Today I made some memory tests. The manual states a maximum memory amount of 384 MB.
But with four 128 MB SIMMs installed, the system can run 512 MB total memory.

After some hours of research about bios patching and microcode modding I found a very helpful tool.
"Bios Patcher" from rom.by added some code to the bios which made it possible to recognize Coppermine (on MS6905 adapter )and Tualatin (on Slot-T adapter) processors!

System configuration table shows no L2 cache, but speedsys confirms that cache is present

Not a bad upgrade for a 1996 chipset based motherboard.
Will do some stability tests and benchmarks.

My modded Tualatin-S from Korea will only run on my GA-6BXC with a MS6905 if I drop the FSB to 100FSB -- simply won't boot with 133FSB. Nice Ezra-T chip, they are my favourite!

I own the same board and I also just recently acquired the C-PKND Pentium II slot1 board to ASUS P65UP5 board. The C-PKND is very similar to this board (same chipset, manufacturer and same date). I plan to do the same type of CPU tests as you've done above.

Would you mind sharing the bios used to enable Coppermine and Tualatin support? If you could also share some step-by-step guide to patch this in for the P65UP5 bios that would be much appreciated.

Also did you do any benchmarks and stability tests?

I don't remember the exact steps at the moment, but everything is described here: www.rom.by/articles/BP/index_english.htm
I tested the 3dmark performance under Windows XP with several graphics cards. There were no problems observed.

BastlerMike wrote on 2020-04-03, 03:58:

I tested under Windows XP

I spotted the KN97-X seems to have a LM78 hardware monitor chip and am wondering if my SIV Utility will correctly report it, please will you try it and post the two save files?

The LM78 I/O port looks to be 290 so it should, but I would not be that surprised if I need to make a few small adjustments.

BastlerMike wrote on 2020-04-03, 03:58:

I don't remember the exact steps at the moment, but everything is described here: www.rom.by/articles/BP/index_english.htm
I tested the 3dmark performance under Windows XP with several graphics cards. There were no problems observed.

Thanks!

I thought I was the only one with the KN97-X btw. I somehow missed this thread earlier. It is cool that it can run a Tualatin. Did you notice a huge performance hit using this board compared to a newer chipset?

I tested 2.0V slot1 450mhz P2 in the KN97-X. It was recognized as a Pentium MMX 300mhz (because of 66mhz bus). Is there a good way to check if the board gave 2.0v to the CPU or if its actually running at 2.8v? I didn't take the chance on running it on for a long time.

Take a look at the Bios hardware monitor. As stated in my initial post, the onboard VRM should deliver voltages down to 1,3 V.

BastlerMike wrote on 2020-04-04, 13:30:

Take a look at the Bios hardware monitor. As stated in my initial post, the onboard VRM should deliver voltages down to 1,3 V.

Didnt think this board had such a feature! Must be one of the first one ever for the consumer marked.

red-ray wrote on 2020-04-03, 07:26:

BastlerMike wrote on 2020-04-03, 03:58:

I tested under Windows XP

I spotted the KN97-X seems to have a LM78 hardware monitor chip and am wondering if my SIV Utility will correctly report it, please will you try it and post the two save files?

The LM78 I/O port looks to be 290 so it should, but I would not be that surprised if I need to make a few small adjustments.

I ran your utility on my KN97 machine under Windows 98SE
I hope the attached report will help you. Let me know if you need additional information.

@bastlerMike

I need to try and jock your memory a bit.

When you used BIOS patcher, do you remember if you skipped any steps or used any special commands? Just running the BIOS file (from asus.com) through fixes some issues and gives a patched file. It says you must patch with bootblock since it was changed. Do you remember if you used /wb on awdflash.exe (to force bootblock programming)? I'm a bit sceptical to do this as I don't have an EEPROM write and will need help from the community if I brick the board.

Also the file you attached, that is not the original patched BIOS from biospatcher, but a saved rom directly from your board?

BastlerMike wrote on 2020-04-06, 17:01:

I ran your utility on my KN97 machine under Windows 98SE

Thank you, SIV half worked, but as the board seems to have a very old LM78 (pre LM78-F) then SIV did not report it.

I have made some adjustments so please may I have new save files using SIV 5.47 Beta-09 or later? 98SE ones are OK, but given the option I would prefer WXP ones as SIV should do rather better. As there are subtle differences with the W9X and WXP/W2K/WNT code paths both would be ideal.

I am also wondering if the board uses the usual voltage scaling so a screen shot of the BIOS monitoring screen would be good so I can check, BTW are there any 3-pin fans connected?

BastlerMike wrote on 2018-11-02, 17:01:

After some hours of research about bios patching and microcode modding I found a very helpful tool.
"Bios Patcher" from rom.by added some code to the bios which made it possible to recognize Coppermine (on MS6905 adapter )and Tualatin (on Slot-T adapter) processors!

I'm hoping to add Coppermine support to my EP-61BXA-M I've got coming with that tool -- I found a link, but what version did you use?

For Slot 1 and socket 370 boards, I recommend Bios Patcher 4.23 . See post linked for download link . Dependencies can downloaded through archive.org 's snapshots of rom.by . Note : Bios Patcher did not work for me on Asus P3B-F (bricked, had to hot-flash). It does not work on every board's BIOS .

Re: WIP - First Pentium 2 build

Ah. Thanks! I used 4.23. I'll have to only use my hacked image if nothing else works... I'll make sure to keep a backup of the original just in case.

red-ray wrote on 2020-04-06, 21:21:

Thank you, SIV half worked, but as the board seems to have a very old LM78 (pre LM78-F) then SIV did not report it. […]
Show full quote

BastlerMike wrote on 2020-04-06, 17:01:

I ran your utility on my KN97 machine under Windows 98SE

Thank you, SIV half worked, but as the board seems to have a very old LM78 (pre LM78-F) then SIV did not report it.

I have made some adjustments so please may I have new save files using SIV 5.47 Beta-09 or later? 98SE ones are OK, but given the option I would prefer WXP ones as SIV should do rather better. As there are subtle differences with the W9X and WXP/W2K/WNT code paths both would be ideal.

I am also wondering if the board uses the usual voltage scaling so a screen shot of the BIOS monitoring screen would be good so I can check, BTW are there any 3-pin fans connected?

Here is the new report file and the hardware monitor screenshot. There are no 3-pin fans connected.

vetz wrote on 2020-04-06, 21:11:

@bastlerMike […]
Show full quote

@bastlerMike

I need to try and jock your memory a bit.

When you used BIOS patcher, do you remember if you skipped any steps or used any special commands? Just running the BIOS file (from asus.com) through fixes some issues and gives a patched file. It says you must patch with bootblock since it was changed. Do you remember if you used /wb on awdflash.exe (to force bootblock programming)? I'm a bit sceptical to do this as I don't have an EEPROM write and will need help from the community if I brick the board.

Also the file you attached, that is not the original patched BIOS from biospatcher, but a saved rom directly from your board?

If I remember correctly, the patching procedure went straight-forward without any parameters. That the bootblock needs to be patched totally makes sense. I always use an external programmer if it's possible to circumvent concerns you have when using the usual flash utilities.
So I guess my posted file is the direct output file from BP
I hope this helps

BastlerMike wrote on 2020-04-11, 13:32:

There are no 3-pin fans connected.

Thank you for testing the SIV changes which all worked as I hoped they would. As I suspected the voltage scaling was slightly off so I will adjust this for SIV 5.37 Beta-10.

OK about no fans, I am pretty sure SIV would correctly report them if some were connected.

Do you have Windows XP installed? If so save files from that system would be handy.