S754 and PCIe and NF4

[pat]

<A HREF="http://www.soltek.com.tw/soltek/product/products_all.php?isbn_st=SL-NF4-754RL" target="_new">from Soltek</A>

If it is as solid as my others Soltek board, it will be a nice one. Only 2 PCI slot thou...

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[monegard]

I must say I like the layout of that board: The RAM slots are far from the processor ensuring that you will fit any crazy cooling solution you might choose ( Zalman 7700 ). Also, The RAM slots are in the right, horisontal direction.
I also love that the north bridge fan is above the graphics card, so as to make it easy to replace that fan if it breaks or makes too much noise. Maybe a passive cooler for the nb, as long as you find one with low enough thermal resistance...

That said, I'm a bit sceptical about Soltek. I have and old amd athlon xp mobo called s75-drv5. I broke the first one about a year ago (after the fan on my GPU broke the agp slot somehow stopped working), and the one I have now has almost given up too. My system is quite instable. But then I also have a crap case and an insufficient PSU (thats y I'm upgrading atm ) so maybe I'm wrong to blame Soltek...

What are you going to use you computer for? 2 LAN slots is a nice feature this one lacks. Also whats up with only 2 ram slots?!

___________________________________________________
<i>formerly known as walterblackberry</i>

 

[pat]

Socket 754 are meant for budget user, so 2 RAM slot is enough and dont really need 2 LAN.

Soltek, as most motherboard has got some problems with bad caps. You can write their support with the model of your board and they send you new capacitors to fix your board. I had 1 SL-75FRN2-RL nforce2 socket A motherboard for myself and some other I used in built for some peoples. I then used a SL-K8AN2E-GR nforce3 socket 754 for myself and for some build too. I now have a Gigabyte nforce4 K8NF-9 that, even if it run good as of now, I will change when Soltek will have a socket 939 PCIe nforce4 motherboard.

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[monegard]

Thanks for the tip about the caps. I might just do that. Makes me feel like a true pc enthusiast too 😉

Thats a really nice <A HREF="http://www.motherboards.org/images/mobot/motherboards/8459.jpg?" target="_new">mobo</A> you have there. Why would you trade a high-end Gigabyte for a budget brand like Soltek? Please explain it to a stranger
Sata II? NF4 Ultra? I just don't get it.

___________________________________________________
<i>formerly known as walterblackberry</i>

 

[pat]

First, it has passive cooling, not the same that the picture you showed me. the large heat sink goes underneath the video card and that dont help if I wann to put a fan on it. then, while mine is perfectly stable with FSB up to about 235, I have problem with my PCI card that quit functionning at some moment, and I have to swith them to another slot to regain the usage. Annoying. Because I had my CPU running easily a 2.3 GHZ (from 1.8) but the board would not follow. So I guess tha the PCI lock is not quite functionning well on these board. But, as I said, running stock or fairly OCed, this board is solid.

My Soltek I had would POST way faster than this Gigabyte. This one take some time to detect my optical drive, the same that was in my Soltek. My soltek was feeling a bit snappier than this one. I had the same memory that I have on this one (Corsair twinX 2x512), with a 2.0 GHz 3000+ socket 754. Now, I have a 3000+ (1.8 stock, running now at 2 GHz, so same CPU speed). I would wait to see the Soltek nforce4 socket 939 board. I still dont know about the feature, but I guess that they should be close to the Gigabyte one. The thing I like from the Gigabyte is that it has spdif in and out on the motherboard, that I had to try anyway since it just make my soundcard stop....

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[monegard]

<b>Thanks, excellent info</b>. Sorry bout the bad pic, newegg seems to have the same <A HREF="http://images10.newegg.com/productimage/13-128-268-02.JPG" target="_new">one</A>.
They must have replaced that nb cooling on the newer boards?

Alarming about that pci port... Kinda makes you think twice about the quality of Gigabyte mobos (when OC:ing). Now that you mention it I have read that they don't overclock so well. But why not try a DFI Lanparty, or even better an MSI pcie NF4 card? You obviously have the money for it since you are already on a Gigabyte. You've reached some impressive overclocking results, why not get a board that can really handle it?

My Soltek POST pretty darn fast too, but the whole startup experience is ruined by the xp logon anyway. God I wish they didn't make me push enter everytime I want to start my computer!

___________________________________________________
monegard@gmail.com (mail me if you wan't an invite, I just got 50 extra)

 

[pat]

You dont haveto push enter everytime. You can download powertoy for winxp (on Microsoft web site) and set autologon to the user you want and the computer will boot right to that user screen. Note that if you have .NET framework installed, then you will have to press enter anyway. I removed it from my system for that reason.

There is nothing alarming about the PCI slot. I mean, this board is a budget board anyway so you cannot expect it to be a better OC board than an expensive one. Why not DFI? Well, I dont plan to overclock all the time. So having a highly priced motherboard, to run my CPU at 1.1 GHZ almost 90% of the time with cool n quite doenst worth it. I can live very well with my 3000+ being clocked at 2.1, 2.2 GHz and I dont need higher. Going higher will mean having better cooling for the whole system, making it way noisier than it is now and that I dont want.

And never...read it NEVER, another MSI board will make it to my system... I had to much bad experiences with them and I dont trust them any more.. Just like Asus. They came up with boards with desing flaw that make me wonder about the quality of Asus board, and they are still a bit more expensive that some other.

If it is not wronk, why fix it? I always beed well served by Soltek, and until they came up with a problematic board that will give me some headaches, I will stick with them if they have the features I need.



-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[monegard]

All good points. Only a week ago I was convinced ASUS always had and always will make the best mobos. Now I'm not so sure anymore. I think I'll set up a poll about which mobo manufacturer most people have experienced trouble with. As for me, I'm tired of soltek, and I wan't to try something new be it MSI, DFI, Epox or even ASUS. But you have really made me wonder if good old Soltek hasn't been offering the best price/performance ratio all along.

BTW thanks for the auto-logon tip. Been trying to fix that for weeks, and now it finally works! Yipee!

___________________________________________________
monegard@gmail.com (mail me if you wan't an invite, I just got 50 extra)

 

[pat]

I just found that about new board from soltek..

<A HREF="http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Cebit2005/Day4/3" target="_new">New motherboard from Soltek</A>

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[schuy1]

Regarding the "push enter to get into windows" You dont have to uninstall .net framework at all, go to user accounts and after .net is installed it adds a new profile its called "ASP.NET machine" delete that account and it no longer makes you press enter, and you keep the .NET package

 

[pat]

hehe... good to know.. Thanks!

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[monegard]

I just found that about new board from soltek..

New motherboard from Soltek

Sweet! Great layout, nice color. Will probably be quite well priced. Hope to see some reviews on this one soon...

I'm keeping .Net uninstalled until I see a real need for it. Thanks for the tip anyhow. (still on cloud nine from seeing my computer startup completely automatically w autologon )

___________________________________________________
monegard@gmail.com (mail me if you want an invite, I just got 50 extra)