Soyo Dragon Plus problems

**lyonbyte** · December 28th, 2002, 01:03 AM

I've had a Soyo Dragon Plus for several months now with an AMD XP1800, but it seems to cause havoc with Windows XP Professional. I get blue screen physical memory dumps several times a week. Frustrating! XP also bombs out of apps without warning. Anybody know what causes XP to do physical memory dumps? I spent $$$ upgrading from an integrated Amptron mobo to the Dragon. I thought it'd be more stable and reliable. I've updated my Gforce II drivers as Soyo suggests on their website. I'm not overclocking and have tried running at slower speeds. Suggestions?

**Kruzin** · December 28th, 2002, 03:54 AM

Which "Dragon" board are you running?
There are several of them.
I am running the KT400 Dragon Ultra.
There are also KT333 models, and probably others...depending on the chipset they use.
Best bet is to try and update the via 4-in-1 drivers for the board.
If that doesn't help, try booting from the XP CD, and repairing your XP install.
Did you fully uninstall the old chipset drivers, or do a clean install of windows?

My Dragon has been stable for the short time I've used it...I'd expect it's a driver issue.

**OuTpaTienT** · December 28th, 2002, 05:42 AM

As he said, he has a Dragron Plus (that's KT266a). I have the same board. It's been extremely stable and reliable for me. I'm using Win 2000 pro.

How do you know the board is to blame? It could be any one of about eight thousand problems.

If you could offer any more detail on the crashes it might be helpful.
- When does it usually crash? What are you doing?
- Will it remain stable if you do nothing on the computer and just let it sit? Or does it crash even then?
- Did you do a clean install of Windows? Or an upgrade?
- How is hard drive set up? IDE? Raid? Multi-boot?
- Do you have the most recent VIA 4-in-1 drivers installed?
- Have you flashed the bios to the most recent version (kvxa2ba5.bin)
- What drivers are you using for the GF2?
- Are you using the onboard sound? Do you have the latest drivers for the sound chip?

If you know how to navigate the USENET newsgroups then go to this group:
alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.soyo

You can simply post messages and ask questions in that group. There is at least one or two official Soyo tech employees that monitor the group and do a pretty good job of answering people's questions.

**lyonbyte** · December 29th, 2002, 02:07 AM

Thanks for the suggestions.
The system crashes randomly. I usually don't leave it up and running, so crashes occur when I using IE, Word, or trying to play Age of Mythology that I got my son for Christmas :-)

As for what I have done:
I've tried upgrading power supply, new hard drive, different (PCI) video card, upgrading to latest nvidea drivers, reinstalling and clean installing XP several times, swapping memory...all to no avail. The HD is set up for IDE, a pretty straight-forward setup.

I've not used USENET, but will in the near future if your suggestion of upgrading the VIA 4-in-1 drivers doesn't fix the problem. I've spent more hours trying to determine this problem than I ever expected. I've got a Gigabyte mobo on the way so I can actually get something done while I try to fix this problem. If the problem follows me to my new mobo, then it's got to be the AMD XP1800 processor. It's the only thing I haven't replaced yet :-)

Thanks!

**thekingofpain** · December 29th, 2002, 02:11 PM

I had one that would crash more frequently as time went on in very odd ways---RMA'd the board back to NewEgg and the new one works flawlessly on a daily basis...

**dc8165** · January 9th, 2003, 05:35 PM

I have two of the KT266a's. One with 2000+ win 98 the other with an 1800+ win xp. I am in the process of upgrading the 2000+ to xp, but I have found most of my issues were from the original bios, sufficient cooling, and stable drivers for xp. I will say that both boards are not equal. The board with the 1800+ would not stablize with a 2000+ processor. I purchased an MSI KTA Ultra2 and I'm in love. No issues, no problems and is even stable overclocking the 2000+. Just plugged everything in, formated the hard drive and away it went. I still like some of the options on the Soyo, but to have no issues, well I'd take the MSI any day. I'm giving the two Soyo computers to my sons for games and school work.

**Judas** · January 9th, 2003, 06:16 PM

I've replaced 5 KT333 based Dragon boards, ranging from the Lite model, to the Platinum model. ALL of them drove me mad. I also noted that ALL of the KT333 Dragon boards had anywhere from 2 to 6 second delays on powering up. I press the power button, all the fns and lights come on, but the system does nothing for a few seconds.

**Barak_P** · January 9th, 2003, 07:23 PM

I have a kt333 dragon plat and I have had no problems whatsoever, I have reformatted, moved memory around, used a xp1800 oc'd to 2100 with no problems, have my xp2400 in it now OC'd to 2600 with no problems, swapped out cables on the RAID moved drives around with no problems whatsoever.

Make sure you have the newest BIOS as well, I think that makes alot of difference as well

BArak

**VaTech** · January 10th, 2003, 09:18 AM

What do the temps look like?

**lyonbyte** · January 11th, 2003, 12:24 AM

Thanks to all who had suggestions for me. I have received my new Gigabyte GA-7VAX and loaded it up. Ran well for a long while then crashed in a similar fashion to the Soyo Dragon Plus! I figured it must be the processor and /or heat issue, but then realized I may not have swapped out one of my memory sticks when I was debugging the Soyo. :-o I did that, and the Gigabyte is running smoothly now. The Gigabyte is a very nice mobo, I might add. Once I get the suspect DDR RAM stick replaced (under warranty) I plan to go back to debugging the Soyo Dragon Plus motherboard. Anyone seen memory failures like as I orginally describe at the beginning of this thread? (XP crash with blue screen - physical memory dumps at random) I'm surprised the motherboards POST doesn't catch the RAM failure. I've cleaned contacts, just to be sure, but it didn't help. I figure I must have a bad section somewhere in that RAM module. Stay tuned! It may be a while before I get back to the Soyo, though. I finally have a stable and usuable system for the first time in over 7 months! The Soyo may end up being put into the kids machine. BTW - this is a great site and everyone has been so helpful!

**sabode** · February 23rd, 2003, 12:52 AM

Hi, i have a SOYO DRAGON PLUS, ATHLON XP 1800+, 512 RAM, HD 40 GB SEAGATE BARRACUDA, GEFORCE4 TI 4600, WINDOWS XP PROFESSIONAL SP1.
A few weeks ago, i decided to overclock my processor at the SOYO bios, but, before, i flash my bios to kvxa2ba5.
It was my mistake!!!!
After that, i put a great cooler and overclock to 2000+. Result : instable system. Overclock to 1900+. Result : instable system. Tried all voltages. Result : instable system.
After many tries, i decided to put to the original 1800+ and forget to overclock my processor. Result : instable system ( blue screens, games chashing, many errors, corrupted files, etc.. )
After that, i testes my all hardwares with no sucess.
After this many tries and problems, i tried to put my original bios and..... BINGO!!!!
All problems ends!!!!
I know that was it, because i tried everithing, including format my hd!!!!
Well, i hope that this helps some one, so good luck!!!
Regards from Brazil!!!!!