EVERGREEN! 😀

Man I love that case 😁 I've never seen a K5 in the flesh, only in pictures 😁

absolutely LOVE that case

You're sure that's a 430VX? I know Soyo made a board that big,but it had the 430TX and was named Soyo SY-5TF.

Love the built-in speakers. So clean too! Great job, man.

PcBytes wrote:

You're sure that's a 430VX? I know Soyo made a board that big,but it had the 430TX and was named Soyo SY-5TF.

Look at the 2nd picture. It is standard for Soyo that the model name is written at the bottom first ISA slot.

It's the Soyo 5VA2, and according to the manual's pdf which you can google, it has the 430VX.

Wow, thanks guys!

PcBytes wrote:

You're sure that's a 430VX? I know Soyo made a board that big,but it had the 430TX and was named Soyo SY-5TF.

It's about standard baby AT size, if there is such a thing. Not that big.

melbar wrote:

It's the Soyo 5VA2, and according to the manual's pdf which you can google, it has the 430VX.

Yep, that's it! Totally forgot about that.

Addendum, now that I think about it:

- finding the right BIOS update to support the K5-PR166 was a PITA. I found one for a newer revision of the board (this one is older than the one I had in the 90s!), which has more voltage options, space for a USB controller, etc. So flashing that one was a bit of a gamble. Luckily it works just fine.

- speakers are, like elianda posted, not that great and they run out of steam easily. And they have practically no low end at all. Turning up the bass knob does lead to more low mids instead of bass, and eats the tiny bit of headroom that the amplifier has up even faster. So I've connected a subwoofer from an old Philips 2.1 system, using the amplified output of the sound card. This works surprisingly well since the subwoofer has it's own low pass filter and the case speakers don't produce low end anyway.

- the case has no PC speaker and no input for a PC speaker at all. This annoyed me to no end in the 90s, since not all games supported Sound Blaster. This time, I simply glued one in. Connecting to the sound card would've been another option, but I went for the classic speaker for the authentic feeling.

- when I tested the speakers, I connected some external players first, and the sound was horrendous. Sounded like the left and right channel were cancelling themselves out and only the difference went through. I took out the control board (the one mounted behind the knobs), and discovered that it
a) had no active circuitry at all, only potentiometers and resistors - very cheaply designed and made. The only active component is the amplifier IC on the PCB shown above. This works okay for the volume, bass, treble and balance controls - however, the microphone inputs are pure shit and shouldn't be used at all. You don't put a potentiometer behind a microphone input without some kind of input stage 🙁
b) the ground between the input of the board and the controls wasn't connected. Turns out that it wasn't faulty, only that it relies on the fact that the input has to be on the same ground as the case itself. This was most likely done to avoid ground loops. So, it works with an internal sound card, it works if you connect the headphone jack of the CD ROM to the input, but it doesn't work with external sources at all.

Enough pointless rambling...