Soyo 6BA+III and IV question

[Mr B]

HI,

Would I be correct in stating that the only difference between these two boards is that the IV supports ATA-66 hard drives?

Thanks in advance!

Mr B

 

[wild_andy_c]

and has am advanced Soyo Combo setup. And is more stable.

The plus 4 is a far superior to the plus 3 which is still a fine board.

Soyo Rule - SY7VCA beltin it all the way!

 

[Mr B]

Thanks wild andy,

I was asking because a pair of 6BA+III's turned up. Both have problems. One does not boot, and the other has bad PS/2 ports. The guy was selling the pair for $20, and said that SOYO quoted a price of about $20 per board to fix. It kinda sounds like if I swap the BIOS chips board to board, I might get a fully functional one. At least, I'm hopin'......

It's a roll of the dice, but .......got the fingers crossed I'll get lucky again.

I just got my new P III 600E in today. (slot1) Guy listed it at e-BAY as a Celeron 600E, for $75. Got lucky then......

Thanks!

Mr B

 

[DaveB]

Both are great boards, but like wild_andy_c said, the +IV is better. It's a later design that improved the +III in many areas in addition to the HPT366 controller. I've been running the +IV since April and it's the most stable board you can get. And it overclocks great. Get one you won't be dissapointed. With the % core changes in the BIOS it's ideal for overclocking with a slotket/FC-PGA setup. Whatever you set as the base core on the slotket, you can adjust upward by 2.5%, 5%, 7.5%, and 10% in the BIOS. So you never run out of core voltage settings. Plus it works great with SoftFSB.

Want even more for under $100? Get the latest version, the +100 which includes ATA100 and IDE RAID. You may not need it, but again there have been other improvements on the board. My +IV is so stable, reliable, and overclockable, I'm passing on an upgrade this year. I'll wait till the next generation of P4 (Brookdale) or AMD (whatever runs a Mustang core) chipsets come out late this year before considering replacing this board.

Oopz. I'm a little late. I type like a retard so it takes a while. I think I saw those two boards on eBay, but had no use for one. The +III is still one fine board. Good luck getting one running. But seriously, who cares about the PS/2 port? Just use a serial or USB mouse. As for the the PIII 600 misidentified as a Celeron, some guys are just too lucky!

 

[Mr B]

Good memory Dave!

Thats precisely where I'm getting them from.

I'll be EXTREMELY happy if I can just swap the BIOS chips and get one good one. Just got my P III today, and after playing around w/ it, will get 720 at default voltage. My current mb doesn't have provision for vcore adjustment.

So.....

Back in the box it goes, until I get a board that I can manipulate the vcore, and I get an Alpha hsf for it.

Hows 720 at default with the intel hsf look. I mean, any ideas on what I might expect with an Alpha, and higher voltage, based on these numbers??

Mr B

 

[DaveB]

My PIII 700 has been at 994 MHz since October when I upped the core to 1.95V. Before that, it ran for over 3 months at 970 MHz with the core at 1.89V. I use an Iwill Slotket II and an Alpha PEP66 which keeps the temp to 34C max. The CPU is a cB0 stepping version I picked up back in early June. It will run up to 1050 MHz, but not stable. It's stable in most apps at 1011 MHz, but I keep it at 994 MHz where it never crashes.

With the retail H/S, I was able to get it to 933 MHz, but the temp was holding me back - it got to 45C or so under load as I recall. I'm sorry but I don't think I ever ran it at the default 1.65V. I started it out at 1.75V and 840 MHz for a couple of days and then moved up from there. I took about a month to coax it up to 970 MHz. I figured why not be a little cautious, I mean what's the rush.

I'm using CAS2 Mosel Vitalic SDRAM I picked up over at http://www.kdcomputers.com/. It goes for $61.50 for a 128 MB stick right now, and they have cheap shipping. Plus they sell Alphas and Iwill Slotkets at a good price and don't pile on shipping costs as you add additional items. They are pricey for CPUs and Motherboards, so I only buy H/S fans, slotkets, and SDRAM from them. I've got two sticks of their Mosel running set at 2-2-2 with FSB at 142 MHz. The stuff ran at 155 MHz when I was testing a PIII 533EB for a friend, so it's good stuff at a reasonable price.