So, for tomorrow I plan to get to work on a few MB, I have a couple with BIOS chips to reprogram, for this purpose I got the Legacy adapter, without that I would not have been able to, but if the motherboard works again, it is not 100% safe, in any case I would be quite sure that if there is a problem, it must be somewhere else.

Of course, I will perform relatively simple jobs, because at the moment I do not have enough time ⏱, to verify in detail the various tensions, or any short (if any).

A job that I have already postponed for some time ⏱, is the repair of the pin of a cache chip, on the Soyo SY-5BT, this card even if it is not ASUS, it still has a certain affective value, I had the first version with an AMD K6-200, as the first socket 7, and I remember it quite valid for the times (mid-90s), unfortunately that first version does not support voltages lower than 2.8V, although it is possible to do some tests with jumpers, and maybe find undocumented settings, which give VCORE of about 2.5V, which would be a fairly tolerable voltage for AMD 2.2V K6-2.

As for me, I have the second revision of this board, which has an extra jumper, which allows the selection of VCORE from 2.1V - 2.2V, maybe even here you could do some tests by moving the jumpers, maybe finding the right combination you could go down to 2.0V, which would be ideal for K6-2+, or other similar low voltage.

As I said there is a missing pin from a cache chip, for this job, I got some mini cutters, which should allow me to remove a part of the plastic, and make sure that the missing pin is repaired, welding a bridge between MB and the chip.

Sorry if I don't give continuity to the previous discussion, but during the search 🔍 for some MB, with BIOS chips to reprogram, I came across 🐾, an S7 with AMD K6-233, the card has a label 🏷 MB-586TX, which it should be a rebranding of the PCChips cards, the corresponding model should be M550 (or something similar), I could look for it later, but I could only go and browse the notebook 📒, in which I had also noted the problems encountered!

One of the problems probably concerns the BIOS, but there was a problem let's say: mechanical ⚙️

I tried to insert several SDRAM memory modules (PC100 or PC133), unfortunately 😣 the insertion was not possible, for two reasons, one that the card has a very flexible PCB, and the other is that if it entered from one side , came out of the other, at least until now it has been impossible to insert any SDRAM module, the alternative was to use the 72 PIN ones, but not having large capacity modules, I would have been limited to 16 or 32 MB of RAM in total.

Fortunately, today I tried again with a 128 MB PC100 CL2 module, and with some pressure it went in, which is why, if the card works again, that module will remain in that MB.

I don't think more RAM is needed, in case I had a second bank to insert, I could add another 128 MB, but it would be quite difficult 😩 to insert the other module, think that I had decided to change the sockets, because I thought they were faulty.

I consulted the manual of the motherboard, which turned out to be a PCChips M550, or equivalent with another name, it is written that the largest modules are 64 MB, but it is possible that at that time there were no 128 MB modules available, the one I used is with the chips on one side, I hope it doesn't create recognition problems, and is read entirely, perhaps 128 MB is a generous amount, but other than that, if it works for me they're fine.
I currently have a K6 233, and the maximum according to the manual is 233 MHz, if you want you can raise the FSB to 75 MHz, if the CPU allows it, you can reach 262.5 MHz.

Today I wanted to try the motherboard S.7, MB-586TX alias PCChips M550, unfortunately the time ⏱ is not enough, to put together everything you need, because first I would have to free the bench, removing one or more MB, I think I can remove two three, which have already been tried, to leave room for as many to try.

The M550 is a V5.6, so not the latest version but not even the first, the VRM has no cooling fins on the mosfets, this indicates that the VRM is of the switching type, for this reason, you can try the installation of CPUs beyond the 233 MHz indicated in the manual, if it were linear already at that frequency they would be very hot (the mosfets and their heatsinks), let alone going higher.

This card has three ISA slots and four PCI slots, one of which is shared, apart from the USB, the ports and the controller, plus IR and PS/2 (for the mouse), there is no other built-in slots, so no video and no audio, which will have to be added, with PCI cards, wanting plenty of ISA sound cards, you can use that.

The frequency generator is a CY2265PVC-1, on the board there is the setting for the jumpers for the FSB at 50 55 60 66 and 75 MHz, but you can easily select other frequencies type 83 68, to have all the combinations you have to make a few attempts, or just get the PDF of the chip in which it could be written, what frequencies it can generate.

I noticed that there is no socket for the CPU fan, in those days, the fans connected directly to the molex of the power supply.

That's a rare instance of a genuine 430TX on a PCChips mainboard, so you're pretty much limited to 64MB of cacheable RAM.

PcBytes wrote on 2024-05-27, 20:48:

That's a rare instance of a genuine 430TX on a PCChips mainboard, so you're pretty much limited to 64MB of cacheable RAM.

Thank you very much friend, in fact usually on PCChips motherboards it is difficult to find Intel chipsets, but this is an original TX, not from the competition, TXPROs are easily found, personally I have always preferred Intel chipsets, on any socket, this TX is limited to 64 MB cacheable, for the moment I have a 128 MB bank, so 64 MB more, but I don't know if that limit depends on the on-board L2 cache, which is 512 KB, who knows if it were 1 MB perhaps the limit would be 128MB?

Waiting to try the PCChips M550 again, I searched online for more info, regarding the version, I have (I imagine) the latest Version, in my case V5.6, with switching controllers and USB ports working, in the first version instead the controllers are linear and the USB ports do not work, or have operating problems.

For memory, it seems that 64 MB modules with 8 chips work, in my case I have 16 chips on two sides, 128 MB that I hope will be detected entirely, maybe in the worst case it will be read in half, we'll see.

An interesting peculiarity, is that both types of RAM, 72 PIN and SDRAM can be used, but perhaps you have to use the same type of memory, in this case EDO.

The BIOS is from AMI, and it's like Windows, I don't particularly like it, but I think there may be some updates, for the support of subsequent CPUs, like the K6-2 and K6-3, or the Cyrix MII, and maybe even the support of larger disks, it seems that you can't go beyond 8 GB

A motherboard that I have among those to try, ASUS CUV4X S370 with P3 733, as a kind of motherboards I have better ones, always from ASUS is the TUSL2-C, this one has non-Intel chipset and only supports CPUs up to the Coppermine.

Visually it is in excellent condition, I hope it does not give any problems and it works, I do not know if how performance is valid, we will see with some benches, if and how valid it is.

So, I started gathering the necessary to boot the ASUS CUV4X, a memory a VGA PCI and more, they are parts that I often use for these tests, so let's say they are 100% working and I hope quite compatible.

First of all, I checked if there were any shorts, in the power lines, from the measured values there is no trace of continuity, this is positive, and it will allow the start, although then in reality, it would be the pin of the PWROK, to decide if the motherboard can start or not.

Do you want to know if everything went well ???

Well currently the card boots and shows a couple of error codes on the PCI post card, while it does not show any code using the ISA post card, the BIOS is AWARD, and from the speaker you hear a continuous beep, which would point to a memory problem, for this reason, I will do more tests with different memories, and we will see if there will be a step further, I think by solving this problem, it should work.

In fact it was as I thought, the memory I used, is somehow problematic, I tried another one, same result, but using a module similar to the IBM one, 128 MB from SpecTek, the PC has come back to life, it's alive!!!

As you can see I have the BIOS screen on screen, where you can read the BIOS version, the date, the CPU and the frequency, all the main info in short.

Now I will have to decide what VGA to use, I don't think it makes sense to put the RAGE XL PCI, I will go directly from WD ISA to an AGP, if you have suggestions I have quite common models of both ATI and NVIDIA, which could be fine in this PC, later we will see if to expand the RAM, and which cards to add, I would put a SB and a LAN, since they are not present (integrated).

The boot works, and I can launch diagnostics and benches, at least the usual ones I use in DOS.

I can't say if the results are normal, or below average, I should compare them with other similar PCs, in the past I've tried other P3s, but I don't have the results at hand, it's not easy to look for them, for what you need I think it's enough, later if I connect an HD and load Windows, I could do other benches, for those I could use programs like CPU-Z, which is also a useful diagnostic, or others like Sandra or HWINFO.

I tried to make other benches, on the ASUS CUV4X, I have some memory cards that have loaded DOS and WIN3. X, unfortunately at least in this PC I only work one out of three.

The two that don't go, should I try them on other PCs, so that it's understood if they don't work here, or with any PC?

They were working, until a very short time ago, it may have ruined the boot file, which allows the upload of DOS, perhaps looking at the files, and seeing the version of DOS, you could recover , without losing the content, which is stored in the various files.

Maybe though, you could try booting from SD card via USB stick, I don't know if this MB allows booting from USB, but if it works, I could go and load a Windows, on a card of a few GB, Windows 98SE or even XP might be enough, but for the latter with 128 MB of total RAM, they would be a bit few, so it would perhaps be time to add a second bank of SDRAM, reaching 256 MB, which seems to me the minimum for a P3 PC of just over half a giga hertz.

If the loading of W98SE is successful, I could do other interesting benches, and also use diagnostics, for more details on this MB, in the meantime noting that the BIOS is 1006, if necessary you could upgrade to 1009, there is also a later beta BIOS, but I don't think it is convenient to use it.

The HP PC is an Intel i3, model 4160, so just over 3.5 GHz, the graphics section has a 4400 series chip (if I didn't get it wrong), the disk was 3.5” 500 GB, but it was not sold to me, because it contained personal data, and who knows what of secrecy or personal, however I have already installed a replacement disk, smaller because it is a Kingston 120 GB SSD, for the curiosity of those who want other details, I took some photos of the manual, there are interesting info, for example on the OS there is even a DOS 2.0! This is very interesting, but it is not useful to me, because the PC will be used as an i3 Internet PC, so only for browsing and downloading files, mostly free of course .

Tomorrow I think I'll be able to load Windows, and put it on-line, I have to do some short tests, and a general diagnostic, plus the usual benches like CPU-Z and a few others.

Having performed some benches, with the HP i3 PC, I downloaded one of the latest versions of CPU-Z from the internet, and I photographed the various screens, the PC with Windows 8 is quite fast, after a few seconds, you have the possibility to click on the pane, for input to the desktop.
I'll try to run some other benchmarks, at least to have a comparison, with some older PCs.