MSI third party board.

Don't ask how to over-clock.
tiltedscope
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Location: Detroit, MI

Hello, this is my first post.

I bought an older MSI m-board from ebay. It is the K7T/266 Pro-2 Ver.3
This board is not supported by MSI, but I found a third-party vendor that did, somewhat.

http://www.premiopc.com/discontinued/su ... /k266.html

I inquired with them about cpu support. They state that XP 2100+ and higher was supported. I asked if this meant 2200, 2300? They said that they only verified 2100+. I also asked if thoroughbred's were supported, they did not reply. I am a little confused with this board because it is almost exactly the same as a Ver.2, except for the bios (Award, not AMI), and the MSI on-board LED troubleshooter.

Also, I downloaded an Award bios that supported my board, but the site was in German, and I lost the bookmark.

So here are 3 questions.

What tool can I use to read my bios, or a copy of my bios, and see if it supports the newer Thoroughbreds?

What do I look for?

If I find my bios supports newer Thoroughbreds, will it support the Thorton? or Barton 266 bus?

Thank you for any information. I am eager to upgrade and would like to get the best possible Athlon for my board. They are so cheap right now.

tiltedscope
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tiltedscope
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Location: Detroit, MI

I did have the German site saved, here it is

http://62.154.214.15/MSI/BOARD/files.html

dont know what it says
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Denniss
BIOS Guru
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Location: Near Hannover (CEBIT) Germany
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Some MSI KT-266/266A Board support only Palomino AthlonXP(0.18µ) - no T-Bred AthlonXP (0.13µ manufacturing process)

Please give us your Full Bios-ID including the Bios OEM/Signon Message from the top left (W6321MS xxxx or similar)
tiltedscope
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Award BIOS

W6380AA V3.5B3 012902

I understand that this board does not support the thoroughbred 0.13 process cpu's. I am only inquiring because there is a post on MSI forums concerning my board and a mod to get 0.13 support. Unfortunately this is for pure K7T Pro-266 Ver.2 MSI boards, and not my Ver.3 third party board. Also, my board has a completely different bios. I am curious as to what my options are when bios configuration is being discussed.

Thanks for looking into what I have. Maybe I will get lucky and my bios will recognize the newer process, processors. I still need to remove a capacitor to achieve this, but if my bios will recognize the cpu, then I am home free.... Hopefully!

thanks,
tiltedscope
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Denniss
BIOS Guru
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A Bios Mod might be possible mut it looks more like a Hardware Limitation .

You board is an OEM-Version but i don't know the "AA" OEM Vendor-ID
tiltedscope
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Yes

The hardware limitation I can fix. According to MSI, this board can un-officially support higher end processors. The catch is to remove a capacitor, and update the bios. My only problem is with the bios. They support AMI. I have Award.

So if anyone can refer me to the correct documentation, tutorial, or software, I would greatly appreciate the help.

I would like to learn what needs to be done with my bios. I am confident I can do this. It cant be any harder than, lets say, configuring a cisco router

Thank you for any assistance.

tiltedscope

p.s. as for the OEM vendor, I have not a clue
I have run across some documentation from different sites
But the wholesaler I bought it from could not tell me
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sulbert
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Is this Award BIOS some kind of crippled OEM one?
tiltedscope
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I beleive it just may be. It is older. From around 02/02. I dont believe the newer AMD XP's were out then. I just need to access my config to check if the strings need updating.

tiltedscope
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sulbert
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If it is a "normal" Award BIOS then I would just add T-bred support using apple_rom's bp (just like I did for my KT7A). Latest version can be found here.
tiltedscope
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I apologize for not fully understanding the term "normal"

Do you mean an un-modded bios?

If you do then I cannot say for sure if it is.

The reason is due to current bios being supplied by a German site, via an online user with my exact board. I can only assume that this bios is "normal" because of its date. 01/02 does not seem like a bios that would need any mods, but again I am just assuming.

The reason I base my assumption on this date is because 0.13 porcess cpu's had not yet reached the public.

Was this bios modded after the fact and the date was not changed, possibly. But I am going to be optimistic about this and assume no, it was not.

I will read up on the software you have suggested sulbert. I appreciate your prompt reply and look forward to my first bios project. Wish me luck, I will try not to forget to create a couple of bios backups before I go into surgery.

B.T.W.
Does a 0.13 AMD Thorton work with 0.13 AMD Thoroughbred motherboards? I assume they do, but If they do not then I will just purchase a Thoroughbred. Sure would be nice to unlock that extra L2 cache.

Thank you.
tiltedscope

p.s. I will do this in the coming week(s). Check back and I will let everyone know how it went!
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tiltedscope
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"The system cannot find the path specified" is the message I am getting.

I created a folder in the root of C:
Loaded the patcher, lha.exe, cbrom.exe, and a copy of my bios into the new folder
Went into my command prompt (from windows XP) and attempted to patch my bios.
I get different erros like file not in specified path or can't found reall.cod microcodes. I found microcodes for pIII AND pIV'S. Do I need microcodes for Thoroughbreds and Thortons??

I would surf the site given but my browser is having issues with the server. I used Mozilla and I.E. with no luck. The so-called english forums are mostly dutch and polish.
No speakee\\No readee
Sorry, dont mean to be such an anchor about this, I really dont know what to do with the language barrier at the site.

tiltedscope
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sulbert
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The patcher needs the reall.cod file to function properly.
There are no microcodes for AMD socket A processors. Support for new socket A processors is added by updating the CPU table and adding init routines.

What I meant with "normal" BIOS (sorry for the confusing term) is that the BIOS doesn't have half of the menu items missing/disabled (like in this case, for example).
tiltedscope
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I will search for this reall.cod file and put it into myC:\ test folder. I am assuming that this can be done in XP command-prompt.
Yes my bios is normal. I found it quite frustrating that I could not access or see certain things that were either grayed out, or not there at all. I have the same bios as the gentleman listed in your post-link.
Award V6.00PG
When I bought the m-board, my bios was listed as a 1.? revision. I found 3.4/3.5 revisions online. I failed to state this when asked in earlier posts about my bios info.
I apologize.
Hopefully this will fix my problem and I can get to testing.

tiltedscope :?
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sulbert
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You can find reall.cod here.
bp works just fine under WinXP.
tiltedscope
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I was confused. I did have this file. But when I looked at the .txt included:
Microcodes (only "real" - without "engeneering samples").

XXX-YY-Z

XXX - CPUID
YY - version of microcode
Z - "P" = "Socket"-package


63x-6Bx - Pentium II / Pentium III
F0x-F2x - Pentium 4

I assumed it was a microcode only file.
Assuming is for the in-experienced!

tiltedscope
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