Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.soyo (
More info?)
Bill Smith wrote:
> I have an application for this board in a PC running a CNC milling
> machine (I need at least one ISA slot). Can anyone give me some
> idea as to the reliability of it. Ease of set up is important.
We've bought about 40 of these boards in the past 2 years for the same
reason (need 1 ISA slot). We install identical hardware in it each
time (80 gb drive, Intel P-4 (celeron) 2.6 Ghz cpu, Nvidia video card,
LG CD/RW, 256 or 512 mb ram, etc). Systems that are shipped have XP
pro. A number of these boards are used for general office computers
running Win-98 or 2K.
We've had good luck with them.
What I/O addresses and/or DMA, IRQ addresses does your ISA board use?
Ours just uses I/O ports and there was one conflict with a smart-card
interface on the Soyo so we moved our address so it wouldn't conflict.
One thing to look out for: Seems that the availability of CPU's for
this board is kinda wierd. You're going to be looking for a
non-Prescott P-4 and from what I can tell they're not as available now
as they were a few months ago.
I think that by non-Prescott, they mean "Northwood". I've heard
conflicting info that a Socket 478 Prescott will work on a motherboard
designed for a Socket-478 Northwood, but I haven't tried that on this
Soyo.
Make sure the vendor you get the Soyo from will also supply you with a
compatible CPU you've got in mind.
> I plan so set up a dual boot system, with Win 98 in the other
> partition for file management and wireless communication with
> my office PC.
No need to set up a dual-boot (DOS/Win-98). If the DOS software
doesn't run in a command-prompt DOS window under 98, then you can
simply set up a boot menu in your config.sys and when the computer
starts, it will give you a choice as to which section of the menu it
will follow. One choice can be DOS, the other Win-98. For the DOS,
the last statement in your autoexec.bat is simply "command.com" which
will just leave you at the DOS prompt. I've done this lots of times
on a Win-98 system that I wanted the choice to boot into 98 or into
DOS only.
Here's a sample of the config.sys you can use. It assumes your
windows is installed in "c:\win98". Some items are rem'd out (they
pertain to CD-rom support). Activate them if you want to access a
CD-rom drive while running under pure DOS.
-------------------------------
(contents of config.sys file)
[menu]
menuitem=dos,DOS
menuitem=win98,Windows 98
MENUDEFAULT=win98,30 'this sets the default boot method, and
'the number of seconds that you have to
'select another option before this one
'will start automatically
[dos]
DEVICE=C:\WIN98\HIMEM.SYS /verbose
DEVICE=C:\WIN98\EMM386.EXE NOEMS VERBOSE
rem
rem if you need EMS memory available to your DOS program,
rem then rem the above line and un-rem the following line:
rem
rem DEVICE=C:\WIN98\EMM386.EXE D=64 A=15 VERBOSE
rem
DOS=HIGH,UMB
BUFFERSHIGH=50,0
FILESHIGH=50
STACKSHIGH=32,512
rem
rem use one of the following lines if you want CD-rom
rem support while running in DOS mode. This assumes
rem you have a c:\dos directory containing one of these
rem CD-rom drivers:
rem
rem DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\CDROM.SYS /D:MSCD001 /DMA
rem DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\CDTECH.SYS /D:MSCD001 /UDMA2 /V
rem DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\MTMCDAI.SYS /D:MTMIDE01
SWITCHES /F /W
BREAK=ON
[win98]
DEVICE=C:\WIN98\HIMEM.SYS /verbose
DEVICE=C:\WIN98\EMM386.EXE NOEMS D=64 A=15 VERBOSE
DOS=HIGH,UMB
BUFFERSHIGH=64,0
FILES=64
SWITCHES /F /W
BREAK=ON
------------------------------------
Here's the necessary autoexec.bat you'll need. If you need mouse or
CD-rom support under DOS, then un-rem the rem'd lines in the
OS
section. I like having DOSKEY running, so that's why it's there. The
setting I use result in the most available RAM do DOS by using LH
(load-high) commands. Smartdrv also makes DOS run faster. If you
need EMS memory for your DOS application, then modify the EMM386 stuff
in the config.sys.
-----------------------
(contents of autoexec.bat)
goto %config%
OS
LH C:\WIN98\SMARTDRV.EXE A- B- C+ /V 4096 4096 /E:8192 /B:8192
rem LH C:\DOS\mouse.exe
rem LH C:\WIN98\COMMAND\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001 /V /S /M:8
LH C:\WIN98\COMMAND\doskey
SET TEMP=C:\WIN98\TEMP
SET PATH=C:\WIN98;C:\WIN98\COMMAND
PROMPT $p$g
LH c:\command.com
goto end
:win98
rem LH C:\DOS\mouse.exe
LH C:\WIN98\COMMAND\doskey
SET TEMP=C:\WIN98\TEMP
SET PATH=c:\win98;c:\win98\command
PROMPT $p$g
goto end
:end
----------------------
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram