Soyo K7V Dragon Plus! Slow boot

[GunDog]

I hope to get some light shed on this small but irrating problem. I recently purchased the above mentioned board, its solid and stable but it takes 38 secs to post the video! Does anyone have this board and this problem? Once it starts booting everything is great. I haven't updated the bios yet, I dont like to update something unless there is a real problem and I dont know if a bios update would cure this or not. My old board (Asus A7M266) booted to logon screen in 35 secs, this board takes 1:18. I feel the SOYO should boot alot faster than that.

Would updating the bios cure this problem? (if it is a problem)

Thanks,
Gundog

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[GunDog]

Updating:
Finally got ahold of SOYO tech support. This slow boot problem is normal for this board. It appears as tho the board is doing a *long* diag check on boot.

 

[cureless]

Is there any way to avoind the long boot? Is it necesary? What advantages does it give (if any)?

cl

 

[GunDog]

according to tech support, there isn't a thing we can do about it. I'm not done with tweaking the bios yet however, I may run into something to cure the problem (doubtful tho)
Other than the long boot, this is a VERY good board. Only had it for 2 days now, and a fews crashes but nothing I haven't caused by tweaking
I'd recommend this board.

Gundog

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[rondeemc]

are you using the raid? That always slowed my Abit and MSI boards down.

 

[GunDog]

no, not yet need more harddrives first

 

[Jeff7]

Isn't there a Quickboot option in the BIOS like most other motherboards have?

 

[GunDog]

<Isn't there a Quickboot option in the BIOS like most other motherboards have? >

Looked and looked, perhaps I'm missing it
:disgust:

 

[Insane3D]

The original Soyo Dragon had the exact same problem... I could almost make a pot of coffee while I was waiting for the video to post... It's funny that it doesn't happen on any other KT266A board...

 

[GunDog]

I did find the quickboot option, or something that resembles it. It was set ON, so I checked Off to see what happens. Well, it took just as long to boot but then started counting 512 megs of ram LOL. Its reenabled now

 

[Bglad]

Gundog and insane,

I built a system around a Dragon last weekend. I didn't think the boot time was that long once it got into the bios, but do you experience this??

When I hit the power switch to turn it on, it takes quite awhile to get into the bios portion of the boot sequence, before the vid card init like you mentioned I suppose. It often beeps 3 or 4 times during this, not an error beep but multiple single startup beeps where most motherboards would only beep once. It always starts up and is completely stable, but I thought this was kinda strange. Is that what yours is doing?

BTW, I had a few stability problems initially so I updated the bios. I agree with not updating if you don't need to but... due to the stability issues I wanted to try it right away while I could still return/exchange it. After bios update everything worked flawlessly. No problems with the update procedure and no more stability issues but it didn't change the strange startup sequence.

Anyway, does yours do what I described above?

Thx

 

[I AM ME]

I have the board also now for three weeks. When boots, it beeps a total of four times, first two - I don't know what it does?
Third beep video bios comes up, forth - post has ended and it starts bootin'.

Whole process from first beep to forth takes 28secs

 

[SuperSix]

All of the Soyo Dragon boards are slow to post.

Just have to live with it.

 

[novon]

yeah, three beeps, ait takes a little longer than ususal to boot, but it's not that bad, specially on restarts.

 

[GunDog]

BGlad,
Yep pretty much exactly as you describe. Once, I'm in bios and video is there, then it flies. I made a call to Soyo Tech Support, the tech said it was a completely normal action with the Dragon series of boards, and that he didn't know exactly what the deal was with it. Except, that it *MAY* be doing extended diagnostics. Since, its a normal operation, I can live with it. The board rocks otherwise.

What kind of stability problems were you having?


Thanks

Gundog

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[Bglad]

My stability problems were completely random. I didn't see any clues as to what would be causing the problem. Maybe this should be a clue to memory timing issues as I've read the bios update has corrected. I would just get random blue screens, lock-ups and reboots at odd times, and not necessarily when it was working under full load or with a lot of apps open.

After the bios update, it is rock stable even overclocked. I didn't have any of the sound or slow ethernet problems that others have described. Other than the slow boot, I love this board. I think I can live with the slow boot in exchange for the price and the features.

 

[GunDog]

BGlad,
I just updated my Bios, even tho I wasn't having any problems. Other than everytime I boot into XP, I get a System has recovered from a fatal error. I may have to reinstall XP again (the reason is I was benchmarking with a 1.2 @ 1.468 ). It ran the benches ok until the memory tests. Thats when it dumped, and have been getting at error on boot ever since. Now back to 1.33 and fsb @133/266. I'm thinking, if the bios update fixed the memory timing errors I may be good to go!
I was running an ASUS A7M266, it was fast (in my eyes) but this Dragon just blows it away. Everything is faster I love it

In case no one knows all t/birds 1.2/266 and up comes unlocked from the factory! WOOHOO! Not including the new XP chips

Thanks for all the posts everyone, I'm really glad I made the plunge, so to speak.

Gundog

Systems

 

[Bglad]

Well the word has been that many have trouble even installing XP in the old bios. They have to flash and then reinstall so maybe you should try reinstalling if you have the time. Then again, I'm with you. I don't ever flash bios unless it is necessary for some reason. It definitely did solve my stability problems though. I'm not using XP though.

 

[NicColt]

I currently have an A7V and when they first came out it took forever to boot but it was due to an old Promise bios looking for drives. so what is the Promise bios version that Soyo is using ?

 

[RDP]

That XP fatal error on bootup is popping up with a lot of people lately. Some of us have fixed our problem by lowering memory timings on various mobos. I'm starting to think this in an XP bug, as I've seen multiple reports.

 

[DARTHSINDER]

Mine doesn't seem to take that long but is longer than other computers I've used!

 

[wolfnafta]

I own a Asus, so my advice may be useless.
To decrease my boot up time I turn off all the auto searches in the BIOS.
Also if you didn't already know; 2K takes an extremely long time to post compared to Me & Xp "Just a note"!