Soltek SL-75DRV2 Purple Dragon Mother Board

[morriswindgate]

As I write this, I am installing the OS on a machine I built tonight for another person. I used the Soltek Sl-75DVR2 board for this system, for the simple reason that I wanted to check them out ant the person had the budget. But getting back to the board. The layout of this board is really great Floppy Controller and IDE Plus are laid out horizonal toward the fron of the board, which made it quite easy to connect the drives without a lot of cable twisting. The board also uses 3 dip switches to set CPU ratio, Core Voltage (Siwtches allow stepping up to 1,850 volts above default) and CPU Frequency up to 150MHZ.
The board has support for four fans (CPU1, CPU2, System (Chipset)fan, and Chassis Fan. Also comes with an RTD and onboard support for it. The control Header features support for a System Management Interupt (Suspend Switch), Two hard drive LEDs, and of course all normal case interfaces. ATX Connector is located at the top of the board and it was actuall clear of the bottom of the power supply so it was very easy to plug in. One feature that was really impressive was the use of very large capacitors and the clearance around the CPU Socket for Heatsink installation (Nothing to hit if the screwdriver slips).
Board has AGP with AGP Pro spacer, 5 PCI, AMR (Why Why), Support for 4 USB (16 pin connector optional), on-board audio, and smart card reader(optional)
Really easy to set-up with a pretty good manual and shipped with current BIOS for support with XP Processors up to the 1900.
I purchased this board from newegg for 99 bucks +shipping.
The system in final form will feature
1500 AMD XP XPU
256 PC2100 RAM
Vantec Heatsink and Fan
Skyhawk 7 bay case with 300 power supply and front USB, Sound, Game Port, and PS2 Mouse plugs.
ATI Radeon 32 MB Video card
Hercules Fortissimo II Sound Card
2 x 30gig Maxtor 7200 RPM ATA100 Hard Drives
Zoom 56k V90 Modem
Linksys NIC
52x Sony CD-ROM
24x10x40 Lite-On CD-RW Drive
Front Case Fan.

[Leef]

Yeah, I saw that board on the 13 board roundup at Tom's Hardware. It looks very impressive. If I hadn't just purchaced a new board, I would have definatly thought about that one, along with the Soyo Dragon Plus.

Give us some info a little later on if you get a chance to check up on it...see how it lasts

[phatboi]

thanks for the thoughts, i was considering that board but went ahead with the Soyo Dragon Plus. i just read so many reviews that said the Dragon was incredible. but is it worth the ~$50 over the Soltek, i'm not sure. honestly probably not, b/c i don't use the smartcard reader and the raid. but it's still a great performer. i may buy the Soltek board for my girlfriend.

[morriswindgate]

Just wanted to get back and update the review, now that it is completed and loaded.
The only problems I had with this build, was first, I had a bad sound card out of the box (Hercules Fortissimo II) that caused me some grief with lock-ups that looked as if they were driver related. I was able to check the card tonight and found it to be a bad card out of the box. Replaced it and everything is fine. And second, the CD-Drive seemed squirrelly until I selected "NONE" for IDE2 Primary and Secondary.
One neat feature of this board is the RedStorm Overclocking chip. When enabled in the BIOS, it automatically steps the frequency up incrementally and testing for stability. When it becomes unstable, you restart and it uses the last stable value. When enabled, the AMD XP 1500 was stable at 152MHZ for the equivilant performance of an XP1700 and it is stable at this level so far. To disable the RedStorm feature you must use the CMOS reset jumper. This created a little bit of panic in that after returning the jumper there was about a thirty second delay befor the Power Switch responded again. (Of course there was nothing in the manual)
If you use this board with a seperate sound card, you must not load on-board drivers and the on-board must be disabled in the BIOS. For the users of the SB Augigy, the board has the feature of allowing you to disable the on-board sound, but use the on-board game port and MPU401.
WIth the latest BIOS update this board can support up to the AMD XP1900.
Software supplied includes PC-Cillin 2000, Virtual Drive, Drive Image 4.0 and Partition Magic 6.0.
I would give this board a high recommendation, with the only drawbacks being > only one IDE cable supplied, and no breakout for the USB Ports 2 & 3.

[LawyerRon]

Sounds like a nice board Morris, thanks for the info.

[mc2phat]

Off the subject a bit, but I was given a soltek SL-5D1 SS7 board that I used to build a system for my folks-in-law. It has never even BSOD'ed. I was surprised how stable it turned out to be. I have another used 5D1 in the attic I think I'll use for a Linux system when I get a Round Tuit.

[Alfie]

Soltek has been around for awhile and have consistently built quality parts.
Not as big in name recognition as the others,but with their new releases that may change...
Their turning the ide ports is nothing new,they've designed them that way since super 7 days!
Why other companies never followed suit is beyond me!
They have built a new board that supports the newer faster memory(whatever speed that is!)The motherboard is built,but the memory hasn't been released!
That's a first!