Doornkaat wrote on 2021-07-01, 13:34:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2021-06-29, 16:01:

It does seem to support booting from a SCSI controller, I have a few if might try that.

Usually this does not only enable booting from SCSI controllers but from any drive controller with its own bootable option ROM.

Really?

That is interesting that might give me some options. I'm pretty sure I tried setting it to boot to SCSI and it still wouldn't boot from the Silicon Image controller, but I don't know for positive that I did, I was getting a bit frustrated by that point.

I do have a few PCI SCSI controllers and drives but I'm not sure that I have any proper cables, I'll have to hunt and see.

I mean I have several other machines that I can use that are both faster and slower than this PC, but I just like Socket 7 stuff I guess....it's not the end of the world if I can't get it working but would be nice.

After replacement AT with ATX PSU, disable IRQ for VGA, turn on some power options in BIOS, HDD at last works, hope to install Win 95 tomorrow.

There used to be a bunch of promise UATA33 and UATA66 PCI cards around, as they were getting supplied free with retail hard drives of larger than usual for the time capacities, so customers could use them.

DundyTheCroc wrote on 2021-07-01, 17:39:

After replacement AT with ATX PSU, disable IRQ for VGA, turn on some power options in BIOS, HDD at last works, hope to install Win 95 tomorrow.

I haven't tried a ATX PSU with my board yet, but I have onboard video disabled already as I am using a PCI Voodoo 3.

I will try this first chance that I get and see if it makes any difference for me.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-07-01, 17:51:

There used to be a bunch of promise UATA33 and UATA66 PCI cards around, as they were getting supplied free with retail hard drives of larger than usual for the time capacities, so customers could use them.

Yeah, and I thought that I used to have a Promise branded card as well, but I couldn't seem to find it. I think all my SCSI cards are Adaptec so they should be fairly compatible.

Last update for my M567: second IDE channel does not work at all, but was able to install Win 95 from HDD, used another PC to copy files there. No driver problems, even USB works fine, but that's last good news. Sandra 99, Aida, 3D Mark, Final Reality, Duke 3D and some other programs just do not work, simply not starting or ending with program error. Lost 4 days for nothing, that was my first and last PC Chips board 😀

DundyTheCroc wrote on 2021-07-03, 09:00:

Last update for my M567: second IDE channel does not work at all, but was able to install Win 95 from HDD, used another PC to copy files there. No driver problems, even USB works fine, but that's last good news. Sandra 99, Aida, 3D Mark, Final Reality, Duke 3D and some other programs just do not work, simply not starting or ending with program error. Lost 4 days for nothing, that was my first and last PC Chips board 😀

If memory serves the M567 is functionally identical to the m571 v3 just has an extra expansion slot

The m567 bios supports larger capacities of sdram than the m571 bios and might be worth hacking in k6-2 support

Some of the PCChips boards were a little funny with RAM, wanting single bank RAM chips, when DRAM got to 64Mbit it was usually implemented in a 4x16mbit banks on chip, which incidentally is the banks that get interleaved when you turn on 4 way bank interleave on later chipsets. Anyway, some ppl in the past have observed that 8bit by 8MB arranged banks for single 64Mbit bank is just what PCChips boards like best when you go above a 32MB stick.

Have you tried lowering the FSB from 100 to 95, ..., 66?
Give it a go and see if it helps.

Nexxen wrote on 2021-07-04, 11:46:

Have you tried lowering the FSB from 100 to 95, ..., 66?
Give it a go and see if it helps.

Is that for me?
I use P200MHz MMX, FSB is just 66MHz.

DundyTheCroc wrote on 2021-07-04, 13:27:

Nexxen wrote on 2021-07-04, 11:46:

Have you tried lowering the FSB from 100 to 95, ..., 66?
Give it a go and see if it helps.

Is that for me?
I use P200MHz MMX, FSB is just 66MHz.

Reading through I thought you were using a K6-3.
I may have got lost 😀

Maybe I was not quite clear, just wanted to help with some info, but I do not care much about M567
I have another P233MMX PC with 4MB Matrox Millennium+Matrox M3D, M567 was just dumpster find 😀

DundyTheCroc wrote on 2021-07-03, 09:00:

Last update for my M567: second IDE channel does not work at all, but was able to install Win 95 from HDD, used another PC to copy files there. No driver problems, even USB works fine, but that's last good news. Sandra 99, Aida, 3D Mark, Final Reality, Duke 3D and some other programs just do not work, simply not starting or ending with program error. Lost 4 days for nothing, that was my first and last PC Chips board 😀

I tried booting a drive that had Windows already installed, but just get strange memory errors and BSODs. Worth a try however....

Both my IDE channels seem to be goofed.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-07-04, 00:00:

Some of the PCChips boards were a little funny with RAM, wanting single bank RAM chips, when DRAM got to 64Mbit it was usually implemented in a 4x16mbit banks on chip, which incidentally is the banks that get interleaved when you turn on 4 way bank interleave on later chipsets. Anyway, some ppl in the past have observed that 8bit by 8MB arranged banks for single 64Mbit bank is just what PCChips boards like best when you go above a 32MB stick.

My board is picky. I doesn't like dual sided sticks at all, and with the patched BIOS the per module limit seems to be 128MB, it won't accept anything larger.

Beyond that it doesn't seem to care much. I tried about 15 different sticks and as long as the stick is single sided and no larger than 128MB (I tried 32/54/128/256) it will work just fine.

FYI I also tried a few SIMMS both FPM/EDO and no dice, same wonkiness.

DundyTheCroc wrote on 2021-07-04, 13:27:

Nexxen wrote on 2021-07-04, 11:46:

Have you tried lowering the FSB from 100 to 95, ..., 66?
Give it a go and see if it helps.

Is that for me?
I use P200MHz MMX, FSB is just 66MHz.

Probably for me.

I tried all bus speeds from 66-83 (maximum) as well all multipliers from 1.5 up to 6x (via 2x multiplier) on both my k6-2 and k6-3+ chips. Same strange errors.

The board originally came with a K6-200, I used this chip to flash the bios and test the PC but didn't try any further testing with it or either one of my other socket 7 chips, a Pentium 100 Classic, and a P166mmx.

I might still do so in the future but I'm fairly confident it just has a borked IDE channel and I'm SOL.

Only other think I might mess with is flashing a older BIOS and using the K6-2 or the MMX and see if this board just hates the patched BIOS for some reason?

But I kind of doubt it......

Jasin Natael wrote on 2021-07-12, 16:13:

Probably for me. […]
Show full quote

DundyTheCroc wrote on 2021-07-04, 13:27:

Nexxen wrote on 2021-07-04, 11:46:

Have you tried lowering the FSB from 100 to 95, ..., 66?
Give it a go and see if it helps.

Is that for me?
I use P200MHz MMX, FSB is just 66MHz.

Probably for me.

I tried all bus speeds from 66-83 (maximum) as well all multipliers from 1.5 up to 6x (via 2x multiplier) on both my k6-2 and k6-3+ chips. Same strange errors.

The board originally came with a K6-200, I used this chip to flash the bios and test the PC but didn't try any further testing with it or either one of my other socket 7 chips, a Pentium 100 Classic, and a P166mmx.

I might still do so in the future but I'm fairly confident it just has a borked IDE channel and I'm SOL.

Only other think I might mess with is flashing a older BIOS and using the K6-2 or the MMX and see if this board just hates the patched BIOS for some reason?

But I kind of doubt it......

It was for you, I just took one writer for the other but it's no biggie 😀

I had issues with my board working with k6-2/iii but not with k6 and p mmx. Issue was a set of dead capacitors.
Power draw isdifferent, could it be that you need to up the VRM caps? What values do they have on your mobo? Mine had 10V 1000µF.
4 of them. I don't know how to calculate a similar value for 3 caps (if they are 3 on a 571 board).

Wild thought.

Nexxen wrote on 2021-07-12, 17:06:

It was for you, I just took one writer for the other but it's no biggie :) […]
Show full quote

It was for you, I just took one writer for the other but it's no biggie 😀

I had issues with my board working with k6-2/iii but not with k6 and p mmx. Issue was a set of dead capacitors.
Power draw isdifferent, could it be that you need to up the VRM caps? What values do they have on your mobo? Mine had 10V 1000µF.
4 of them. I don't know how to calculate a similar value for 3 caps (if they are 3 on a 571 board).

Wild thought.

That is worth a thought.

I've no idea what they are rated at I will have to check and see.

I should probably also try one of the older CPus and see if they behave the same.

Well.....minor update.

I installed my K6-2 350 CPU that I swear i tested before and had the very same issues with ( but i have two and might have mixed them up?) , I set the bus speed to 83mhz and multiplier to 4x to get 333mhz.

i had similar issues with IDE channels, but on a whim i decided to try my win95 hard disk from my 486 PC as I seldom boot to it as I also usually use DOS or 3.11 on the other hard drive in that machine.

To my surprise it booted fine and detected all chipset devices, IDE/Floppy controllers etc and seemed to work without issues.

So i formatted that drive, copied the Win98 directory to it and attempted to install Windows 98SE. I didn't get the strange FAT errors during scandisk but it did keep hanging at CAB11 during the install and told me to clean the disk.

Tried this twice with same result. This OG disc is a bit scratched so I again I formatted and tried one of my several Win98FE discs, again copying the CAB files, as this disc is mostly flawless. Even though I didn't have any errors while copying the cab files......and it is currently about half way through the install.

I will keep everyone up to date. Thanks for following along in my crappy K6 adventures, 🤣.

FYI I might do a thread on my Asus PVI-486SP3 build if anyone is interested?

It went 100% smoothly and has always worked great.

Quick update.

I was able to complete the install and the machine seems to be working fine.

Not sure what is different other than the CPU. I'm going to go ahead and completely assemble the machine in the case and methodically add all the devices, Floppy/video/sound cards etc one at a time to see if it all continues to work before attempting to swap in the K6-3+.

Wish me luck.

I doubt anyone is following this thread anymore.....but in case anyone searches in the future, here you go.

The K6-2 was rock solid stable and ran without any issues at 66/75/83mhz FSB for a max clock of 400mhz. This was my 350mhz chip.

I was able to get the K6-3+ chip to post and boot into Windows at about 333mhz but it wasn't stable.

I got to thinking that maybe it was a heat dissipation issue, since I suspect my board is overvolting my chip somewhat, it being a rev 3.2.

I tried a few different heatsink fan combos on it, the original one that I've been using is a socket 7 size but somewhat larger with a good Foxcon fan.

But I dug around and happened across my Athlon XP build that has a nice large heatsink with a copper base that appeared to be close to the same size.

I bent the metal latch and was able to get it to attach to the chip, so I applied fresh thermal paste and mounted it.

I also moved the front 80mm intake fan to blow down more directly on the VRMs.

After setting the jumpers I was able to get this thing to POST, boot and run stable at 450mhz.

I proceeded to install Windows 98 SE and all my drivers with no issues.

To recap, this is the OG stick of PC133 128MB DIMM, A Voodoo 3 2000 from Elpina, a ESS Audiodrive ISA sound card for now, and one hard disk\CDROM and floppy.

All of this is the regular hardware I started with but I did swap out the AT PSU for a 300watt ATX PSU.

I had previously tried this same PSU with no luck.

I'm not sure what I did different other than the beefier cooler, but I do seem to be in business. At this thus far. No games or benchmarks yet.....