VOGONS


First post, by SubZero

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Hi everyone!

I am since many years using a QDI Advance 10T Socket 370 motherboard in my main retro PC. Now I have gotten hold of another identical motherboard to build another system. Short summary of the parts:

QDI Advance 10T
Pentium 3-s 1400MHz (SL5XL)
512MB SDRAM
Geforce 4 Ti 4200
etc etc

Now on to my issue. On my old board I can select FSB 133/137/143/147MHz. But when testing the new board with all the above parts, I can only select 133/136MHz FSB. Both boards have lastest Bios and all jumpers are set in same way. Is there any kind of hidden option you can open up with a specific command? Or anyone have any idea what else could be the reason?

I have been running my retro PC at 147MHz FSB for a long time, so though why not access some extra performance if possible.

See attached pictures

IMG-20201114-183806786-MP.jpg

IMG-20201114-185433120-MP.jpg

IMG-20201114-185844404.jpg

Reply 1 of 9, by muon

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I recently acquired that board with that CPU and I have the same problem

Reply 2 of 9, by RoberMC

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That's a QDI, and other brands, classic. They made a lot of different revisions of a motherboard without no way to identify them from the model number and sharing the same bios file.

Look closely to the motherboards looking for differences, they are probably using different clock generator ICs

Reply 3 of 9, by BigDaddyM

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Can you upload pictures of both motherboards? I have 1.0 (S1.3) revision that can only go up to 136 MHz FSB but I have noticed some quirk. Under certain conditions after reset it automatically overclock CPU to 150 MHz

Reply 4 of 9, by muon

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BigDaddyM wrote on 2020-12-03, 08:02:

Can you upload pictures of both motherboards? I have 1.0 (S1.3) revision that can only go up to 136 MHz FSB but I have noticed some quirk. Under certain conditions after reset it automatically overclock CPU to 150 MHz

The same as me.

Reply 5 of 9, by elcrys

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Late to the party, but if someone else will stumble upon this I can confirm that the reason for different OC capability is indeed clock generator.
Recently I have acquired this board and it has the ICS94241, whereas the production began with Cypress clockgen originally. This board was also advertised with the StepEasy OC utility for Windows, which is made by Cypress and, of course, doesn't work with the ICS's clockgen. At some point in production QDI just decided to switch suppliers for clockgen and apparently didn't bother to update BIOS or this SW utility (or even change the board revision for that matter).

I have tried SetFSB but wasn't able to find compatible settings, although ICS94241 should handle FSB above 200 MHz.

Reply 6 of 9, by The Serpent Rider

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although ICS94241 should handle FSB above 200 MHz.

Practically impossible on 694T anyway.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 7 of 9, by Nemo1985

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I have a qdi advance 10t too and in the bios the only settings available are 133 and 136. Anyway the bus according from what I read around could be highered with softfsb.
Is would be possible to unlock the other fsb frequency on the bios?

Reply 8 of 9, by enaiel

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I have a QDI A10T with the Cypress CY28316 PLL. I wasn't able to change the FSB using SetFSB or SoftFSB, but was able to hit 150 with CPUFSB.

#1 VIA C3 Ezra-T 1.0GHz / MSI MS-6368 / Voodoo2+ViRGE GX / SBPro2+YMF744+AWE64+SC-7
#2 Pentium III-S Tualatin 1.40GHz / QDI A10T / Voodoo3 3000+GF4 Ti4200 / Audigy+AU8830+SC-50

Reply 9 of 9, by elcrys

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Thanks for the tip, CPUFSB (tested version 2.2.18) supports also ICS94241 on my version of the board. Unfortunately CPUFSB cannot be registered anymore, so it's quite difficult to work with it.