A Super 7 Experience featuring
EPoX EP-58MVP3C-M
Soyo SY-5EHM
written by: Tom Moran
8-22-98
Standard Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with EPoX or Soyo in any way, shape, or form. The opinions expressed here are mine.IntroductionOne of the side effects I’ve found in writing for AlternativeCPU.com is my increased desire to try the latest and greatest hardware. I'm constantly getting the itch to try the new gear that’s making the headlines. Like everybody else, my budget rarely coincides with my desire for frequent upgrades. This makes it imperative that I go with alternative CPU's and other components with excellent price/performance ratios. Achieving awesome performance for low cost is my highest priority. I’ve recently upgraded my two home systems with two different Super 7 motherboards and other components. Realizing there’s no difference between my research into the best motherboard/CPU combinations and hundreds of other people’s similar searches, I decided to just write up the story of my upgrades success. The upgrades were not without pain and learning, but in the end my two 100MHz Socket 7 systems are extremely enjoyable. I'll try and offer hints on avoiding some of the potential stumbling blocks and cover some of the thought process that drove me to end up with my specific combinations of parts. Except for an IDT processor, the rest of the parts mentioned in the article were bought with my own hard earned dollars. Part 1 – The First 100MHz System featuring
the EPOX EP-58MVP3C-M Part 1: The First 100MHz System – Epox EP-58MVP3C-M If you’re like me, you search for the opportunity to upgrade your system as frequently as possible. Not because it necessarily needs to be upgraded, but if someone can use my current system, I always try and justify getting new stuff to play around with. My mother-in-law, for instance, was recently in need of a new system. This scenario typically creates a trickle down effect. After running through a complicated scheme of musical components, she got my wife’s venerable ASUS P55-T2P4 motherboard with my original AMD K6-200. My wife got my Shuttle Hot-603 with an AMD K6-233 and I got to research the best motherboard I could lay my hands on. So goes the perpetual upgrade cycle in my family. My choice for a new motherboard, around the beginning of May was severely limited because I was totally stoked about getting a Super7 board with a 100MHz FSB. This was a problem considering they were just about to trickle out into distribution, but nobody had any yet. This made the decision less of "what one I wanted" and turned it into "what was available". After looking around, I decided my choice was to get one of the first shipped units of the EPoX 58-MVP3C-M. EPoX was not a manufacturer I had ever dealt with before, but I liked their reputation for solid designs. I had heard good things about their ability to crank out stable, conservative designs that worked well up front….without needing multiple revisions to get things stable. I felt this criteria was very important due to the immaturity of the 100MHz FSB technology. The EPOX board is a Baby-AT form-factor with 3 ISA slots, 4 PCI slots and 1 AGP slot. The big drawback was the lack of 72pin SIMM slots. I was going to have to make the jump to SDRAM and considering I really wanted the 100MHz FSB, I was looking for fast SDRAM as well (say goodbye EDO). With the EPOX board, I got a 64MB - 9nS SDRAM that had actually been tested and approved with the board. The value of using memory that a vendor has tried and approved with a particular motherboard is an excellent insurance policy for success with Super7. Don't be so quick to get the cheapest SDRAM that you can find. I had already been running a boxed AMD K6-300 with the Shuttle Hot-603 and was planning on using this as the processor of choice.
EPoX EP-58MVP3C-M Specifications:
Installation: So I went back to my local Staples store and purchased a brand new Western Digital 6.4GB UltraDMA drive. The Maxtor drive would have to be handled over the next few weeks, but I needed to know how well the EPOX worked and whether it was at least partly responsible for killing the Maxtor so effectively. That’s why I went Western Digital. I wanted to alleviate any Maxtor issues and see how it another HD reacted in the system. I brought it home and reloaded a fresh copy of Win95 OSR2 with the EPOX running 100MHz x 3 to determine a point of reference for stability. Well it was smooth sailing from this point on. The Western Digital drive performed admirably and I went on my way. The new 100MHz bus speed was really cool. I had previously been running the K6-300 on the Shuttle Hot-603 at 66MHz x 4.5 and the jump to 100MHz was zippy beyond my experience. I was a happy camper. Some of the chunking video game experiences were smoothing out and UNREAL was finally playable without a hint of hesitation in the graphics. Conclusions about the EPOX EP-58MVP3C-M In the plus category, the EPoX is extremely stable. I don't have any trouble with Windows98 hanging or crashing or anything else. I frequently use 5 or 6 significant programs simultaneously and don't find it glitches out at all. The board is easy to setup and has ample slots (4PCI/3ISA/1AGP). A Diamond Monster 3D II board (with 12MB) does fit in one of the PCI slots. The quality of the PWB seems quite high and the build quality is first rate. The included manual is well done, although I could of used clearer explanation on some of the settings. I think they were trying to not sound so technical, which is exactly what I want a manual to be. The more information the better. EPOX has also impressed me with their support and websight. I rate many motherboard companies as very poor when it comes to answering email questions about their products (Abit and Shuttle have been particularly disappointing). EPOX is impressive in that they’ve always responded in a timely fashion to my email questions with good information. Their websight is one of my favorites for motherboards. The various driver and BIOS updates are easily found and utilities come with adequate documentation. So, while it’s not the best candidate for tweaking for overclockers, those that want stability need look no further. I'd definitely buy EPoX again. The main drawback to my revision is the lack of voltage settings between 2.2V and 2.8V (a 2.5V setting may be added in REV 0.5). There is no 112MHz speed setting (this may also change in REV 0.5) and no 72 pin SIMM support. The MVP3C-M board only comes with 512K L2 cache, which I wish was 1MB. Hopefully EPoX can figure out a way to stuff 1MB of L2 cache on their next revision. It seems to really help the performance of Super 7 boards. Part 2 - The Itsy Bitsy Mini Tower System featuring the Soyo 5EHM After getting the Epox system stable and running, another opportunity arose to move the Shuttle Hot-603/AMD K6-233 system to a customer who needed a system immediately. This left my wife without a system as we contemplated getting a laptop. While we researched AlternativeCPU laptops, I decided to do an entry level system using some older parts I had laying around. Since I still had my mother-in-law’s el-cheapo minitower case, I figured I would just get a small motherboard to go with an IDT Winchip 200 I had used in a previous system. I had 32MB of Micron 60nS EDO DRAM and figured I’d add in the refurbished Maxtor DiamondMAX 5.2GB hard drive I had gotten back to replace the fried one from my first setup. The factors that weighed heavily on my next motherboard purchase was the need for 72 pin SIMMs and IDT Winchip support. Now my first choice might of been the FIC VA-503+ board given it’s unique 4 – 72 pin SIMMs configuration. But the first version of the VA-503+ appeared to have left off support for single voltage plane processors like the IDT Winchip. It was ironic that IDT had made a conscience decision to go with a single voltage plane to be compatible with more motherboards and then have FIC leave off support for this on their new motherboard. I’ve heard that subsequently a new version of the VA-503+ does support single voltage CPU’s like the Winchip, but you better check first to verify that fact. Since I had only the smallest AT minitower case as a home for the motherboard and I wanted to conserve money, I settled on the micro sized Soyo 5EHM board. This was priced at only $100, had two 72pin Simms, supported the single voltage plane Winchip processor and would fit inside my case. These were the compelling factor that sealed the deal. My plan was to use the Winchip with 32MB of EDO until I was able to upgrade to PC100 memory. I had upgraded my Epox system at this point using an AMD K6-2 300MHz processor, so I had the classic K6-300 for the Soyo when the time was right.
Soyo SY-E5HM Specifications:
Installation: Starting from scratch loading OSR2 Win95, the system went together fairly easily. The Soyo is a very compact and tiny board. It’s a good fit for the smallest of cases. The biggest pain with the Soyo is a bunch of jumpers scattered all over the board that needed to be configured (specially if your switching between a 66MHz bus speed and 100MHz). The EPOX is very clean in it’s jumper layout, whereas the Soyo in contrast is a pain. After loading up the system it was working OK for about a week, but minor hangs, glitches and twitches began to gather momentum. After the second week, Windows95 was crashing on a regular basis. The end customer, my wife, was not happy and something had to be done. Memory was a major performance bottle neck since I was only using 32MB and IMHO, this is insufficient if you like to use multiple programs simultaneously. Having other TSR's loaded up (like Norton's Antivirus, Crashguard, RealAudio, ect.) eats up 32MB in a hurry. So I was now determined to provide this system with enough resources so that I didn't second guess having enough memory. My upgrade strategy was going to be a multipronged attack. It was time to go to PC100 memory and upgrade the processor. I had planned on moving to the K6-300, get some PC100 memory and install a fresh copy of Windows98. So, I called Crucial Technology and ordered a 128MB PC100 module for my EPOX system and another 32MB module for my wife’s system. I exploded her case and removed the IDT Winchip 200 and the 2- 16MB EDO modules. I replaced them with a Micron 32MB SDRAM stick and my original 64MB module to get a total of 96MB. I also installed the classic K6-300 and reconfigured to the 100MHz FSB and a 3X multiplier for the 300MHz CPU speed. While I had the case off and down in my lab (i.e. family room), I made a decision on going even further. The Power Supply Upgrade There is certain probability the case and power supply that happily ran your old 486 for years may begin to complain when stuck together with more modern components. The need for quality power is related to the elevated speed and performance demanded from more modern systems. Faster clock edges require very well regulated supplies and even though the motherboards use on-board regulation, the incoming power needs to be relatively clean and abundant. Do yourself a favor and budget a quality case and power supply if you plan on building a high performing system. Supplies have improved a lot in the last few years and that old supply you have laying around may not be up to the task. After considering all of the above, I considered the case I was using. It was the classic $50 Mini-AT case that is available all across the country. Totally generic and low end. A leftover from a prior upgrade. I began to wonder if some of my original problems with the Soyo board might be attributed to inferior power. So I jammed out the cheap 230W Sun Lucky Power supply from the minitower case and replaced it with a much more robust 300W supply I had purchased the year before. Since I wanted to use all 5 slots inside the Soyo motherboard, add a second hard drive and a tape backup unit I felt the more power the better. The end result of the Soyo upgrade saga was total satisfaction. The AMD K6-300 processor running at 100MHz was impressively fast. The 96MB of memory really allowed my applications to fly and my internet cruising was as responsive as I've ever seen over a modem. Pages loaded up fast and furious compared to before. The best result of this entire episode was total stability. The power supply upgrade seems to have allowed all the new components and also a Voodoo 1 card and an additional hard drive to live in total comfort. This system has been functioning for about three weeks now and I haven't seen Windows98 hang a single time. This is in direct contrast to my original setup that crashed on a daily basis. I was beginning to think the Soyo board was flaky and not ready for primetime, the truth is the board is fantastic in it's stability, now that the other components are at a higher quality level. The Soyo's strength are low cost, flexible memory options (either 72pin or 168 pin modules clocked at either 66 or 100MHz) and very overclockable due to it's 112MHz setting and support for very incremental voltage settings. Their websight is decent, but response from their Taiwanese server is often very slow. For small cases this micro board size is perfect. It's stability as been very strong ever since installing the better power supply and upgrading my memory. The downside to the Soyo is primarily the small number of slots. Having only three PCI and three ISA with one slot shared may leave you wanting more room for expansion. That's why this board is excellent for a secondary system that may not have as many things stuffed inside. The included quick reference guide is better than nothing, but having a manual on CD ROM and not hard copied isn't ideal in my book. The jumper configuration, while not hard to setup, is a bit convoluted as well. Part 3 -
Final Recap The EPoX and Soyo are highly recommended due to my own personal experiences. Living with both these systems gave me faith that Socket 7 still has some kick left. There are many other motherboard manufacturers that are worth considering (California Graphics, FIC, MSI, AOpen and Tyan to just name a few). I get asked a lot about the perfect motherboard and it's never that easy. It always depends on your old equipment you want to carry forward, your case style and the money you want to spend. The best chance for success is to deal with a company with a good reputation who understand and knows the products they sell. If a company can't answer tough questions about their products find someone who can. Supply the board with good power and adequate cooling. Give the processor a good heatsink and fan and don't get crazy with overclocking. Stability is out there and waiting as long as you don't push the laws of physics too much. And don't skimp on good memory if your running it at 100MHz. The Super7 stuff may not be perfect, but you can't beat the price/performance ratio. Alternative CPU equipment has never been better. Here's hoping it just keeps getting better. |
