Okay...this one has me scratching my head and I don't feel like paying the local computer shop $90 an hour to tell me something I suspect already.

I built this machine in March of 02. It begins with a SOYO Dragon motherboard (SY-K7V), an AMD 1.4GHz chip, a PNY Verto GeForce Titanium AGP video card, a 40G HD, and a generic CDRW and floppy. Beginning software included Win98 2nd Ed and the Nero Burning ROM package that came with the CDRW.

Put it together, and it worked great...for about a week. Then we started getting POST beeps (never the same SET of beeps, mind you)...asked at the local computer shop, they told us it was a problem with the DDR, but when we took the memory stick in to be tested, nada. The stick was fine.

The troubles went on intermittantly for months, until November, when the entire system went belly up. Being the holidays, we couldn't get the computer into the repair shop, but after another round of describing the problem with the technicians, they assured us it was a video card problem. Alright...bought a new video card (Asylum GeForce4 MX440-SE), installed it. Nada...out the $150 because of said store's return policy, decided to install the original video card in another machine that I hate to open up because it's already so crowded...but original video card works fine...and now my older machine can play something more elaborate than Minesweeper...nice, but still frustrating.

Spoke to another computer store technician at a different store, informed that the trouble was infact the memory...purchased new DDR memory (128MB), installed it two nights ago. Voila! Computer worked. Until about 11pm last night, when it crashed running Zoo Tycoon (not me, the other half was playing) and refused to reboot at all. POST beeps currently playing: a single continuous beep, repeated...I lost count at 9 or 10...

Now I suspect that the real problem is either software (but not likely...it won't even go into bootup now) or the motherboard is dead.

The current setup of the 'dead' computer is:
Soyo Dragon Motherboard (SY-K7V)
AMD 1.4GHz chip
128MB DDR RAM
Asylum GeForce4 MX440-SE video card
40GB HD (generic)
1.44" floppy (generic)
CDRW 40X (generic)
Windows 98 2nd ed

Help?

Hi James,
Sorry to hear about your troubles. I have the SY-K7V with RAID also. Running an AMD T-Bird 1.3 GHz proc. with 512 DDR RAM. Hair tearing problems ever since I got it. I won't go into all the gory details, but my post would be longer than yours. I have dual-booted WIN98 and XP and both were totally unstable. After I got rid of my GForce2 MX400 video card and replace it with a ATI Radeon 8500LE, WIN98 stabilized and runs like a champ. XP runs ok if I don't install the Radeon drivers. XP still gives me the message that it "recovered from a serious error" every time I boot, so something is still wrong.
However, it took a patch from Soyo to make the game sounds work (game sound & music never worked from new, even when I installed a new Soundblaster card). Now I notice the patch is gone from their website!?.

Try here: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&group=alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.soyo

This forum is full of unhappy Soyo owners who are wandering the valleys of Mobo hell trying to find an angel to help them. I am afraid that Soyo just doesn't have good engineering or quality control. However, you might try a post here, and scout the forum for some information that may help.

Just for interest, did you ever have any problems with your sound or your USB ports?
If you like you can email me (or post here, whatever):
whataboutbob5246@yahoo.com

Good hunting!

Do you the specs on your PSU?

You probably know this, but depending on your BIOS manufacturer, the POST/Beep codes tell whats wrong by the number of beeps, count the exact number and take a look on its manufacturers website.
Hope I helped some ;\

Okay, here's the latest. As I mentioned, after I got rid of the Gforce video card and substituted an ATI, WIN98 stabilized like a rock. XP still crashes. Well, it crashed again last night, and this time I wrote down the eror message generated, went to the Microsoft website online help and typed the first error code into the search engine. It immediately found the message, and named my ATI Radeon card as having the wrong drivers! I inserted my driver ROM into Explorer, and sure enough, there were no XP drivers, just WIN2000 and WIN98! Then I went to ATI's sight, and found the new drivers for XP. My dirvers were 3.0, and these were 7.0....!

Son I will install them tonight and post back to tell you if that did the trick.

Actually, I've gone through the MoBo book over and over and I can't find the PostBeep codes...it's got a Phoenix BIOS chip. Is there a place online that lists them?

Jim, who is now looking for a new MoBo anyhow...any suggestions?