Does the board actually support the 5.5 multiplier and K6-2 550 model? Did you configure the jumpers properly?

If you can find a newer BIOS, it might help flashing it. Also, try setting the multiplier to 1.5x or 2x, that sometimes works on boards that don't support high enough multipliers.

I'll try that out, i'm rather new to this, how do I set the multipliers?

RTFM :v

Or if I want to be less rude, check which motherboard you have and find its manual online 😀
Anything before late slot 1/athlon need to be configured via jumpers on the motherboard to run properly. On some cases it can lead to really bad overvolt that can end up into a burned CPU (don't worry, K6-2s use the same range of volts. Worst case scenario, you're overvolting it by 0.2V, this is nothing.)

Take care of this when working on anything from 486 to socket 7 😉

understood, thanks for the advice, now if only I knew what the hell this thing was, it's quite generic 😜. TO THE GOOGLE!

If you can post a picture of the board, someone might be able to help in the identification.

Make a photo of the "POST string", it shows up on the bottom of screen of the bios when ram is being counted usually, this is a good way to identify a motherboard

Here it is, any guesses?

Looks like a BCM VP1543

http://www.bcmcom.com/tech/VP1543/VP1543.htm

And here's the Post script

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote:

Looks like a BCM VP1543

http://www.bcmcom.com/tech/VP1543/VP1543.htm

That looks about right based on other reference images, unfortunately, based on the info it seems to only be able to go up to 450mhz. No biggie, thanks for the help!

Check this for jumper settings http://www.bcmcom.com/tech/VP1543/VP1543jumpers.htm - you'll want 5.5 x 100MHz at 2.3V

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote:

Check this for jumper settings http://www.bcmcom.com/tech/VP1543/VP1543jumpers.htm - you'll want 5.5 x 100MHz at 2.3V

followed the instructions to the letter. Happy to say that, after completely removing the "off" jumpers like an idiot, causing a very long beep, and instead simply moving them to the "off" position, the mobo now reads the 550 as it should be. Thank you all very much for your help, I'm now a little wiser in how to setup a computer.

You can also try 2X multi to actually get a 6X out. This way BIOS will show you have AMD K6-2/600 🤣

For BIOS display (and actual speed) it's only important what jumpers you set on the motherboard and not what it's written on the CPU.

Past experience says the 5.5x multiplier is faster than the 6x one, not sure why, maybe AMD bungled 6x, no idea.