sliderider wrote:

mwenek wrote:

Bought this to straighten the pins on my next project.

You know what works really well for straightening pins, especially when you have a lot of them to straighten? A metal straight edge of some kind. You can stand entire rows of pins back up at once and then finely tweak them with the needle nose pliers if theys till won't seat in the holes properly.

And you know what's almost the perfect size to go between pins? (At least on a 486), those metal covers you put over the expansion slots to keep dust out, at least the straight-flat ones.

sliderider wrote:

You know what works really well for straightening pins, especially when you have a lot of them to straighten? A metal straight edge of some kind. You can stand entire rows of pins back up at once and then finely tweak them with the needle nose pliers if theys till won't seat in the holes properly.

Stanley knife blade 😉

jwt27 wrote:

Stanley knife blade 😉

I use that too, great tool for bent pin's.

Pen with ink and nib removed is a good substitute. Combined with a lighter it can also make a gamebit, until it snaps anyway.

Bought a Gigabyte Ga-5ax but unfortunately it doesn't work. Came with a k6-2 500 together for only 5 euro. cpu works but i have no use for that.

Fiddled around with the board for some time now with different cpu's, psu's, ram and graphics cards but it doesn't even give a beep. Fan works so it does get some power.
Examined the board and underneath there are some scratches, one of them seems nasty and could be the problem, caps look okay. Don't know, i'm not a specialist with electronics and my sodering skills are very very basic.

Don't like overclocking my p5a boards so i was planning an overclocking frenzy on this gigabyte 😒

Will scrap it and maybe one day find another one... on to the next toys.

Upgraded the fan on my splinter cell rig. The heatsink has an 80mm mount, so I got an 80mm -> 120mm adapter for it. This lets me use the excellent Noctua 120mm

meljor wrote:

Bought a Gigabyte Ga-5ax but unfortunately it doesn't work. Came with a k6-2 500 together for only 5 euro. cpu works but i have […]
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Bought a Gigabyte Ga-5ax but unfortunately it doesn't work. Came with a k6-2 500 together for only 5 euro. cpu works but i have no use for that.

Fiddled around with the board for some time now with different cpu's, psu's, ram and graphics cards but it doesn't even give a beep. Fan works so it does get some power.
Examined the board and underneath there are some scratches, one of them seems nasty and could be the problem, caps look okay. Don't know, i'm not a specialist with electronics and my sodering skills are very very basic.

Don't like overclocking my p5a boards so i was planning an overclocking frenzy on this gigabyte 😒

Will scrap it and maybe one day find another one... on to the next toys.

You could try cleaning the motherboard. In the location where the scratches are deep maybe resolder/jump the break in the contacts like I have seen a few people do on here with 486 boards 😀 if nothing else you have a good k6-2 500 to slap into whatever SS7 motherboard you find that works well for cheap!

In any case I got a socket 754 Biostar system to run 1080p YOUTUBE videos with 2gb of DDR400 and a laptop Sempron 1.8ghz chip 😀 It is running a HIS HD 4670 1gb card and is my sister's new web browser! Fully updated with SP3 and all security updates. It should make a great 1080p tv web browser 😀

Practiced my pin straightening skills on a half a dozen cpus of various types.

Im trying to flash a new BIOS to my Gigabyte BX2000+

At the moment the board has the F3 BIOS from before the board was released in late 1999. After the F3 there is F4 to F9 and FA, FB, FC and FD, most boards seems to have had the F8 BIOS when they were sold...

The issue Im having is that the BIOS my board has is so old that the flash utilitys that comes with the newer BIOS releases wont flash because of "TAG error". In this situation I use to use uniflash but because this is a dual BIOS board things get complicated.

I just found an older BIOS version than the ones I tried so far with another flash utility bundled so I will see if it works.

edit

Success! This utility did also say the BIOS was a mismatch but it had an override! AF786.EXE seems to be a nice flash utility that let you do stuff...

edit 2

And it diddnt brick the board 😁

Now lets try the shady BETA with Tualatin support. (Gigabyte dosnt want to acknowledge it exists) 😜

edit 3

Another mismatch, exiting! Aaaaand it diddnt brick the board 😀

edit 4

Well the beta BIOS with Tualatin support sucks, sure it works but it sets the memory timings to 2-3-3 when selecting CL2 and not 2-2-2 as the old F3 BIOS. This board had crappy memory performance even with the tighter timings... I will have to flash older BIOS versions just to see where that changed and if the latest BIOS with 2-2-2 timings does the stuff I want. The really old F3 BIOS wont run Coppermines with a multiplier greater than 6.5 at 133 MHz FSB although the board is stable even at 152 MHz FSB, I do not really need Tualatin support.

edit 5

Even with the oldest BIOS I can find the timings get set to 2-3-3 when selecting CL2. I saved a copy of the F3 BIOS the board was sold with so if I cant restore it from the backup BIOS chip I can reflash it from the floppy. I guess I have to choose, support for the Coppermine 933, 1000 and 1133 or 2-2-2 timings. Sometimes stuff dosnt work out as well as you hoped.

You could try stuff like TweakBIOS and see if you can change the memory timings manually from DOS. Unfortunately the company that made it doesn't exist anymore, and I could not locate the full version (that allows you to save settings and load them automatically in AUTOEXEC.BAT)

alexanrs wrote:

You could try stuff like TweakBIOS and see if you can change the memory timings manually from DOS. Unfortunately the company that made it doesn't exist anymore, and I could not locate the full version (that allows you to save settings and load them automatically in AUTOEXEC.BAT)

Thanks for the tip 😀

I have used that utility for messing with i815 so with luck I have a copy somewhere.

At the moment the memory timings is a secondary issue as the BIOS update diddnt fix the issue I was having.

Even with the latest BIOS the board wont work with a PIII 933 or 1000(133) MHz at 133 MHz FSB, at 100 MHz FSB the same CPUs work perfectly. The (3) PIII 800(133) I have tested all works even at 152 MHz FSB, this is really a Kafkaesk issue. I will try a Tualatin at 133 MHz FSB to see if that works...

Edit

Now it suddenly worked with the Coppermine 933... the board waits for a while after showing you the post screen then continues to post and boot the OS. It seems to only work with CL3 😒.

Edit 2

Im going back to the old F3 BIOS, If I have to run CL3 to be able to run a Coppermine with multiplier 7 or greater at 133 MHz FSB I could aswell do it with the same BIOS as I used for benchmarking all the other CPUs so far so the results dosnt get more skewed than the change in memory timings makes it.

I still dosnt understand why 6x152 works with CL 2-2-2 but 7x133 wont work other than with CL 3-3-3. I have tried 3 different 256 MB modules known to handle 133+ MHz 2-2-2 and even 2x 128 MB but the issue remains the same.

At least I figured out what the board is waiting for when it seems to hang for a minut or so, its doing the memory test but it isnt showing it on screen for some reason. Its very strange, why does the stupid board act differently at post when running 133 MHz FSB with multiplier 7+ than with lower multipliers where it shows the memory testing on screen?

EDIT 3

WTF. The system locked up before the memory test at 133 MHz FSB CL 3-3-3 with the old F3 BIOS, the next post Im back to the shady beta BIOS. I had booted the system more than once at 100 MHz FSB with the F3 BIOS before this happend so Im sure the BIOS downgrade worked... I hate dual BIOS boards and I would disable that function if it wasnt for the fact that the board sometimes likes to corrupt the main BIOS when it fails to do a full post because of the issues Im having.

It seems I will have to do the rest of the benching with the FDc beta BIOS... the board wants it that way. At least the system seems fully stable at 7x133 MHz CL 3-3-3 with this BIOS.

If I thought that the BIOS programmers responsible for this mess still worked at Gigabyte I would send an angry letter!

EDIT 4

The next post im back to the F3 BIOS which still is in one of the BIOS chips it seems 😜

EDIT 5

I flashed the FDc beta again and the next post the board again starts with the F3 BIOS and locked up because of 133 MHz FSB with multiplier 7 😁, I reset again and now it uses the FDc and passes post and boots Windows 😁. It seems when you use the flash utility it flashes the chip the board is using at the moment and the board sometimes switches between the two chips because of something... not only after a failed post.

The board has a built in utility for flashing BIOS from one chip to another so I guess some of this mess could have been avoided. I just have not dared to use that function after reading some forum post written by someone who bricked his board using it.

EDIT 6

Everything is working fine now, the board posts with the FDc BIOS every time while the F3 BIOS is in the other chip. If the board should feel like switching to the chip with the F3 BIOS again it will fail to do a full post and because of that it will return to the FDc BIOS the next reset. No need for me to flash the FDc to the other chip. I can probably flash the other chip by selecting CL2 at 7x133 with the FDc BIOS which will fail to do a full post, then before powering on the system again I can change the dip switches to 100 MHz FSB, the next post will be with the F3 BIOS and as the FSB now is 100 MHz it will not lock up and I can flash that chip aswell without using the built in utility for flashing from one chip to the other.

Awesome work Gigabyte...

I had nothing but trouble with Gigabyte's Dual Bios, and that was in an Ivy Bridge system (one would assume that more than a decade later it would have been improved). Things got to the point where I had to short a few pins on the main BIOS chip to force the backup one to kick in.... And I wasn't even updating the BIOS, it just corrupted spontaneously.

alexanrs wrote:

I had nothing but trouble with Gigabyte's Dual Bios, and that was in an Ivy Bridge system (one would assume that more than a decade later it would have been improved). Things got to the point where I had to short a few pins on the main BIOS chip to force the backup one to kick in.... And I wasn't even updating the BIOS, it just corrupted spontaneously.

It seems the Gigabyte BX2000+ cant even decide on which of the two BIOS chips is the main BIOS chip 😀. I guess as long as you have the same BIOS in both chips it dosnt really matter.

When you flash the old release BIOS to what you think is the main chip and the next time you power on the system after a failed POST its suddlenly using the shady beta BIOS you were using an hour ago things get confusing, especially when you have flashed and used 3 other BIOS versions during that hour... The chip that isnt used as the main BIOS chip at the moment is used as backup but you are never sure which is which as they seem to switch place after a failed post.

Last night I assembled my old Super Socket 7 system from back in the day:

FIC VA-503+
AMD K6-2 350

I seemed to have misplaced the Riva 128 that I originally ran with it, but I still have the Banshee that I "upgraded" to. For testing purposes, I'm using a TNT 2 Ultra, the card I coveted. I will probably settle on a Voodoo 3 -- such a great card for this type of system.

This VA-503+ is such an interesting board, evolutionary-wise: Baby AT size; AT-style keyboard connector with PS/2 mouse header; AT & ATX power supply options; SIMM & DIMM sockets.

The amazing thing is that the coin battery kept pretty accurate time since disassembly. It was only off by a couple of hours. Based on my Newegg order history, I upgraded to an KT133A + Athlon T-Bird in 2001, so the VA-503+ has been without power for 14 years!

In the end I flashed the beta BIOS with Tualatin support to the other BIOS chip on the BX2000+ aswell by forcing a failed POST making the board switch to the other chip. It worked fine, now the board always use the FDc beta BIOS.

If Im going to try a Tualatin on this board I want to have support for it in both BIOS chips. I will keep a backup of that old F3 BIOS though as it sets tighter memory timings.

The Coppermine PIII 1000 worked just as good as the PIII 933 😀 When Im finished with benching at 7.5x133 I will see if I can get the Coppermine P3 850 to run at 8.5x133 to mimic the performance of the PIII 1133, the fastest of all Coppermine CPUs. I have my doubts though, its a huge overclock for a Coppermine with the cC0 stepping. Sadly I think such high clocks is only possible with the later cD0 Coppermine stepping.

The goal of my collection is to use mostly asus boards so i went trough everything i have and started a cleanout 😀 Have started some hoarding again lately so all the stuff i will never use has to go, tomorrow i will clean out some other stuff (mainly videocards as i have a few too many and some cases)

Result today: a box full of not so interesting boards (or even defect) and 16 boards that have to find a new home. Still have plenty left and it feels nice to clear out from time to time.

Still have a few non-asus boards but they earned the right to stay for now 🤣 (like my aopen ax59pro and a tyan dual tualatin)

meljor wrote:

The goal of my collection is to use mostly asus boards so i went trough everything i have and started a cleanout 😀 Have started some hoarding again lately so all the stuff i will never use has to go, tomorrow i will clean out some other stuff (mainly videocards as i have a few too many and some cases)

Result today: a box full of not so interesting boards (or even defect) and 16 boards that have to find a new home. Still have plenty left and it feels nice to clear out from time to time.

Still have a few non-asus boards but they earned the right to stay for now 🤣 (like my aopen ax59pro and a tyan dual tualatin)

Try to sell the box with uninteresting boards aswell, as long as the price is low enough someone will buy it. 😀

Some strange people prefer some strange brands like Fujitsu Siemens, probably one of the most underrated board makers 😀

Mostly Asus? Well, there's a nutter in every family I guess.

Today I upgraded my website. (from my old one - http://www.blurredmanswebsite.crabdance.com/o … bsite/home.html)

And then after doing all that messing around making screenshots of various systems and browsers to see how compatable it was, I then made some more pages.. I'm having a right laugh at all this. Wish I did it years ago, but looking athe website design it looks like I did indeed do it 10 years ago 🤣 🤣 🤣