If you're googling on -5V and K6-2 you won't find anything because the -5V line has nothing to do with the CPU. -5V is only used for some old ISA cards. So if you don't use any and don't intend to use any, you're not missing anything.

I've personally had lots of headaches with non-PnP ISA cards on a P5A (despite reserving resources in BIOS getting conflicts in OS) so I wouldn't recommend these boards for the kind of card that needs -5V anyway.

L0L, so it turns out this board gives you a POST error if the -5V isn't present, but then lets you disable the error anyway.

dionb wrote:

If you're googling on -5V and K6-2 you won't find anything because the -5V line has nothing to do with the CPU.

I'm aware of that, but "K6-2" is a better shorthand for this type of system than "Super Socket 7 board with an ALi Alladin 5 chipset" or even "ASUS P5A-B" (since Asus recycled the P5* name for socket 775 boards later.)

I was trying to search *this forum* because I know it's been discussed. The search function fails because it rejects "-5V" as a search term, even in quotes, and then complains that "5V" is too short to search for. It's literally impossible to get results. It doesn't matter what, if anything, you use as a second term. Supremely annoying.

dionb wrote:

So if you don't use any and don't intend to use any, you're not missing anything. [...] I've personally had lots of headaches with non-PnP ISA cards on a P5A (despite reserving resources in BIOS getting conflicts in OS) so I wouldn't recommend these boards for the kind of card that needs -5V anyway.

That's what I needed to know, I wasn't sure if there was anything on the board itself (besides the onboard voltage monitor) or other accessories that needed -5V. Guess not.

Tip for searching: Vogons' search is crap. But Google allows you to search on a specific site too.

Try the following:

site:vogons.org "-5v" p5a

The first two hits give you exactly what you need to know 😀

[ minus 5volt vogons ] works nice too, produces even hits on VCF 😉