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First post, by seanneko

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I bought a 486-VIP-IO2 recently from the Ukraine seller who had a number of them.

This site claims that it supports both AMD 5x86-133 and Cyrix 5x86 with the latest BIOS:

http://www.elhvb.com/supportbios.info/Archive … FIC/faqs486.htm

The issue is that the motherboard is poorly documented, both in terms of no manual being available, and also the jumpers not being clearly marked.

I can get the AMD 5x86 to work, but it's always shown as being a 100MHz DX4 regardless of how I jumper the board. I thought maybe the BIOS is just displaying it wrong, but benchmarks show that it's performing the same as (well, slightly slower actually) than an Intel DX4 100.

The Cyrix 5x86 will begin POSTing but then hang part way through.

Does anyone have these CPUs working properly on this board? How is it supposed to be jumpered for them?

Reply 1 of 11, by Thermalwrong

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The printed / PDF manual is incorrect, this is the more correct guide in that the CPU is able to boot with the settings specified here. But I have the same problem as you - I can only get it to boot at 100MHz and can't see a way to get it to 133MHz. Does anyone else have experience with getting the AM5x86 running at its 4x multiplier with this board?

Reply 2 of 11, by Deksor

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Don't you just need to set the multiplier to 2x instead of 3x ? (Since AMD rewired the 2x multiplier as 4x)

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Reply 3 of 11, by seanneko

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Deksor wrote:

Don't you just need to set the multiplier to 2x instead of 3x ? (Since AMD rewired the 2x multiplier as 4x)

I tried that but it doesn't seem to work. The board has a jumper to set 2x or 3x, and both settings run at 100MHz.

Reply 4 of 11, by gbeirn

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I can tell you that my Pentium overdrive displays as 80MHz instead of 83. I am waiting on my EEPROM burner to try a BIOS upgrade from here: http://www.fic.com.tw/support/motherboard/bio … re/486bios.aspx

Are you sure you have an IO2? I received an IO and user the attached manual to configure mine.

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    FIC 486-vip-io manual.pdf
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Reply 5 of 11, by seanneko

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gbeirn wrote:

Are you sure you have an IO2? I received an IO and user the attached manual to configure mine.

Yep, mine's the IO2. I'm using the latest BIOS which does fix some issues (e.g. HDD auto detection), but it didn't solve the 5x86 problem.

Reply 6 of 11, by seanneko

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Well, if you set the FSB to 50MHz it identifies the CPU as an Am5x86. I know it's still running at 3x multiplier, but it at least shows that the BIOS knows about this model of CPU.

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Reply 7 of 11, by seanneko

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These are the jumper settings to get the Cyrix 5x86 working. It shows up as a 5x86-S 100MHz.

Still no luck on the AMD 5x86...

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Reply 8 of 11, by douglar

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I got my FIC 486-VIP (no io) to work with an AMD 5x86 133 after a lot of jumper trial and error. Got the WB cache to work too. The Bios still calls it a DX4 100 when it posts, but the benchmarks say it is performing better than a DX4 100. I can post jumper settings if anyone is interested. I have the December 1993 bios. Looking for a newer Bios, but not having much luck yet.

Reply 9 of 11, by Horun

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I see there are no jumper packs in the sockets, should there be ? They look like black resistor packs but are actually jumper blocks.
Just curious because your board and the manual do not match (it is late so might have missed the details)

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Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 10 of 11, by douglar

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https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/F/F … EO-486-VIP.html

Resister pack in JRN2 for 3.3 Volt operation

JCK0: 2 & 3 - 33mhz
JCK1: 2 & 3 - 33mhz
JCK2: 1 & 2 - 33mhz
JCK3: 1 & 2 - 33mhz

JC2: 1 & 2 - DX
JC3: 1 & 2 - DX
JC4: 2 & 3 - OverDrive

JN1: Open
JN2: Open
JP1: 1&2

JT2: 2 & 3 - 2x Multiplier
JT3: 1 & 2 - Writeback Cache Enabled
JT4: 1 & 2 - Overdrive Disabled

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Reply 11 of 11, by vmr_

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Hi, did you test this board with a Cyrix 5x86 133Mhz, would it work?

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