AMD K6-2 533 upgrade problems \ VOGONS

AMD K6-2 533 upgrade problems

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First post, by Kouwes

Posted on 2024-04-07, 15:34

Kouwes Offline

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I swapped the AMD K6-2 400 for a 533.
The system:
Soltek SL55-F5, 384MB, Voodoo 3 2000, Aztech sound. The manual says the fastest CPU would be a 500 but I set the DIP switches to a 550, which works since the systems recognizes a 550 cpu at boot up.
All good I thought….yeah right.
In Win98, I got a New hardware detected (monitor). I never swapped the monitor though.
Then the desktop was set at 640x480 and that’s the only setting possible. No way to set another resolution.
The 3dfx drivers are installed and seem to work fine.
Another strange thing: if I set the voltage switches for a k6-2 500 according to the manual the cou runs at 2.4V. 🤔 I changed it to 2.2V but that doesn’t change anything for the screen resolution.
I haven‘t tried swapping back to the 400 CPU yet, but will do that if all else fails.

Edit:
Swapped the 533 for the 400. At first start in Win98 I could change the resolution to 1024 x 786 but after reboot it was still stuck at 640 x 480.

Reply 1 of 9, by BitWrangler

Posted on 2024-04-07, 16:42

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I think we have seen similar issues with V3 PCI in older PCI systems where power on the PCI bus was not adequate to run the V3, therefore it tends to suggest that you are straining the power distribution of your motherboard. (Whether or not the card is PCI)

Given that switching back to 400 didn't make problems fully go away, you may have some failing capacitors getting worse.

You could try dialling it right back to 300ish and removing all but one large stick of RAM say one 128MB (Because RAM sticks suck a handful of watts each too) and then trying it again and if it acts normal then, I would say it's confirming power problems, and even if you leave it like that, the problem may come back in a while if the capacitors are declining.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 2 of 9, by Intel486dx33

Posted on 2024-04-07, 16:44

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I use 2.0 volts at 550mhz.
Works fine very stable.

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Reply 3 of 9, by Kouwes

Posted on 2024-04-07, 19:30

Kouwes Offline

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Mine says 2.2V.
Well I removed the V3 and installed the drivers for the onboard Trident AGP GPU. After that I was able to set the screen to 1024 x 768 - I guess that’s all it can do.
I tried the V3 again but now Windows freezes so I formatted the disk and did a clean install. Can‘t tell yet if it works now, I‘ll install all the drivers tomorrow after work.

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Reply 4 of 9, by rmay635703

Posted on 2024-04-07, 19:33

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Generally non-plus k6-2’s require 2.3 volts to run 550 stable

In your case you may have more going on like bad caps or power regulation

Reply 5 of 9, by Kouwes

Posted on 2024-04-07, 19:47

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Oh well, I might as well recap the board then…or scrap it if that doesn’t solve the problem.

Do I have to renew ALL the caps, incl the small ones?

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Reply 6 of 9, by Repo Man11

Posted on 2024-04-07, 19:57

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I once had a K6-2 533 and it was very resistant to overclocking. IIRC I had to substantially increase the core voltage to overclock it to 550!

"I'd rather be rich than stupid" - Jack Handey

Reply 7 of 9, by Kouwes

Posted on 2024-04-09, 05:04

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I checked the voltage on one of the molex connectors. 5.03 and 11.84V. Maybe that‘s the problem? I noticed the low 12V rail before when I tested the PSU but didn’t think much of it because there was only a test harddrive connected.

Reply 8 of 9, by H3nrik V!

Posted on 2024-04-09, 05:26

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Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-04-07, 19:57:

I once had a K6-2 533 and it was very resistant to overclocking. IIRC I had to substantially increase the core voltage to overclock it to 550!

Yeah, it seems more than plausible that there's a reason for binning it @533 rather than just going 5.5x100 which was much more widely supported ...

Please use the "quote" option if asking questions to what I write - it will really up the chances of me noticing 😀

Reply 9 of 9, by rmay635703

Posted on 2024-04-09, 20:16

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Kouwes wrote on 2024-04-09, 05:04:

I checked the voltage on one of the molex connectors. 5.03 and 11.84V. Maybe that‘s the problem? I noticed the low 12V rail before when I tested the PSU but didn’t think much of it because there was only a test harddrive connected.

The 12v rail didn’t matter as much back then, if your PSU allows you to tweak the voltages via pot adjustments you could center the 12v
At the expense of over volting 5v slightly.

An overvolted 5v as long as it’s not egregious can help stabilize if ram or I/o is flakey

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