Which BIOS Update

Recommended by Wim's BIOS...

See the following link for the first steps of where I'm going with my box! :http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=66529&goto=newpost

I took a chance on the BIOS update that didn't come from the mobo manufacturers site (990514s.rom) while trying to squeeze more MHz out of my Cyrix M300 II and it not only worked, but set-up shows the CPU as 350 MHz instead of the 333 MHz I've been seeing. (Obviously PR rating since WCPUID shows real-time speed of 262.36 MHz) Can't wait for my AMD K6 II 500 MHz comes in!!

What I started researching here is completed for now. I installed an Expert 128 PCI Video card then an AMD K6 2 and made it all work. It's way beyond what I ever expected from my mobo.

[ WCPUID Version 3.0f (c) 1996-2002 By H.Oda! ]

Processor #1 : AMD K6-2 (Model / 85EF762D
Platform : Socket 7 (PGA Socket)
Vendor String : AuthenticAMD
CPU Type : Original OEM Processor (0)
Family : 5 (6)
Model : 8 (8)
Stepping ID : 12 (12)

Name String : AMD-K6(tm) 3D processor

Internal Clock : 449.75 MHz
System Bus : 74.96 MHz
System Clock : 74.96 MHz
Multiplier : 6.0

L1 I-Cache : 32K Byte
L1 D-Cache : 32K Byte


MMX Unit : Supported
3DNow! Unit : Supported


Host Bridge : 1039:5597.10 [SiS 5597]
South Bridge : 1039:0008.01 [SiS 5595]
VGA Device : 1002:5050.00 [ATI Rage 128 Family]
Memory Size : 128M Byte

OS Version : Windows 98 Version 4.10.1998


##--- Date 04/12/2002, Time 21:38:13
(This was the best I could do to paste my results on this forum.)

I've upgraded my M571 per Timmy's steps and have been experiencing "frozen screen" lock-ups and some loss of video lock-ups where the monitor light blinks as though there's no signal and the hard drive light stays out 'til I hit the reset. I'm running Win 98 4.10.1998. I've also gotten various Fatal Exceptions OE's. I've installed a fan on my video card heat sink, CPU and have a filtered 4.75" fan putting positive pressure on my case and have cool air coming out of every port. I started with an AMD K6 2 500 MHz on 75 FSB x 2 (6) for 449.75 MHz real time speed. I originally neglected to set my voltage down and had though my CPU was damaged so I got an AMD K6 2 533 MHz with the same results. To eliminate the possible voltage problem I have installed a 100k resistor on the 2.8 volt pins for a measured voltage of 2.34 vdc. (Calculated core V of 2.27vdc) What do I do next?

[b]IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE?[/b] Here's some more info:
I was originally running this board at 75 MHz with a Pentium 233 MHz MMX and didn't have these problems. I did unseat one of my dimms while fiddling around in there so I took them both out, cleaned the connections, and re-seated them and I have ensured my PCI video card is fully seated. I have 128 Mb of PC100 SDRAM and my video card is an ATI Xpert 128. JPD5 is jumped to 1-2. I printed out the instructions from Timmy's page and have gone through them several times trying to isolate this problem. I'm fairly stable most of the time and quite frankly dropping back to 66 MHz FSB would defeat the whole purpose of my upgrade. I even went through two re-installations of Win 98 to get rid of the SiS IDE drivers and use the windows drivers. I have also flashed my BIOS twice (990421s.rom & 990514s.rom) before I even changed the CPU.

With a 47k resistor the voltage appeared too high, but I'll try it again. A buddy at work who builds and services computers on the side suggested one of my memory boards may be going bad, so I'll try running on just one or the other. I believe I can consistently lock it up by opening Outlook Express, a couple of pic programs, cruise the net and play a CD as a test. I have ran at 83 MHz FSB x 5.5 with PCI selected at 1/2 of FSB, but not for long, although that is my ultimate goal. I'll have to get back to you on the actual chip; there’s a fan in the way and there's a heat sink on it. I looked through my paper work and there are details there. The drivers installed are the "latest and greatest" from the manufacturers site. I also played with the Optimal/ Best Performance CMOS settings and had an IRQ of 11 or 10 set for the ATI. I've also tried reducing my PCI Latency from 64 to 32 with no real change in frequency or type of faults.

[edwin]

What is the rating of your power supply?

250W. My external cooling fan isn't powered by the power supply and Im only running a CPU fan and A small CPU fan on my video card. I've monitored it and the supplied voltage remains stable through several combinations of my applications.

[edwin]

Other question. What was the FSB at when you installed windows that was later running on the 233 with 75MHz FSB? Sounds like your harddisk or your cdrom doesn't like 41.5MHz very much. You are overclocking your IDE bus as well, not all devices take that very easy.

I originally ran it at 66 x 4, then at 75 x 3.5 and ran stable. I am following well documented steps from Timmy's M571 upgrade page. [u]http://home.directlink.net/~timmy/M571/M571.htm[/u] We're pretty deep into this in the EYO Forum: [u]http://forums.eyo.com.au/showthread.php?threadid=1852&goto=newpost[/u] I have also tried both JP5D positions and am now on pins1+2.

[edwin]

VFAT -> harddisk trouble
VWIN32 -> memory trouble

at least, that is what my last encounters with those two errors turned out to be.

Been here?
http://www.stud.fernuni-hagen.de/q39981 ... .html#M571

I did read through alot of those posts a few weeks ago, but at that time I was having other problems. I've had to un-install the SiS IDE Drivers and update them with Windows drivers as well as several other software issues and it seems to get better each time, but I'm not going to stop until the system is stable. Before I started this upgrade, we ran Win 98 for 3 years stable on this system and eventually I want to run full out at 83 x 6.