Soyo SY-6BA+IV i440BX ATX
Sadly the BX chipset is
getting long in the tooth and we’ll all be making our future purchasing decisions
on boards that will feature either Intel’s new i810/15/20 chipsets and VIA’s
new 133 chipsets. While the BX has soldiered on for quite some time it is
beginning to lack luster due to features being released with these newer chipsets.
But that doesn’t mean that BX boards can’t hold their own against these new
chipsets. Far from it. Testing by many sites has shown that the BX chipset
handles memory usage much more efficiently than the new chipsets from Intel
and BX boards continue to beat VIA’s offerings (though VIA is making fast
improvements).
Soyo has made great efforts
in creating some quality boards as of late. Soyo’s 6BA series of boards have
steadily improved and the latest offering, the +IV, stands neck and neck with
Abit’s venerable boards. That’s quite an accomplishment since Abit boards
are known not only for their quality but also their overclocking ability.
First Impressions:
|
Features
|
The
Motherboard
|
- ATX form factor
- Supports Pentium
II/III and Celeron
- 4 SDRAM DIMM
sockets
- 5PCI, 2 ISA
(1 shared), and 1 AGP slot
- Two UltraDMA
33 Ports
- Two UltraDMA
66 Ports
- 2 USB ports
- FSB speeds: 66/
75/ 81/ 83/ 90/ 95/ 100/ 105/ 110/ 112/ 113/ 115/ 117/ 118/ 120/ 122/
124/ 126/ 133/ 135/ 137/ 138/ 140/ 142/ 144/ 150/ 155
|
|
When I slid the +IV out
of its protective bag I noticed that it was slightly narrower than many of
the other ATX boards I’ve come across. At the upper right corner of the board
is a green LED. This will let you know if the board is receiving power and
will eliminate a couple of steps should you have to troubleshoot any problems
with the initial bootup. Immediately obvious was that this board features
two ATA33 connector ports and two ATA66 connector ports. That gives this board
the ability to support a total of eight devices. These connectors are located
together at the right edge of the board making cable routing once installed
in a case a cinch. The ATX power connector is located behind the CPU socket
so there is no problem with it interfering with large heatsinks. Also included
with this board were a skimpy manual and an ATA66 ribbon cable along with
the normal floppy ribbon cable.
One flaw that immediately
became obvious was that the 4 DIMM slots are located very close to the CPU
socket. I would have liked to have tested with a larger heatsink but found
that the GlobalWin CPM-32 I used already came very close to the first DIMM
socket. A large Pentium II/III HSF or large socket-370 heatsink will definitely
cover the first DIMM socket and possibly two sockets. The combined narrowness
of this board and the placement of the ATA connectors meant that the DIMM
sockets are too close to the CPU socket for my taste.
Installation:
I used the Landmark
KS-299
case for installation of this
board. This case is a large mid-tower and is quite deep. This usually helps
when I’m mounting wide boards but that was definitely not needed with a narrow
board like the +IV.
I found that the connector
ports for the ATA33 and ATA66 are numbered strangely. From left to right they
are 2, 1, 3, and 4. You can use connectors 3 and 4 (ATA66 connectors) to boot
your HD by selecting a boot sequence in the BIOS that allows SCSI to boot
first. While this seems odd this has to do with the ATA66 controller on the
board being recognized as a SCSI device during initial bootup.
I installed a Celeron
366 with the use of an Abit SlotKet and the GlobalWin CPM-32 HSF that I mentioned
before. A word of caution: be certain to seat the SlotKet or CPU firmly into
the CPU socket. My first attempt felt right but upon startup, and after some
troubleshooting, it was discovered that the CPU indeed was slightly out of
the socket. Normally I would use the troubleshooting area in the supplied
manual with a board if something like this popped up. Unfortunately Soyo’s
manual only offered setup instructions and no troubleshooting tips. Abit packs
a very good manual with their boards and I think other manufacturers should
look at Abit’s manuals as the standard they should deliver their boards with.
The full manual is available on the supplied CD in a .pdf format. While that
allows a large amount of info to be viewed from one file it did me no good
while the system was not running.
The socket on this board
features a plastic support that is designed to help support a Pentium II/III
CPU by the use of their plastic shell. The SlotKet doesn’t have that type
of covering so it did not support the CPU as I would have liked. Abit boards
also feature a similar support – but the one they use works well with their
own SlotKet. I’m not sure if the CPU backed out due to the lack of support
or if I simply didn’t install it deep enough in the first place. This is a
minor area of concern unless you decide to mount a very large and heavy heatsink
on your socketed CPU (or unshrouded PII/III).
Once I figured out my
mistake with the CPU I entered the BIOS and went ahead and overclocked the
CPU to the 550 MHz I normally run it at. I normally run this CPU at 2.1 volts.
I had to do a little math to figure out that I needed to use 5.0% extra voltage
to achieve 2.1 volts. I’d rather see voltages set with number values but Soyo
does offer a good set of voltages to use for overclocking. I setup the rest
of the settings I normally use and went ahead and began working with this
board. This is one area where Soyo has really done a great job. I didn’t have
to touch a single jumper on this motherboard as all the adjustments were made
from within the BIOS a la ABIT SoftBIOS. Most importantly, I noticed no unusual
problems with this board while running several different applications.
One thing to take note
with this board is the large amount of FSBs available. Of special note to
Coppermine overclockers is the amount of available settings between 100 and
133 and the ability to run as high as 155 MHz. Celeron users will equally
enjoy being able to use the FSBs between 100 and 133. Having both a 112 and
113 setting and a 117 and 118 setting will allow Celeron users to max out
their CPU. The PCI bus is automatically set by the BIOS to a setting between
30 MHz and 41 MHz depending on the FSB you select.
Pros:
- On board ATA33 and
66 support (8 total)
- Large amount of available
FSBs
- Green LED lets you
know if you have powe r
to the board
- Rock solid stability
- Soft BIOS adjustment
Cons:
- The first two memory
slots are covered by large heatsinks
- A better manual with
troubleshooting tips would be a nice improvement
- The built in support
on the CPU socket doesn’t work with slocket adapters
Conclusions:
This is a great board
and so my gripes are actually all minor ones. The biggest problem that I can
see with this board is the placement of the DIMM sockets so close to the CPU
socket. This means anyone using a large heatsink will have to give up two
DIMM sockets. Depending on your memory configuration that may turn out to
be a big problem.
I was able to work around the small problem I encountered with the CPU support
system. With care that shouldn’t give anyone more difficulty than I had. I
recommend this board to anyone who is looking for a top-notch BX board and
especially to those who will be overclocking their CPU. This board is retailing
for approx. $140. This MB supports CPU temp reading through the onboard monitoring
available on Celeron, Pentium II, and Pentium III chips. Consider setting
up some sort of external temp monitor if you will be using a PPGA of FC-PGA
processor and your slocket does not support the on chip temp monitoring. Depending
on the slocket adapter you use to adapt a PPGA or FC-PGA CPU to this board
you may not have the on board temperature sensing connected. This is by a
design fault of the slocket itself, as was my Abit unit. It is my understanding
that the AOpen and MSI 6905 slockets will both give accurate temperature readings
from the on-die CPU temperature sensor when used with a PPGA or FC-PGA processor.
Victor Oshiro
00/02/20
