Soyo Dragon +

[Guest]

Just to make sure there is no confusion I am talking about the KT266A chipset.

I was wondering if anyone has bought this board that can tell me what they think, pros cons. Also how is the support of this company (Bios upgrades, and general customer support).

It's the simple things that kick you in the butt!

 

[Guest]

I've had this board about a month now. I sent an e-mail to them over a week ago & I still have not heard back. I tried to call them first, but I gave up after waiting 20 min. on hold. I think two of my IDE ports are bad, but I'm not sure if it's the drivers either. Over all I can't recommend it right now. But this is also the first time I have tried to build my own system, so it could be me too.

I couldn't come up with anything funny 8(

 

[pat]

I have this board for about 2 months now and I love it. everithing is fine, run fast, and it is very very stable. This is the best system I ever build, owned.

I run this board with An AMD XP1700+, the latest BIOS,an Ati Radeon 64DDR VIVO, a TEAC burner, LG DVD player, on-board sound (realy good,for on-board too), 2 X 256 megs of RAM and a IBM deskstar 40 Gigs HD. I've tried it with Win98SE, 2000 and XP and I still have to find something that wont run stable. In fact, I dont remember having crashed once since I installed and keep clean Win 2000 and XP (maybe one month, I spend the first month trying different drivers, progs, partition size, ...., so reinstalled so often the OS and drivers that I cannot remember how it was at first..)


Hope that this info will help you.

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[pat]

Are you talking about the 2 yellow RAID connectors? if yes, then if you want to use them as non-raid connector, then you have to set a jumper on the board. Check your manual. Once the jumper is set, go in you BIOS and activate the onboard Promise IDE Raid, in SOYO combo feature. Take note that you have to enable the USB port each time you go in this menu. Then your drive should be recongnized by the system. But you have to have a HD connected there, not a CDROM or DVD, burner. These are ATA100 connector, so use ATA100 drive for best performance. If later you want to use the RAID function, you will have to set the jumper and follow the instructions in your manuel.

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[Guest]

well its a pretty motherboard.

"I might be ignorant, but I'm not stupid."

 

[Guest]

Thanks, that is it. I have done what you discribed, by connecting my second drive there, with out luck. I'll have to check it out one more time, but that is what I did. T

Thank you, I forgot those were the ATA 100 connectors.

I couldn't come up with anything funny 8(

 

[pat]

Is the drive you connected there was an ATA 100? If your boot drive is ATA100, try it there. I have to see a ATA66 working with those connector. You can boot from these connectors too. I have tried this setup once: My HD connected to one yellow connector, my DVD to the ATA66 and my burner to the ATA onboard (blue)connector and everithing was fine, except for longest boot time du to Promise BIOS shearching for drive.

Do you see the black screen with 'Promise bios version...bla bla... and shearching for installed drive...'?

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[jlanka]

I've had it for a month and I love it. Rock solid, fast, easy to config. I think AMD may have finally hit a home run with the 266A

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[Guest]

Hey guys,

i got a question for this board. i had just received this today along with my xp 1700. my question is that retail box says that there is cpu temp monitoring through a thermal sensor. the problem is that i don't see it. is it suppossed to be like the one that is in the socket as in the abit kt7?

thanks

 

[Guest]

I like: The thing won't crash, rock solid.
I don't like: butt uggly sound software does any one knows if it can be replaced?
Weird: mic-in is drowned in loud background noise. any one experienced this?

 

[IntelConvert]

FWIW, an experienced Athlon-system builder friend bought and exchanged 3 Dragon+'s at Fry's Electronics (in L.A.) before getting one that worked. Don't know if it's just coincidence, but the first 2 (bad) boards had a <b>'+' sticker</b> on the board whereas the <b>'+' was silkscreened</b> on the 3rd (good) one!

 

[FatBurger]

The KT266a is a drop-in solution, so they could have been clearing out the last of their KT266 boards by slapping two KT266a chips on instead.

How long was it between the three different boards?

<font color=orange>Quarter</font color=orange> <font color=blue>Pounder</font color=blue> <font color=orange>Inside</font color=orange>

 

[Guest]

Seems like you're a Soyo pro. I have a question to ask you if you dont mind giving your expertise out. When I bootup, I dont get video, I get a series of long beeps within an interval. That's all I'm getting. I didn't know that you have to connect your HDD to one of those yellow connectors. I thought HDD connects to IDE1 connector.
Thanks in advance.

 

[pat]

humm! Try to reseat all you card, especialyth AGP. They are sometime tight to insert. Check if your memory in well seated and in slot 1 for the first. Slot 1 is written om the bord.

If you still have trouble, then give me more indication on the post code, as how many beeps, and how long each.

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[Guest]

I get a continuos beeps, each beep lasts for 2 to 3 seconds. I dont get anything on the screen either. When I apply Artic Silver II thermal compound on the CPU core, I accidently got a tiny bit of the compound on the CPU itself, just outside of the CPU core. Would that affect my CPU? Please help. THanks

 

[khha4113]

I get a continuos beeps, each beep lasts for 2 to 3 seconds.

Your RAM is either bad or not fully seated. Try to reseat them. Make sure the DIMM's clips snap into RAM's notches (don't use too much force though).

I accidently got a tiny bit of the compound on the CPU itself, just outside of the CPU core. Would that affect my CPU?

Mine too but it's still working fine (TBird 1000C@1400MHz).

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[pat]

If it is 1 long beep and 3 short beeps, then it in the videocard. if it is continuous beeps, then it is memory. If you have 2 mem modules, try with just one. If it doesnt work, try the other one. As for the artic silver paste on your CPU, if it doen not contact with the bridge, then you should not have problem with that.

Try to move the power connector in the motherboard connector. Some motherboard has problem with that too.



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[Guest]

Thanks for your information khha4113 and Pat, you guys are awesome. I tried what you told me but it still beeps. I then bring it back to Fry's Electronics and have one of the tech take a look at it. He used his own memory and CPU and it still beeps then we swapped another motherboard and test it with my memory and CPU, this time it works, no more beeps. So it's a motherboard defect. Since Soyo Dragon Plus doesn't have an onboard video, I purchased an Xtasy 5864, 64MB DDR Memory, 175 MHz Processor Speed, 256-bit GPU, with nVidia g-force2 Ti technology, no video. Then I tried an Xtasy 5564 with nVidia g-force2 MX 400 technology, still no video, both are AGP cards. Both cards were installed correctly. Any suggestions or recommendations of video card that I should use for this motherboard?

Thanks again guys.

 

[pat]

No video at all or you can see it boot and then loose the video when the os start to boot? because it should works with every video board you throw in there. A least, try with a PCI just to check if the board will boot. If you are able to go in the BIOS, check somewhere to see if the option 'assign int to VGA' or something like this is enable. Maybe some video board, like my ATI can works without interruption.But it looks like another bad board or you do something that kill your board when you put togheter your system.

Just for your info, my system:

dragon+ and amd 1700+
2X256 megs RAM
ATI radeon 64DDR VIVO
IBM Deskstar 40 gigs
TEAC 24x10x40x burner
LG DVD drive

All of this is working great, I've got only one Windows crash in one month with XP and it was today...And my fault!

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[Guest]

The board boots fine, but no video at all. I get nothing when I turn on the PC, except for 2 words, "No Signal" on my monitor. I dont think I killed the board because I touch the case first to ground myself. My CPU and menory is working fine no more beeeps. Maybe I'll try the ATI Radeon and see what will happen. Thanks Pat.

 

[shaxs]

i want to get that board, maybe I will not....

 

[siranthony]

I have one and I like it alot. Remember that the people who come here to fix problems are probobly a very tiny fraction of the people who buy these boards. Two people with a problem doesn't mean you have a high chance of problems. I do recomend you buy any electronics from a store you can drive to and get help. Dealing with problems through the mail would certainly suck/

 

[Guest]

Pat;

Thanks, I'm a moron, I thought I only needed to enable the Promise raid in the BIOS if I was going to use it in the RAID config. I changed the BIOS & rehooked up the drives & everything is good. This system is very stable, not a single crash, even when I had the drives hooked up wrong.

I couldn't come up with anything funny 8(

 

[pat]

I'm happy to hear good news from you. You maybe not a moron...Sometime, evident things are the hardest thing to troubleshoot, because we look at them without too much attention.

enjoy your new toy!

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[Guest]

Pat, you're 100% correct. I grounded the board, that's why I couldn't get any video. Prior to installing the board in the case, I screw some gold looking pins on the board to support the motherboard. I also screw the other one on, the one that looks like a the letter "A" where you squeeze it in inorder to hook it on the board. That little critter grounded the board causes the video not to come up. I took them out and whala, I've got video. I read about enabling RAID that the last person talked bout. What does RAID do and how do I go about enabling it? Thanks again for your advices. You da man.