K7VTA-Pro Ver 1.0 Comments?

"Bob Kos" <read.RemoveThis@text.for.eddress> wrote in message
news:iEWrb.8789$6c3.8148@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
 > Hi All:
 >
 > I'm considering purchasing a motherboard bundle that includes a Soyo
K7VTA -
 > Pro Ver 1.0 motherboard and an AMD XP 1900 processor.
 >
 > I mainly do low power apps like office, etc. No games. But I just picked
 > up a cheapie DVD burner and want to experiment with that a little bit. My
 > mai nrequirement is that it set up fairly easily and be stable. I'll
 > sacrifice speed, and even the DVD burner, to ensure that I invest in a
 > dependable system.
 >
 > I've had it with Asus. I'm looking at other brands and Soyo seems to be
one
 > of the bigger players.
 >
 > Any comments on this board good or bad? On Soyo in general?
 >

Ran one for a couple of years and now it's in wife's machine. Not really
fast, but never had a problem.....<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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"Bob Kos" <read.TakeThisOut@text.for.eddress> wrote in message
news:iEWrb.8789$6c3.8148@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
 > Hi All:
 >
 > I'm considering purchasing a motherboard bundle that includes a Soyo
K7VTA -
 > Pro Ver 1.0 motherboard and an AMD XP 1900 processor.
 >
 > I mainly do low power apps like office, etc. No games. But I just picked
 > up a cheapie DVD burner and want to experiment with that a little bit. My
 > mai nrequirement is that it set up fairly easily and be stable. I'll
 > sacrifice speed, and even the DVD burner, to ensure that I invest in a
 > dependable system.
 >
 > I've had it with Asus. I'm looking at other brands and Soyo seems to be
one
 > of the bigger players.
 >
 > Any comments on this board good or bad? On Soyo in general?

I built about 40 systems based on the K7VTA pro - not ver 1.0, about 18
months. One problem I had with them is the chipset fan quits. Removing it
and putting a little silicon or oil on the bearing brings them back to life.
I did not have any problems caused by the chipset fan quitting - I only
noticed them during routine cleaning and maintenance.

I bought most of them as bare bones systems - Soyo Case and PS - the Soyo
power supply fans in the 300w PS are garbage - I've had about a 20% failure
rate on those. The system over heats and shutdown.

I've also had 5 or 6 of the onboard sound chips quit working. I rma'd a few
of them, but it was easier and cheaper to just add a sound card when that
happens.

Overall, they've been pretty good systems for school kids.

Xp 1700+
256mb (2x128)
XP Pro
LG DVD
geForce 2 64mb video
WD 20gb 7200

hope that helps,
mike in montana<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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"Bob Kos" <read.DeleteThis@text.for.eddress> wrote in message news:<iEWrb.8789$6c3.8148@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
 > Hi All:
 >
 > I'm considering purchasing a motherboard bundle that includes a Soyo K7VTA -
 > Pro Ver 1.0 motherboard and an AMD XP 1900 processor.
 >
 > I mainly do low power apps like office, etc. No games. But I just picked
 > up a cheapie DVD burner and want to experiment with that a little bit. My
 > mai nrequirement is that it set up fairly easily and be stable. I'll
 > sacrifice speed, and even the DVD burner, to ensure that I invest in a
 > dependable system.
 >
 > I've had it with Asus. I'm looking at other brands and Soyo seems to be one
 > of the bigger players.
 >
 > Any comments on this board good or bad? On Soyo in general?

I have one of the earlier VTA-Pros (not Ver 1.0) and have been quite
satisfied with it. It was a little finicky to assemble at first (an
upgrade under Windows 98 SE from a slot A MB running the AMD 750
chipset) but has been very satisfactory since (in service 18 months).
With quality ram and a decent power supply you can overclock this
board moderately allowing decent performance from inexpensive
components (mine uses an Athlon XP 1700 Throughbred that runs rock
solid at 1749). My wife is writing a college textbook on this system
and would have my scalp if the box was unstable, which it has not
been. Various people have reported that the onboard sound is not
reliable so you may want to factor a sound card into you purchase if
that is the way you go. In theory the PC 133 memory is a bottleneck
but in practical use I really don't see much difference between it and
the PC 2100 I use in another system (the benchmarks are close as
well). If your not looking for bragging rights or extreme gaming I
don't think you will be disappointed.

Joe<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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Thanks all for the comments.
 >> Stay informed about: K7VTA-Pro Ver 1.0 Comments? 

"Bob Kos" <read.DeleteThis@text.for.eddress> wrote in message news:<cgqtb.1690$n56.616@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
 > Thanks all for the comments.

I guess that I can add my thoughts. I have a sy-k7vta pro 1.0 and i
really like the board dispite the problems that i had setting it up.
first off if you have an ATI 8500 DV go ahead and flash to the beta
bios for the non 1.0 or you wont get any video (I had to figure this
out on my own cause the support staff couldnt)
second for some reason the computer wouldnt start back up after a
reboot so i got an RMA from soyo (who knows how long that will take)
but im just chalking this up to bad luck this time cause i did a lot
of reserch into the board and it seemed like the best one.(one of the
few left that still use SDRAM)
hope that helps<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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