"Official" Soltek SL-75DRV2 thread

[Killrose]

Ok, since all the other motherboards seem to have their own thread, we Soltek owners need'nt be left out anymore. Post any questions here to help one another out or people inquiring about the board for recommendations can ask a question, and maybe we can shed our likes/dislikes about the board.

so far I do like the board, but one gripe I have is evidently the on-board hardware monitor will not detect fan speeds under 4000RPM. My fancy smancy Enermax rear fan runs at about 2500-2600RPM so It goes undetected. This is using the most current Hardware Monitor up-date from the Soltek site.
I contacted Soltek about this, and "Vincent" from the Taiwan site contacted me via email with-in 2 hours letting me know in broken email english (bless his heart), that it was true about the 4000RPM min.

Another gripe is the AGP slot does not have a lock on it and the small size of the board coulpled with the location of the IDE connectors makes you route the cables nearly rubbing against the AGP video card, and with the stiff ATA100 cables could cause a problem dissloging the rear of the AGP card.

But other than that I am happy so far, and like anyone else going from KTA133a to KT266a DDR knows, WOW these things really fly when you compare the two.

 

[Mltsao]

I do not have this board but i may plan to get it. Do owners of this board who also own other KT266A boards think it is a better board overall?

 

[yummer]

I've been running this board for about a week now with zero problems. Running Windows XP and have an Athlon XP 1600+ overclocked to 1507MHz (143MHz FSB) and have the memory (Crucial PC2100) running CAS2 and the "Fastest" BIOS memory setting. Everything is running at default voltage. I haven't tried to run at a faster FSB yet.. but wonder if I want to bother (everything runs so well right now!). So far I'm VERY pleased with the quality, stability, and performance of this board.

 

[Killrose]

I've been having a problem with my computer sutting down while playing online. I hear a "Beep", then auto shut down. At first I thought it was due to overclocking, so I backed it down, both mem timming and bus speed. Still would do it. I thought maybe it was due to heat, but when I re-booted and checked things out, the temps were far below the temps I had set for auto shut down. So finally I turned off the auto shutdown for the fan, and so far that seems to have taken care of it. My fan is an AOC which Mwave sells, and usually runs steady at around 4600 +/-100, and I've never witnessed it dropping below 4500rpm.
I hope they come out with a bios fix for not being able to read fan speed below 4000rpm, cause I think that is out of line with industry standards.

Other than that, having the thing for less than a week, I still like it.

 

[HmgStrider]

Hey, i'm thinking about getting one of these boards because my asus a7a266 is just plain gay. Paid too much for not so much performance. Did you gets get a sound blaster live card in that board with any problems because my friend couldn't get his sound blaster live into the shuttle ak31. It just kept on freezing on him so he gave up and just used the onboard sound. I don't want to use the onboard sound since i paid freaking 70 bucks for this card. Let me know if u had any problems.

 

[Killrose]

Hmgstrider, Did your friend try-out the latest Via drivers 4.37? I think this was an issue fixed in this, or a slightly earlier version.

 

[ColdFlare]

<< Hey, i'm thinking about getting one of these boards because my asus a7a266 is just plain gay. Paid too much for not so much performance. Did you gets get a sound blaster live card in that board with any problems because my friend couldn't get his sound blaster live into the shuttle ak31. It just kept on freezing on him so he gave up and just used the onboard sound. I don't want to use the onboard sound since i paid freaking 70 bucks for this card. Let me know if u had any problems. >>



wait a little longer, soltek will be one of the first to release new motherboards supporting the kt333 chipset.

 

[angrymaxx]

I'm putting together a new rig with this mobo. After reading a lot of reviews I decided to go with the alpha 8045 for my HSF even though it has to be modded. As a heads up for those that wanna use the alpha check out this link from AMDMB forums (which has a soltek mobo forum) for some details on the mod. When I get my system up and running I'll post O/Cing and benchmarking results here... Also www.svcompucycle.com has the 8045 on sale for $29.99 and I got the mobo from NCIX with this link (it has some promo ID that takes a couple more bucks off) but since their packaging sucks it might be better to get this board from newegg...

 

[woodie1]

Just got my 75DRV2 today. She's running okay. In the process if re-partitioning so haven't tried any benches yet.

 

[RagingGuardian]

Just hooked mine up today and it's running fine so far. It's a bit on the small side...makes my Lite-On FS020 look empty.

Anybody know which temp in the bios is for cpu? It just has temp 1 and 2. Right now Temp2 is at 55C and that's hotter than hell:Q I know it can't be my case temp because it's winter and the room is cool. My Dragon+ showed my cpu temps at no higher than 40C.

Also I have a serious problem with this board booting way too fast. Seems kinda silly but I like to look at my boot up screen to make sure that everything is running fine. The system boots so fast that I don't even get to see the boot up screen.

 

[Killrose]

Where did you put the Temp 2 monitor thermister? I put mine on my power cable and tie wrapped it to be just between my vid card/cpu heatsink. 55C for case temp is way out of line.

 

[whalen]

I think it says - 55 C if you havent hooked it up

 

[whalen]

Picture of Smart Guardian

Here is a picture of the Smart Guardian software reporting -55C for Temp2...i dont have the extra temp probe hooked up.

 

[Killrose]

Interesting, better hook-up your probe Gaurdian.

 

[flier]

I have a problem that someone might be able to help me with.
I can't get my SL-75DRV2 to clear the BIOS.
After running the system for two days and making sure that everything was working ok, I tried the Red Storm overclocking feature and the BIOS ran the FSB up to 153 then locked up. Ok. But it did not restart at a "safe" FSB settint like it should of. So reading further I read that I should turn the power off and then back on to complete the process. So I did. Now the board gives me two or three beeps and then the floppy drive starts to run. Settint the jumper to clear the BIOS settings did nothing, just beeps still.
The Bios is stuck at the failed settings and won't reset. Tried removing the battery for 24 hours and then reset and retry, no good, just the same damm beeps.
Tried the bare bones of mobo,cpu,and mem, same thing it just beeps.
Can't seem to get the BIOS back to the default settings at all.
:frown:
Anyone got any other ideas?


The set up is;

Soltek Sl-75DRV2
XP 1600+
Alpha PEP66 W/5500rpm Delta fan
256mb OCZ 2400DDR cl=2
WD 7200rpm 40gb
WD 7200rpm 20bg
Pioner DVD
Sony CDRW
Hollwood Magic Decoder card
Intel 21041 NIC
Nvida 400MX AGP
MX 300 PCI sound
Win Xp

:disgust::|

 

[RagingGuardian]

Hehe I'm so stupid. The second probe wasn't connected and I see no reason to connect it either. Now I'm reading my temps correctly I have my XP1500+ overclocked to 1800+ (10*150) with default voltage and a retail sink. I'm gonna try harder when I get a better sink. This board is awesome and so far it's been stable as he!!.

 

[Killrose]

Flyer, do your fans try to spin? Make sure your CPU is connected to Fan1 (the yellow one up top), maybe it is set to Auto shut-down for fan failure.

Try setting the on-board jumpers to a "locked" setting, especially a low multipler for the multipler switch set, they might over-ride the Red Storm...maybe.

 

[flier]

I tried to hard clock the board setting the FSB at both 100 and 133 along with the multi at "auto" and 10.5, even the voltage set at "auto" and 1.7. nothing so far has been able to get the board to POST or boot into the BIOS set up screen. I still get the same beeps and floppy run, like the BIOS is bad and the BIOS is looking for a reinstall of information from the floppy drive?
This is the 2nd board from newegg thats done this now, the first one I thought was just a bad board, so I did a RMA on it and got another. This seems to be a problem with the board / mem combo I'm using. Thats the only thing I can think of. I don't have any more DDR ram to try, but I will get some and see if that works. This however should not be the cause of the BIOS not resetting, should it?
:frown:

We'll keep trying and see what works!


Thanks for the idea and keep thinking of more please.

 

[Killrose]

If you cleared the CMOS, it probably defaulted to boot floppy enabled. I wonder what would happen if you removed the RedStom eprom? Or is that just a sticker they put on that?

 

[flier]

Hey, thanks for the idea! Tried it and the system won't do anything with the eprom removed from the socket, same as if the cpu, or memory were removed from the board.:disgust:

Sent a E-mail to the support@soltek.com.tw site and have not had any responce yet, two days now?

Tried to research the beep codes on the BIOS manuf. web site and found the codes to be saying that the video card is the problem! Taking the video card out still gives the same error codes, and trying another card sill gives the same error codes? Even tried a old PCI video card and ..... same error codes!
:|

I have never seen or herd of a BIOS not being able to be cleared / reset back to the defaul values?
And this is the 2nd board ( both SL-75DRV2 ) from newegg that has done this. The first I thought was just a bad board, so I did a RMA for the board I got now.

This has to be something with the Soltek Red Storm feature and the way it reports to the system BIOS. As if the BIOS resets but the Red Storm tells it to set a FSB at 153 ( the value where this combo failed )
and won't "let go" of this value?

This board WILL run again.....somehow.



Thanks for the idea, and please keep thinking of more

 

[CraigRT]

<< Hey, i'm thinking about getting one of these boards because my asus a7a266 is just plain gay. >>



ahahahahahaha....

for all of you who are thinking of getting the SL75DRV2, think about getting the SL75DRV4 instead, it has a PURPLE PCB!! :Q :Q :Q

 

[flier]

F. Y.I.

The SL-75DRV2 also comes in purple, called the "Purple Ray" Ver.
the only thing that the SL-75DRV4 has over the SL-75DRV2 is the ATA133 feature.

 

[glenn1]

<< This board is awesome and so far it's been stable as he!!. >>



Another happy customer Glad you're enjoying the board, friend. Wish i could have kept it

 

[RagingGuardian]

I have the 75drv2 and it has a purple pcb. This weekend I'm gonna try for more than 150fsb and see what happens.

 

[Killrose]

Bump