Soyo SY-6BA
- BIOS Version: 2A9 (September 8, 1998)
- Board Revision: unknown
- External clock speeds: 66, 68, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112, 133 MHz
- Slots: 5x full size PCI, 2x full size ISA, full size AGP
- Memory: 4x DIMM
The layout of this board leaves quite much free space. Maybe that's why the connectors for speaker, reset etc. are labeled this time (with the 6BB and 6BE they are not; you can imagine how funny it is to find them out in case you don't have a manual). However, thanks to the larger board three fan connectors have been placed on it (two for chassis fans).
The item to disable the usage of an IRQ for the USB has not been forgotten and works properly. In the BIOS you also have to set up your CPU; overclockers will be glad to hear that you can freely chose between the whole spectrum of front side bus speeds and multipliers. Other Soyo boards are slightly faster and besides don't have problems with two 256 MB memory modules. Only 384 MB are recognized. The special 64 MB PC-66 XXL SDRAM runs, but (as expected) only as 32 MB type.
Soyo SY-6BA+
- BIOS Version: 2BA3 (September 30, 1998)
- Board Revision: unknown
- External clock speeds: 66, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112, 124, 133 MHz
- Slots: 5x full size PCI, 2x full size ISA, full size AGP
- Memory: 4x DIMM
Soyo is offering four single BX motherboards at the momemt, and the differences are so small that many of you may be confused about the (non existent) differences. The 6BA+ is a more narrow version of the 6BA. You can recognize it at the green BIOS version line while booting. Overclockers listen up: This board is hot! Except the common frequencies of up to 112 MHz you can also set 133 or the exotic 124 MHz bus speed. The so called Soyo "combo setup" lets you define all necessary settings; it's also possible to specify the AGP clock divisor. Usually it is 1.5, but for some cases it could be advantageous to revert to the option of / 1, which means external clock = AGP clock. But be careful: At 133 MHz FSB the AGP bus will also run at 133 MHz! Be warned that there's no card which would even bear 100 MHz at the moment. This setting has a complete different origin: I would use the /1 setting in case of e.g. 75 MHz FSB. So you can get an (overclocked) AGP bus running at 75 MHz as well instead of the slow 50 MHz. When playing around with the different possible settings you will see that you always get the CPU and AGP speed resulting of the settings you have chosen before. However, I have to notice this again: Be careful with this option...
One feature has to be mentioned which I have not seen before: You can chose whether the CPU fan stops in suspend mode or not. For low end servers (mailbox, answering machine or similar) which run in accomodations this setting may be useful since it helps to reduce the noice level as well as the power consumption. My memory tests ended disappointing: Only 256 MB were detected in case of two installed 256 MB modules, and if I used 64 MB modules I found a strange bug: 2x 64 MB lead to 64 MB usable. 3x 64 MB end in 128 MB usable. "Of course" the "big" 64 MB module didn't run as well, all the same that is no reason to worry about. Old BIOS versions have a known bug: In case you are using an Adaptec PCI SCSI adapter, it can happen that this device is initialized twice and two drive letters are determined for one drive
Soyo obviously developed a motherboard specifically for freaks and overclockers. For those people, the board is a good choice. I don't know if the memory troubles do apply only to our test sample or to all boards, but as long this is not clarified a unlimited recommendation is taboo of course.
