PC Chips M590 and M577 help needed

[marcobill]

Does the PC Chips M590 or M577 support an AMD K6-2 533? Please, somebody help me!

[xiaonian]

these boards can use a k6-2/500 CPU,l have tried.
but you cannot use a k6-2+/500 cpu on it.

[georgep]

Check out

http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebri ... tm#patched

for a patched BIOS for the M577 that allows recognition of the K6-2+ and K6-3+ as well as better support for higher speed K6-2s. From the web site:

"This board is the same as the Ampron PM9900 and uses the same BIOS. This patched BIOS has also better support for the original K6-2/550".

Also, Jan has a patched BIOS for the M590 in beta testing that should support the same procs.

[NickS]

Check out http://wims.rainbow-software.org/ for a version of Jan's PM9900 BIOS further patched for M577 ID string and large hard disks as well. I use it.

[DragonAss]

I have a "heads up" and a question.

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First, the heads up: a motherboard I got from a computer show many years ago stated that Alton was the maker. Using this info and the easily readable TXpro chipset, many if not all sources claimed it to be the PCChips M575 (like http://www.plasma-online.de ). Without real close inspection, it was easy to believe it.

I don't know if the vendor had it in the wrong box (he didn't have any reason to be shady... I was and still am somehat ignorant of motherboard details but hopefully this is changing). After buying a CPU, resistors to mod the board and bothering BiosMan for the patched beta BIOS, I blew the dust off of it and learned it is indeed an M560.

The moral of the story: if you have an Alton motherboard... really check what you have before proceeding with any tweaking or upgrades. There are MANY similarities between these older pcchips boards and it can be easy to confuse them.

BTW - Jan's patched BIOS for the M575 even worked on this board . It's up and running Linux, though, I doubt a 2.0v K6-II+ is going to survive in a 2.5v socket. Maybe a MB mod down to 2.2v and some overclocking will do the trick... but I'm skeptical.

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Now the question:

I see there is a patched BIOS for the M590 in need of testers. This motherboard doesn't seem to have vcore jumpers (like the modifiable boards such as M571) so I'm curious if the patched BIOS will work with a 2.0v K6+.

For that matter, do ALL K6+ CPUs have 2.0v cores?

I'm asking because I've already got the 2.0v K6+ CPU (plus a new soldering iron with resistors ) and an M590 is available on ebay at the moment. I see that Xiaonian claims the K6+ CPUs will NOT work in these boards... which I would tend to agree with offhand. BUT if this is the case, how can there be a patched BIOS in testing which supports K6+ on these boards?

Thanks

ps - I know I could just get a MB which supports a K6+, but this is a 2nd computer and I don't mind getting a specific motherboard to advance the cause here.

[KachiWachi]

Hey DragonAss -

I was thinking maybe you could get one of those PowerLeap CPU power adapters to allow you to use the K6/+ in your board. Was just looking into that for my M520, since a Pentium VRM for that guy seems impossible to find these days. You can get one on eBay without the CPU (I think people split them up and sell each seperately to make a few $$$ !!).

Anyone here have any experience with those?

[DragonAss]

I've seen a similar sounding product too... though I haven't done any comparrison shopping. The one I saw cost like $50 plus S&H . At that price, I might as well get a new board.

Thanks for the info though KW