First post, by Pickle
I recently been attempting to upgrade my socket 7 machine from a pentium 200 mmx to a k6-2 500. Problem was that i was having lockups during the win98 bootup.
Tried messing with FSB, Multiplier, removing cards, memory, etc. Caps still look good.
I finally worked my way to pulling the supply and switching to a 300 w supply my socket a athlon uses. I have everything back in the system and it seems pretty stable with it. I probably should have figured this out sooner since i was trying to use a pitiful supply from a compaq celeron (amperage is pretty low).
So i needed another supply and i know of the issue with these older machines needing more power on the 3.3/5 rails. So i picked up a new EVGA W1 500 w supply. Had the highest amps and watt's for those rails. Its 3.3 @ 24 A / 5V @ 20 A at a max of 120 W. I still had a some lockups with the EVGA and the cabling would be hitting my 5.25 floppy drive.
I would prefer leaving the 300 w supply withe the athlon, but i think it more stable in the socket 7. Its rated for 30 A on one of the lines (maybe 5 V).
Other odd thing and its happening with all the supplies the socket 7 cpu vcore is off by 0.1 V. So currently im set for 2.1 V, and reporting 2.2 V. I actually thought this might have been the problem all along, but the lockups still happened.
Putting the EVGA in the socket A today and it worked ok, but the bios monitor showed the -5 line at -6 V. I dont know that I should really care about it. Im aware that this really is only needed for older isa sound cards. I dont think PCI cards would need it.
Im wondering if i should just forget about it and turn the -5 V monitor off?
Edit: I recalled one pin isnt populated and if im reading the pinout right the -5 V pin isnt even present. So the monitor must just be maxing out.
I understand the best solution would another older supply, but it was more convenient to try the EVGA supply.
Edit2: I seem to have spoken too soon, the machine locked up on me with with 300 W supply. I dont get what went wrong. Seems like the obvious choice is the cpu since that was the change.
But i would have thought it would improved lowering the fsb/clk. I also dont get any problems if it does boot.
I wonder if something like the caps on the motherboard might be an issue. I suppose i might have to put the pentium back in and see what happens.
Socket 7:
Asus P5 99VM with 98 mb
Voodoo 3
Awe 64
1.2 mb floppy 5.25
PCI NIC / DVD drive / CF adapter
Socket A:
Asus A7V 133 with Athlon 1.2 ghz / 512 mb
ATI 9600
Audigy 2 ZS and Aureal Vortex 2
PCI NIC / DVD drive / CF adapter
