. from your posts it sounds almost as if you swapped Mobo's without a reinstall of the OS?.. am I just reading it wrong? Doing that would surely be likely to lead to trouble.
Cyber, at first when I switched from my Asus Altholon XP1.8 to the Soyo p4 2.66, I didn't have to reinstall the O.S. I just updated the mother board drivers with the soyo disc, and everything booted up fine. Ofrcourse a little while after the freezing started. I have changed memory, reformated, checked my cpu, and cooling fan for overheating, and none have any issues. The same thing will still persist.

I am going back to the brand that did me justice, ASUS.
This is not to say that other boards are not good, but I am a virgo, lol I like to stick with what works for me.. hahaha....

I have seen reviews after the fact of purchasing this board of people complaining that it has freezing, lock up problems. I had another friend that had issues with just getting the O.S. to boot up.

I have other friends that have different MODEL Soyo boards that work good, however I am staying away from soyo..

[mr.photoguy]

I hope you have alot of fans and the power supply is stable. Did you check the CPU temp. Your problem sounds alot like overheating. If it is an OS problem which I have alot of experience in crashing my computer it would boot erraticly. I also had experience in overheating bought a xtra fan and then bought a power supply w two fan but I'm only running 2.8G. The other problem would be the CPU is not sitting tight against the Heat sink or the heat transfer paste has expired when you used it. Just my thoughts.
Indeed, I ordered more heat transfer paste with my current order.
My temps tend to stay pretty normal for the most part.
I have one Fan in the rear, one in the front of the case, and one of the cpu(as usual). There is also the power supply one to.

Anyhow as the above link shows, the new case has way more fans, I have a Vornado fan so I will probably install it. That sucker is supposed to move some air. lol.

[Andrew Pratt]

I highly recomend a fresh install of the OS with the new board. While you can often get away with not going that route trust me it'll save you time in the long run.

[mr.photoguy]

I may consider doing a reformat.
I will see how the system runs.
Currently it is nice, and clean .. no virus.. no hang ups. . The main drive for the OS is nice, and spacious..

I just tracked my new board, and case. I found out they are on the truck to be delivered out today..

If it actually does show up today, I am installing everything, and getting it up and running...
You know my impatient behind can't wait.

I don't know what I will do with the Soyo board, I am going to leave it in the other case, and probably just sell it to someone for like 150 (case, and board).

[Citizensmith]

I highly recomend a fresh install of the OS with the new board. While you can often get away with not going that route trust me it'll save you time in the long run.

I agree. Windows has a great tendancy for finding a half decent driver it thinks will work and using it without bothering to actually tell you. It may well end up sticking with drivers suited for your old board, even though there are better ones available for the new one.

If anyone is really paranoid about heat build up there is an increasing number of BTX cases and boards becoming available. They help a great deal.

[mr.photoguy]

Thanks Citizen..
I installed everything, but getting the big blue screen ..
I need to get my xp disc, so I can boot it up.. then reformat everything..
Althought I don't want to .. hehe..

[mr.photoguy]

ok finished up the install and ohh my gosh is it running swift..

way faster than the soyo system .. This is amazing.

[mdm]

The amd chip speed can be dropped down a notch and that will solve the locking-up issue.

[mr.photoguy]

amd.. ? - no that was my old old board. my 1st asus.
my soyo was a p4 2.66

[mdm]

ok, hope you got everything running well.

[mr.photoguy]

indeed it's running like a dream ...
here are some pics..

http://www.pbase.com/brucescott/gallery/my_pc

http://www.pbase.com/brucescott/image/43264317.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/brucescott/image/43264318.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/brucescott/image/43264319.jpg

[Citizensmith]

indeed it's running like a dream ...
here are some pics..


Ha! Geek! :) :)

Posting photos of your computer huh. I'd never do anything like that. No really. Oh, and I find the case lights definitely make them go faster.

[Citizensmith]

Here's mine.

[mr.photoguy]

hahha... your to funny.

I just need to find a good way to clean up all the power wires, and get myself a decent video card.
My video card sucks major balls right now.