Doesn't sound like the CPU's the issue here - 2.5x 83 is a lot less demanding than 6 x 75...

- what is the PCI divider doing when you go to >83? If it's still at 1/2, that might be the problem. Iirc youcan manually set it to 1/3, which should rule out PCI related stuff.
- if it's not PCI, then AGP and cache are the prime suspects. Try a PCI VGA card to rule out AGP, disable L2 cache to rule out cache.

No, the PCI divider on this board goes to 1/3 for all FSBs above 75. So at 83 it's 27.7, at 95 it's 31.6 etc.
I don't think it's the AGP either. But I'll try with a PCI card (a Matrox G200 which I know works at 41 on PCI).
Good thinking on the L2 cache, however... see below.

I have found the Cyrix CPU. It's actually a MII-400 (95FSB, 3x, 2.2V).

It also does not POST at any FSB above 75, and even at 75 and 66 it does POST but it's unstable. For instance, many of the benchmarks in Phil's pack either don't start or crash. Speedsys 4.71 for instance stalls at "checking MTRs". Even at 66MHz with a mult of 3x so a mere 2ooMHz, it still crashes this way.

Post pics of the board.
Maybe a cap is faulty and can't have a stable Voltage.

Just checking you have memory/AGP clock jumpers correct? https://kerenent.tripod.com/va503+.htm
I've had a lot of trouble setting clocks with one of the MVP3 boards (Gainward).

So further testing:
PCI video card: 75FSB=POST, 83/95/100FSB=no POST
PCI video card and L2 disabled: same as above.

Yes, the jumpers are correct.
(edit) except for the SDRAM2 and SDRAM3 jumpers. I don't understand what those actually do.

Okay, problem solved I think. 😀

I was (and still am) unclear what jumpers SDRAM2 and SDRAM3 actually do. Also, the settings from the page linked above are not what is in the board's manual from https://www.ultimateretro.net/en/motherboards/8482#downloads

So I decided to take a better look at the manual, and noticed that in the table on page 16 the main difference between FSBs 66/75 and 83/95/100 is the position of SDRAM2.

Originally, the jumpers were set as follows: CLK4=1-2, SDRAM2 and SDRAM3=2-3.
So I moved SDRAM2 to 1-2, and suddenly everything works. 😀

(note that this combination SDRAM2=1-2 and SDRAM3=2-3 is NOT documented at https://kerenent.tripod.com/va503+.htm )

Quick poll for a late Win98SE build for this system. FIC VA-503+, 256MB RAM, K6-2+/570, OPL3-SAx sound card with Dreamblaster S1.
The question: which video card?
1. TNT2 Ultra
2. Geforce 2 GTS
3. Geforce 3 Ti500
4. Voodoo3-2000
5. Other, and why.
(all AGP)
N.B I don't guarantee that I have the "other". Choices 1-4 I do have.

The Voodoo 3 is overall the best choice for SS7:
- excellent compatibility with all games that are reasonably playable on this platform.
- low driver overhead and the ability to use Glide (a low level API), resulting in better performance in period correct games.
- because Voodoo cards don't use any AGP specific features, they usually just work and are 100% stable on SS7 (except on motherboards with bad AGP power delivery - your motherboard should be fine, though).

Now, depending on the games you want to play (and especially the resolution/bitrate), a GeForce 2 GTS can give you higher performance, so it's also a popular choice (even though it will be severely bottlenecked on this platform).
A good compromise is a GeForce 2 MX/MX400 (with the full 128bit memory interface) - I find that this card is a pretty good and cheap match for SS7.

The problem with the GeForce cards (and basically all other AGP non-3dfx cards) is that some tweaking will usually be required to achieve 100% stability.

Glad you solved this. I'll be building a system soon with the same MB and CPU, so you might have saved me a big headache.

No problem, debs. Those jumpers SDRAM2 and SDRAM3 are not well documented anywhere. FWIW, they are now in the position that is silkscreened on the motherboard as "system speed 3x"

FWIW I ended up installing the V3-2000. Which is in fact a V3-3000, according to both the BIOS splash screen, and Everest. I'll have to put a fan onto it because it gets very hot even when idle. It's by far the hottest spot in the whole system.

BTW, this board is particularly reluctant to function correctly.

Starting with the VIA 4-in-1 drivers. IO tried several revisions, and each trial ended up in a Windows reinstall. Finally the only one that worked is the very old version 4.17, and that one only on condition that the UDMA part of the driver was not installed, or else it would lead to lockup at boot like all the others. I can attach it here if anyone wants it, as it was very hard to find on the web.

And then, I had lots of trouble installing a network card. Went through a whole stack of PCI cards, none of which worked: two different Intel Pro/100 S, none of which was detected by the OS or by its own drivers (which were also very hard to track); a Linksys LNE100TX, which was also not detected; a Netgear something which in one PCI slot would not allow the system to POST, and in the other slots were not detected; and a 3C905TX, which was also not detected in any PCI slot.
And finally I got a smaller stack of ISA cards. An Intel Etherespress 10+ which was detected as non-PnP and installed, but locked up the system at the next boot. In the end, the last card I had on hand (SMC EtherEZ) installed correctly and din not prevent Windows for booting. Apart from that one, the only card I had left to try was a very very old 3C503 (etherlink II), fortunately it didn't come to that.

Thanks. I've saved that file. Got a paper manual coming soon, and also downloadied the pdf manual from ultimate retro

Hoping it likes the Etherlink III nic, as I have a few of them.

Not that it helps but back in the day I never could get an Ethernet card to work in a Via board,

I’ve been told there is a bug fix and special driver that fixes timing issues to get Ethernet working

stamasd wrote on 2022-02-03, 17:28:

Quick poll for a late Win98SE build for this system. FIC VA-503+, 256MB RAM, K6-2+/570, OPL3-SAx sound card with Dreamblaster S1 […]
Show full quote

Quick poll for a late Win98SE build for this system. FIC VA-503+, 256MB RAM, K6-2+/570, OPL3-SAx sound card with Dreamblaster S1.
The question: which video card?
1. TNT2 Ultra
2. Geforce 2 GTS
3. Geforce 3 Ti500
4. Voodoo3-2000
5. Other, and why.
(all AGP)
N.B I don't guarantee that I have the "other". Choices 1-4 I do have.

Ti500 should give best results. See k6 3+ aiming for the stars thread.

Yeah I have this same board and it’s picky about sdram settings.

Also be sure to only use single sided memory.

Memtest will give you the all clear but it lies!!!

Try ordering a intel 1000gt network card. That’s what I recall working if memory serves

The SMC EtherEZ (8416, 83c795 IIRC) works well so I plan on keeping it, unless I happen to need the 3rd ISA slot for something else - which I don't think I will. I remember liking these SMC network cards back in the days, they worked well with everything: DOS, Windows, Linux without any problems.

(I just looked up the prices for SMC ISA NICs on ebay and they're crazy: $50-150 is not something I would pay)

For fun I played a little bit more with this system today. It's unstable at 100X6, but it's rock stable at 112X5.5. Crazy, huh? The latter is 615MHz, and it's stable - but 600 isn't. That is at default voltage of 2.0V.
And also for fun I installed Morrowind on it and tried playing. Talk about a slide show, with bursts of up to 10-11fps. 😀 BTW, that is with a GF4Ti4200 which I've settled on in the end, and with nvidia driver 53.06, the oldest driver that I was able to make this card work correctly with.

I have the exact same mobo and chip. I was able to do 100mhz bus and 6x multiplier and 2.0v. Here are some details at the end of this thread Huge number of K6-2E+/570ACZ CPUs for sale on eBay

stamasd wrote on 2022-02-03, 21:41:

BTW, this board is particularly reluctant to function correctly. […]
Show full quote

BTW, this board is particularly reluctant to function correctly.

Starting with the VIA 4-in-1 drivers. IO tried several revisions, and each trial ended up in a Windows reinstall. Finally the only one that worked is the very old version 4.17, and that one only on condition that the UDMA part of the driver was not installed, or else it would lead to lockup at boot like all the others. I can attach it here if anyone wants it, as it was very hard to find on the web.

And then, I had lots of trouble installing a network card. Went through a whole stack of PCI cards, none of which worked: two different Intel Pro/100 S, none of which was detected by the OS or by its own drivers (which were also very hard to track); a Linksys LNE100TX, which was also not detected; a Netgear something which in one PCI slot would not allow the system to POST, and in the other slots were not detected; and a 3C905TX, which was also not detected in any PCI slot.
And finally I got a smaller stack of ISA cards. An Intel Etherespress 10+ which was detected as non-PnP and installed, but locked up the system at the next boot. In the end, the last card I had on hand (SMC EtherEZ) installed correctly and din not prevent Windows for booting. Apart from that one, the only card I had left to try was a very very old 3C503 (etherlink II), fortunately it didn't come to that.

4IN1417.EXE

I found a brand new Linksys LNE100TX at the Goodwill and I want to use with with my VA-503+ but your report of it not working is discouraging. Were you able to rule out defective hardware or anything that might lead to the combo working in another situation? I can still return this if it definitely won't work.