Blast from the Soltek Past

[Zarathustra[H]]

Sometimes I think fondly of my ASUS A7V133 with Athlon 1GHz computer I spent almost all my money on while in college.

It was the first computer I built. I spent several thousands of hours on it.

That was a fun, exciting time.

Ditto. I did something similar.

Had an AMD system in college.

In the fall of 2000 I went from a completely obsolete pre-MMX Pentium 150@200Mhz and a 6mb Voodoo 1 Canopus Pure 3D to a Duron 650@950MHz (never could get it to hit that magical GHz) with a GeForce 2 GTS, followed by an Athlon 1200, and later an Athlon XP 1800+ and a GeForce 3 500TI.

That was truly the golden era of our hobby, IMHO.

Good times and good memories.

 

[lcpiper]

Jumpers.

..................

How we used to overclock.

At least that's how I had to do it when I overclocked my 286 from 8Mhz to 12Mhz, my 486sx25 to 50Mhz and all of my Socket 7 Pentium and K6 based systems.

Yup, absolutely correct, Multipliers, Frequency, and if available Voltage.

Clear CMOS also comes to mind.

And how about those IRQ Jumpers and Dip Switches? Just make sure they match what was in your config.sys

 

[lcpiper]

I got rid of an intel brand mobo for those P2 cassette type CPU's a while back, think it was the first and last intel branded mobo I bought

What were they called ? Slot A ?

I know I destroyed a mobo trying to get one of those bastards out cause I didn't know what I was doing.

Then I learned to start learning.

 

[Pusher of Buttons]

Asus A7N8X Deluxe nForce2 board....ahhh that thing was tits back then.

With a 2700+ and Thermalright SLK 800 and Delta fan (someone mentioned finger biters?....). Note: I gouged the shit out of my my motherboard trying to install this damn thing...somehow, though, I didn't hit any of the traces....worked fine for years.

Couple sticks of low latency Corsair RAM....

All piped through a 9700 Pro

The only time in my life I've been able to afford (ie. I was single) to put together a completely "dream" system with everything being top of the line. Ran that thing for close to 6 years before I had to finally give up the ghost.

 

[Susquehannock]

My favorite motherboard of that era was the DFI Lanparty NFII Ultra-b..

Excellent boards. Always wanted one of those but price kept me away. About twice cost of the Soltek.

I sold a ton of those in my computer shop days - many of them due to the stellar review on here. However, after about 6 months, they started coming back with blown capacitors....

A real shame how much good hardware bit the dust that way. In fact, I recently re-capped an Abit KR7A board. And have a ASUS A7N8X to do next.

One interesting aspect about these Soltek Golden Flame boards. While they do look gaudy in normal light, under UV (black light) the board almost disappears. Provides a good black backdrop for UV reactive components.

 

[bman212121]

As usual, we see the AMD systems pull in front on this benchmark that shows applications that are not considered memory bandwidth dependent. Still, what is impressive is that our Soltek board has edged in front of what is the nForce2 reference standard from Asus.

While see a flip flop in the AMD Vs. Intel battle, we see the Soltek board come in with some very impressive scores. There is no doubt that some good engineering has been put into play by Soltek.

There's something you don't read every day...

 

[bman212121]

I kind of miss the good old fashioned green ones.

Wow, that's actually a pretty compact motherboard for what it is. All of the 286 / 386 boards that I've played with were probably 2 times the size of that. I'd guess it's because this one was designed to be compact with only 4 SIMM slots where the ones I used all had 8.

Here is an [H] question though, can anyone tell me what all of those sockets above the SIMM slots were for? I never had a clue what you did with those.

 

[Susquehannock]

Asus A7N8X Deluxe nForce2 board....ahhh that thing was tits back then.

A7N8X Deluxe. Great boards. Very stable and tons of features, but poor overclockers - limited BIOS. Then again ASUS was not going for that market. Built several rigs with them back in the day. Got one back a few years ago and was playing around with it a few weeks ago. Several leaky capacitors and still working.
.

 

[Pusher of Buttons]

A7N8X Deluxe. Great boards. Very stable and tons of features, but poor overclockers - limited BIOS. Then again ASUS was not going for that market. Built several rigs with them back in the day. Got one back a few years ago and was playing around with it a few weeks ago. Several leaky capacitors and still working.
.
View attachment 19437 View attachment 19439

I was able to squeeze a bit extra out of it, I can't remember what I actually had it to. But it was my first attempt at a "enthusiast" set up so I was looking for a little OC headroom without too much risk of blowing the damn thing.

It was the 3rd ground up build I ever did...and my longest lasting. The 9700 Pro stayed relevant for a looooong time in GPU terms.

 

[rehab]

Asus A7N8X Deluxe nForce2 board....ahhh that thing was tits back then.



With a 2700+ and Thermalright SLK 800 and Delta fan (someone mentioned finger biters?....). Note: I gouged the shit out of my my motherboard trying to install this damn thing...somehow, though, I didn't hit any of the traces....worked fine for years.

.

Geez.. that fan, you could use that thing to remove your fingerprints for an upcoming homicide. Hated getting near it. That DFI board brought back good times, havent seen those colors in years.

 

[TheSmJ]

Here is an [H] question though, can anyone tell me what all of those sockets above the SIMM slots were for? I never had a clue what you did with those.

I think that was to add what was effectively CPU cache at the time but I don't remember for sure. The ATX form factor was just starting to replace AT by the time I was really getting in to building computers.

 

[piscian18]

Man I had a Soltek athlon board in one of my CS:S lan pc's. Never had a problem with it honestly.

 

[Ian@CDRLabs]

I used to have on of those. I forgot how ugly they were.

 

[AuxNuke]

I chose the Abit NF7-S instead of this board, mainly due to the color! The all yellow design looked like Fisher Price made the damn thing...

 

[SixFootDuo]

Awesome. Brings back all the great memories. I will say, I sure as hell don't miss those north-bridge fans.

Good ol' AGP.

lol.

Man, you guys are lucky you never had to mess with DMA and IRQ jumpers. VLB, etc.

I really miss how some board manufactures would go all out on their motherboards. I once opened up a MASSIVE box for a high-end Abit board that was the size of a small suitcase. It was an awesome experience. I wish to god I had pictures.

 

[Susquehannock]

Soltek accolades shopping bag in the full retail pack.

.

 

[Fifliffl]

Found this while cleaning out my old house and reminded me of this thread. Also LOL @ the OG Hard OCP logo on the box

Abit KT7A if I remember right. Sadly the board wasn't in there, had it full of old military stuff.

 

[HeavensCloud]

I wouldn't mind if they brought the neon colors back.

 

[revenant]

I still have a Golden Flame in my closet next to a Soyo Dragon Platinum. Ahh the good ol days.