Soyo SY-6IBM i440BX microATX Rage 128VR

Six 1500uF and four 1000uF capacitors surround the CPU slot. The standard green heatsink, this time adorned with Soyo's logo and attached with thermal tape, keeps the 443BX Northbridge nice and cool. The Rage 128VR chip features a similar heatsink, also attached with thermal tape. The DIMM slots are placed surprisingly far away from that Northbridge chip, which may cause some memory capacitance issues.

From within the Soyo Combo Setup in the BIOS, FSB settings of 66 / 75 / 83 / 100 / 103 / 105 / 110 / 112 / 115 / 120 / 124 / 133 / 140 / 150 are available. Unfortunately, unlike Soyo's SY-6BA+III, this board does not offer voltage adjustment options here, limiting overclocking potential somewhat. To make matters worse, the highest FSB speed our Pentium II/400 testbed CPU could obtain was 105 MHz, despite the fact that it has been known to run at 112 x 4 = 448 MHz on other motherboards. This could be a capacitance issue related to the relatively large distance between the DIMM slots and the 443BX Northbridge chip. Regardless, the SY-6IBM is not the best choice for overclocking.

The rest of the BIOS is the typical Award 4.51PG fare. The onboard sound can be disabled there and each PCI slot can have a specific IRQ assigned to it. Power management consists of pretty much the standard stuff these days. Wake on LAN and wake on modem ring headers are available to allow the system to power on in the presence of network activity or incoming call. The BIOS can be set to turn on the system at a specific time. The CPU fan can be shut off when the system suspends to quiet things down a bit. ACPI support is built into the BIOS for added power management under an ACPI compliant OS like Windows 98 or Windows 2000. The system can be configured to power on via hot key or mouse click as well.

A nice touch is the ability to configure what the system will do when AC power is restored after a power outage - either remain off, turn on, or resume last power state. This is a feature often overlooked since ATX and soft power became available, but is critical for anyone using their system where it must be on 24/7 or as close as possible. It also allows for users to shut the system on and off from a surge protector.

Complete hardware monitoring is included on the SY-6IBM through the Winbond 83782D chip that monitors 3 fan speeds, 9 voltages, and up to 3 temperatures. The 83782D improves upon the older Winbond 83781 by including a provision to read CPU temperature straight from the on-die thermal diode for the most accurate CPU readings possible. The 9 voltages measured include VTT, +5VSB, and battery voltage, in addition to the standard +/- 5V, +/- 12V, +3.3V, and Vcore.

The reason for "up to 3 temperatures" is that the Winbond hardware monitor can only monitor two temperatures on its own - the temperature of the Winbond chip itself and the CPU's thermal diode (where available). In order to monitor the other temperature, the Winbond chip requires an external thermistor. There is no place to connect a thermistor and none onboard, so with the 6IBM, you're stuck with just two temperatures - that of the CPU and ambient air in the system.

Bundled with the SY-6IBM (and all newer Soyo boards for that matter) is the "Soyo 3-in-1 Bonus Pack," which includes full versions of Norton AntiVirus, Norton Ghost, and Norton Virtual Drive. Ghost is useful for backing up, imaging, or cloning a hard drive. Virtual Drive is designed to make an image of a CD on your hard drive for ultra fast access without the CD. The included AntiVirus and Virtual Drive are both Win9x only utilities. Soyo's own CD is a generic one for all their boards, and as such includes a variety of drivers for Windows 9x, NT, and even Unix. Hardware monitoring software is provided in the form of Intel LANdesk Client Manager (LDCM).