If you want a non-super 7 board i would look for an intel tx or hx board. But i also have an Asus sp97-v board in one of my systems and it did surprise me.
Opinions here may or may not be different but to me it is not a bad board.

meljor wrote:

If you want a non-super 7 board i would look for an intel tx or hx board. But i also have an Asus sp97-v board in one of my systems and it did surprise me.
Opinions here may or may not be different but to me it is not a bad board.

I have some old Pentium 133 MHz CPU I think. According to the manual, this motherboard would support a wide range of different processors. If this is a Super Socket 7 motherboard, is it possible to use some older Socket 7 CPU with this?

The good side with this one is the support of ATX power supplies.

S7 processors work just fine in SS7 motherboards. Super Socket 7 is just good old Socket 7 with 100MHz+ FSB and AGP support.
Btw that motherboard is Socket 7 - the maximum documented FSB is 75MHz.

What i mean is if you just want a normal socket 7 board my first pick would be an intel tx or hx chipset but the sp97-v with the sis chipset isn't bad at all.

If you want a good socket 7 board that can do it all i would go for a super socket 7 board as it supports every single socket 7 cpu including the k6-2, k6-3 at full speed 100mhz frontside bus and has an agp slot.

s7 is officially max. 66mhz fsb and pci only (unofficially up to 83mhz depending on board)
ss7 is officially max. 100mhz fsb and pci + agp slot

Sorry for the confusion.

Indeed not a bad board at all, my gaming P1 rig is based on it (PMMX 233MHz-32MB ram-S3 ViRGE/DX-Voodoo 1-SB AWE64 Gold), it appears super stable and had no trouble or compatibility issues when setting it up.

markot wrote:

I'm going to have a look tomorrow on a Asus SP97-V motherboard and asking for opinions. Is it worth buying this one?

I think it is, especially if you can get it cheap.

It's definitely not the most awesomest ss7 board ever made (especially since it can't do 100MHz FSB) but if it got AGP, that's already a nice thing to have. I'd say: Go get it! 😁

edit: I don't have one of these myself though, but if it was very bad, I'd read about it by now 😜

This motherboard doesn't have any AGP slot, only ISA and PCI. The price will probably be between 5-10 euros, so it's not very much.

markot wrote:

This motherboard doesn't have any AGP slot, only ISA and PCI. The price will probably be between 5-10 euros, so it's not very much.

Wow, must've been confused with another board 😊
The chipset might be interesting (as it's SiS) but I'd only get it if you really want it. Price seems alright 😜

I only dealt with 2 and not this model, but I found the socket 7 SIS boards with chipset integrated video to be very flaky and unstable even if you did not use the integrated video and used an add-in card.
The manual says it came either with the 5582 (no VGA) or the 5598 (with VGA).
Personally I would pass if it has the 5598.
.

The SP97-V does have the 5598, but the on-board VGA can be disabled with a jumper. What issues could it cause? Haven't come across any as of yet...

PCBONEZ wrote:

I only dealt with 2 and not this model, but I found the socket 7 SIS boards with chipset integrated video to be very flaky and u […]
Show full quote

I only dealt with 2 and not this model, but I found the socket 7 SIS boards with chipset integrated video to be very flaky and unstable even if you did not use the integrated video and used an add-in card.
The manual says it came either with the 5582 (no VGA) or the 5598 (with VGA).
Personally I would pass if it has the 5598.
.

That is why it surprised me, i thought it would give me trouble but it didn't and it is reasonably fast and perfectly stable.

Good info about the integrated graphics, i didn't know! Will check tomorrow and see if mine has the connection for it or not. I don't have a vga bracket for it but i would like to know which version i have.

I have used a single s7 SiS board (it was in fact 5598 and I had added a Blade 3D PCI 8MB). OS was 98SE.
It was one of my earlier rigs completed and was more a testbench for some experiments. I did play some games on it, but I really can't remember if it had any particular issues that weren't because of the semi-randomness with which this system was put together (98SE was autopatched iirc, harddrive was suspended DIY-style, can't remember what sound solution I used).

If it had been very unstable, I probably would've remembered it, but I suppose these could be troublesome in certain configurations.
My 5598 board was ATX btw, not AT, just ftr.

I think one of the main reasons I never put it together again after I had moved and had everything stores in boxes was because the old harddrive I used in that rig was just so damned loud!

edit: Anyway, it still might be interesting to have as most others AT s7 boards were those plain i430?X chipsetted ones 😜

Booting all the way to the OS was inconsistent. Wouldn't always get there.
IIRC some ram was dedicated to the on-board video even with it disabled.

On reboots add-in video cards would randomly display with vivid off color hues that weren't always the same off color.
I mean like: reboot-it's yellow, reboot-it's blue, reboot-it's fine/normal, reboot-it's green - randomly.
Didn't matter which video card I used. Only rebooting would make it change hue.

I have heard similar experiences from other people and actually thought it was the usual case with those chips.

The experience completely turned me off SIS.
I haven't deliberately owned another of that vintage or newer SIS board since even though I heard later chipsets were okay.
.

I'm currently trying to fix a computer with Asus SP97-V motherboard and a 233 MHz CPU. There are problems with the motherboard and have not found the reason.

1) I had 4 RAM modules installed of which one was faulty (32 megabytes each).
2) When I left 2 RAM modules in place and added a 3rd one, then when computer started, it didn't recognize the third at all. It just showed 64 megabytes.
3) Starting the computer is also a problem. For the most of the time, the screen is black when powering on, but sometimes it manages to start.
4) I'm using the onboard video without any extra cards installed.

Could the motherboard be faulty? Capacitors look okay and I have not found any other defects either. The AT power supply voltages are also in okay as I checked them. I have also tried with different memory module combinations, no effect.

Please advice if you have experience of similar problems.

Found out the reason. There has to be always two or four memory modules. Otherwise it doesn't work. The one defective memory module was the reason why the computer didn't start.

I had this motherboard back in the day (P166MMX, 32MB EDO, Tseng ET6000, Cardex Dragon Voodoo 1) and it was a solid bit of kit.

The onboard video was even OK while I was saving up to get the ET6000, but it did pinch a bit of system RAM to do so.

I was digging through my junk pile and came across an SP97-V that I forgot I had. There was a note on it saying that it had flaky video and floppy port. I don't remember anything about the floppy issue, but I do remember having problems with the video output. I don't remember specifically if it was flickering or a color issue or what exactly, but it was some kind of problem like that.
Interesting that PCBONEZ had video issues with it also, I wonder if it's common.

As I recall an unusual feature of the SiS 5598 is that it has good support for the 83MHz bus clock. It has a 2/5 PCI ratio to support it. This would make it good for running some of the weirder Cyrix chips or just for overclocking of Pentiums.