*** Official Soltek SL-K890Pro-939 (VIA K8T890) Thread ***

[The Pentium Guy]

Hey,

Just thought I'd start a thread on a motherboard which I'm currently looking at.
I'll try to update this as often as possible, and I'll need some user input.

Specifications(from NeoSeeker):

Chipset VIA K8T890 + VT8237 south bridge
Processor Socket 939
Front Side Bus HyperTransport @ 1 GHz
Memory - 4x 184-pin DDR DIMM sockets
- Supports unregistered non-ECC DDR 400/333/266 DRAM up to 4 GB
- Supports Dual Channel
Expansion Slots - 1x PCI-Express x16 slot
- 3x PCI-Express x1 slots
- 2x PCI slots
On-Board EIDE - 2x ATA133/100/66 IDE connectors supporting up to 4 IDE devices
- 1x ATA133/100 IDE connector supporting up to 2 IDE devices through Promise PDC20579
On-Board SATA - 2x Serial ATA connectors supporting 2 Serial ATA devices (through VT8237)
- 2x Serial ATA connectors supporting 2 Serial ATA devices (through Promise PDC20579)
Integrated Super I/O - 1x AGP 8x/4x slot
- 1x Floppy port
- 1x PS/2 Mouse port
- 1x PS/2 Keyboard port
- 1x Parallel port (via optional cable)
- 1x Serial port
- 8x USB 2.0/1.1 ports (4 integrated, 4 via optional cable)
RAID - 2x Serial ATA connectors supported by VT8237 (RAID 0,1)
- 2x Serial ATA connectors and 1x ATA133/RAID IDE port supported by Promise PDC20579 (RAID 0,1,0+1)
IEEE1394 - 2x IEEE1394 Ports
Audio - 8-Channel AC'97 audio
- 1x S/PDIF In port
- 1x S/PDIF Out port
LAN - 1x Gigabit LAN port (supporting 10/100/1000 Mbps)
BIOS - Award BIOS
- Flash memory for easy upgrade
Form Factor - ATX Form Factor (245 mm x 305 mm)
Other Features - BIOS FSB setting
- BIOS DIMM and CPU voltage settings
- BIOS multiplier settings
- RedStorm2 Overclocking Technology (optional)
- Soltek H/W monitor
- STR function (optional)
- Debug LED on-board

Facts
Various reviews show that 20-pin PSUs can be used with this board.
This board uses passive cooling over the chipset which makes it quiet.

This board is cheaper than most of the other nForce4 boards, however this means a lack of a hardware firewall and SATA II/NCQ support. This should satisfy, however, some users on a budget constraint becuase of the competitive pricing.

The manual is kind of on crack though - I was browsing through the manual (downloaded it from soltek's site)... and the "Installing the Graphics Card" section still refers to the AGP versions. The manual isn't exactly clear on how to install SATA without RAID, but it's sort of common sense anyways.

Compatible RAM
-2x512MB Corsair TWINX PC3200 (from ViperLair)
-2x512MB OCZ PC4200 RAM (from NeoSeeker)
-2x512MB DDR Corsair 4400C25 PC4400 (from SweClockers)
-2x512MB PDP Systems Patriot XBL D.C. (from ClubOC)
-2x512MB Corsair XMS3200 Pro CAS2 (from Legion Hardware)
-2x512MB Corsair TwinX 3200XL ProSeries DDR400 (NinjaLane)

-1GB DDR400 Corsair Value Ram (from impeachbush)

Reviews
-http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/cpu_mobo/other/s939/slk890p/
-http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/slk890pro939/
-http://www.cluboc.net/reviews/motherboards/soltek/k890pro/index.htm
-http://legionhardware.com/html/doc.php?...dware=d7efce40a38302bb6b0584ca55027794 (Engineering Sample)
-http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?cat=mobos&id=349
-http://www.ninjalane.com/display.aspx?docname=sl-k890pro-939&page=1
-http://www.sweclockers.com/html/recensi...ec_050202_soltek_sl_k890pro.php?page=1 (Swedish)

Pricing
$115.00: NewEgg In Stock!
$118.84: NCIX USA In Stock!
$127.00 : ChiefValue In Stock

Keep the facts coming,
-The Pentium Guy

 

[MTSteel]

I believe the board comes with a 20 pin connector unlike the other PCIe boards.

With that being said, does anyone think this board with its 20 pin connector will limit its ability to OC with a highend video card that needs the extra juice from the 4 pins of a 24 pin connector? Most PCIe boards do not have a power connector directly on it like the AGP ones, so it could lack power from the PCIe bus? I really like what this board offers and its price, but do worry about future generation video cards with only a 20 pin connector.
Thoughts?

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Yep, I added that .

I think the extra 4 pins was for the SLi boards, which need the extra powr for dual graphics cards. I heard this board is one of the fastest at stock speeds (competing closely with Gigabyte's NF4 board), just like the previous model (very similar to it's previous model, the SL-K8TPro-939, in fact).

 

[MTSteel]

This board seems to be what I am looking for. All I want to do is have a PC that will play the newer games, and burn DVD's, and attempt to edit video from my video camera! I do not need SATA, RAID, NCQ as I plan to continue to use my 80 Gig IDE drives Only thing the Nforce chips have that interest me that this one does not is the built in Firewall. This board is roughly $40 cheaper than any of the Nforce boards I have seen(they are few though) so it is hard to justify the extra cost.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Hmm,
There seems to be less problems with this board than some of the other boards (the DFI and the ASUS especially), or this could be just because of the fact that it hasn't been out for a long time and not a lot of users have it.

 

[rivethead]

MTSteel, the cost difference used to be a big selling point for me, moving this board to the top of my list of potential mobos (I'm not actually building my system until late March).

But.....

You can now get a Chaintech NF4 Ultra board for $113 vs this board for $127 at newegg.

Granted, the Chaintech board isn't as seasoned as this board, but for $14 less you can get SATA2 support, hardware firewall, and other goodies.

Bottom line: I don't think the Soltek board is such a good economic deal anymore.

 

[impeachbush]

From what I've read, the chaintech had some annoying problems with it. I think it had a problem overheating. I chose the soltek board over the chaintech for this reason, and also because of the price (I got it for $119 on a 1-day sale). It has firewire and optical ports, both of which I needed. So far its been a great.

Yes it does use a 20pin. Being more of a Mac guy myself, I'm still new to the PC world. Do most motherboards have a seperate 4 pin power connector, along with a 20 or 24 pin? My old psu fits this extra 4pin connector, but don't remember ever using it on my older motherboard. Or, is this the other 4pins that are usually included on the 24pins?

 

[MTSteel]

Chaintech does not have firewire, so no go for me

 

[rivethead]

True, Chaintech doesn't have firewire built in, but I figure if I ever need firewire, I'll just buy a firewire PCI card for $10 and use up one of the slots on the Mobo.

Granted, I don't know much about firewire, but the cards do seem pretty inexpensive if I ever need it.

As for me, I'm hoping the recent (and continued) introduction of the NForce NF4 boards drives Soltek to lower their price a bit.

I'll sit on the sidelines another month and watch it all play out (and let everything "season" a bit).

 

[The Pentium Guy]

impeachbush, I added your RAM to the compatibilities list: I hope things went alright with it , I dont want to be misleading.

Yeah firewall was a BIG thing that drove me away from Chaintech.
I'm sitting on the sidelines too. I'm mainly building a computer for my dad, and what drove me to Soltek (I originally went for ASUS A8V Deluxe) was the passive cooling system. My dad makes a huge fuss over noise.

-The Pentium Guy

 

[rivethead]

My understanding is that Chaintech has already revised the NF4 Ultra board once since it's release just a few short months ago (they put a different heatsink on it....probably to address some of the heat issues). Now I hear they're going to scrap that and go to an active cooling unit (anybody know for sure? I read that on another thread in this forum, but I didn't see any links supporting that assertion).

If that's the case, then the Chaintech moves down a couple spots on my list: I'm after a passive (read: quiet) cooling mobo.

 

[MTSteel]

I am looking for a board around $150 Canadian, s939, PCIe, with firewire, OC half decent, would like to get a 3000 to 2.2-2.5 Gig.
I too am waiting(painfull as it is because I sold my 9800Pro and am using a 8500le again) for more boards to show up and see some reviews.
Both the MSI NEO4 and DFI are approaching $200, little more than I want to pay for a motherboard. Heck the MSI(s939 agp) is only 7 dollars cheaper than the PCIe one! That Chaintech board sure does look interesting, but it is no chaeper than the Soltek up here, and then I would still need to buy a $30 firewire card and cable Come on guys, bring out the boards!!!

 

[impeachbush]

The corsair value ram I have works great with this board. I'm running a 9x257fsb/800ldt(4x)/166 divider/1.450vCPU/2.6vDIMM as settings in bios. The ram ends up slightly overclocked (210.2mhz) and while in auto, the board runs it at 2.5-3-3-7 instead of its SPD is 2.5-3-3-8. This ram is great stuff, and cheap.

The VIA K8T890 chipset runs much cooler than the nforce NF4 chipset, so it doesnt need a fan. I think that was the problem with the chaintech board...they tried to get by without a chipset fan while using the NF4 chipset, causing problems with heat. Supposedly a new version of the chaintech board will include active cooling, but as of last week, newegg was still selling the passive boards (another reason i went with soltek).

Newegg has the price at $122 but out of stock till 2/28.

 

[MTSteel]

257 the limit of your board or cpu or you were simply happy with that and didnt feel the need to go any higher

 

[impeachbush]

I couldn't find a stable FSB beyond 257, while keeping voltage under 1.5v. I stopped at 257 mainly for the stability, and trying to keep the heat down. It probably could go higher with more voltage. Also around 255 is just right for this ram in order to keep the speed about the same. If I found a way to get 270 for example, the ram would have to have a 133 divider, which would only yield about 176mhz instead of what its rated at providing (200mhz+). If I could get it stable, while air cooled, closer to 290+fsb/133, the ram would be running closer to its potential. If anyone gets a 3000+ running closer to 290fsb (stable and aircooled) on this board, let me know how you did it.

 

[MTSteel]

Be interesting to know if the RAM running at 176 and the bus at 270 vs 210 and 255 would result in better performance in games
I suppose the 3200 would go very well with this board, but is a 10X multi worth the $50

 

[impeachbush]

The trade off of faster fsb vs slower ram speed due to overclocking past 257fsb might be worth it. If anyone finds a way to do it while keeping the volts/heat down let us know. The 3200+ would be a great processor to use, but the 3000+ is a bit cheaper. Its enough power for my needs at the moment, at least until the dual cores become available at a good price. I was very happy to read that those will be compatible with socket 939 motherboards. All the sudden, the potential upgradability of my board just doubled .

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Awesome. Thanks for the RAM recommendation. I should get this:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-480&depa=0
and save myself a helluvalotta money. (The RAM I was going to get was OCZ PC3500 which cost around $200).

-The Pentium Guy

 

[impeachbush]

Actually, yoru probably better off with this one -> http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-440&depa=1
Its 2.5 latency instead of 3, and I'm running it dual channel without any problems. It's also cheaper. The higher latency value select says 'dual channel' in its description, but its probably higher latency just for a better chance of compatability with all dual channel boards. If you read the customer reviews, many others have used the 2.5 dual channeled just fine. Anyone know of any reason to go with the higher latency version?

 

[crucibelle]

impeachbush (or anyone else who is using this board successfully),

What power supply are you using? I'm thinking of purchasing this board, and I want to make sure I get a power supply that works well with it. Thanks in advance.

 

[impeachbush]

Im using an old 400w Powermax. It only has 16A on the 12v rail. It's probably a good idea to get a better PSU than what I have.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Thanks imapeachbush, I noticed the latency difference but I wasn't sure if it would work dual channel. You must be one of the few on the forum who own this board.

-The Pentium Guy

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

New review:
http://www.ninjalane.com/display.aspx?docname=sl-k890pro-939&page=1

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Updated.

 

[epicwave]

I just built a new PC using the MB, and it does not post. I tried everything I could think of.

Here is the spec.

MB: SL-K890PRO-939
CPU: Athlon 64 3500+ 90nm
DIMM: MUSHKIN DUAL V2 PC3200 (2-2-2) 512MB x 2
Video Card: Power Color X800XL 256M
HDD: Maxtor Diamond Max 10 SATA 300MB
PSU: Zalman no fan 400W (one comes with the Zalman TN500AF no fan case)
Monitor: Syncmaster 900IFT (CRT, not LCD)

And this is what happens when I hit the "power" switch:

1. The debug LED on the MB shows "FF" (and stays that way all along). According to the manual it means "Boot."
2. HDD starts spinning.
3. The fan on the video card starts spinning.
4. The LED2 on the MB lights up (meaning the DIMM is powered on)
5. Nothing is displayed on the screen. The monitor does not seem to be receiving any signal.

The monitor is functional. I checked with my other PC. I am connecting it to the Power Color X800XL via the DVI-to-VGA adaptor.
All cables are securely connected.

I tried booting with minimum components, i.e., the CPU, the DIMM, the power supply, the power switch, and the video card, but no avail.

I also tried initializing the CMOS using the JBAT1 jumper. Result: no, it doesn't solve the problem.

I did make a mistake when I first conencted the power switch the other way around, but don't think it caused any serious damage (
(the manual shows one pin as "PWRBT#" and the other as "PWRBT." I didn't know which corresonds to "+").

One interesting thing is that only the Pentium4/III and Celeron II are listed in the system requirement section of the video card manual. Does it mean it is not compatible with the SL-K890Pro-939?

I am stuck. Any suggestion is welcome.