VOGONS


First post, by drx

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Hi everyone,
I got my GA-5AA running with K6-III+ (400ATZ), so I’d like to share my experience, some funny problems and ask for some clarifications. I hope I'm not duplicating any posts.
Please note that although it's rev3.2 board it has a ram TAG (U6: EliteMT LP61256GS-8).

Before recap, the board was extremely unstable. The FSB setting wasn’t really working and it started up only sometimes and only with some strange config (such as FSB 95 MHz although 100 MHz was set …). After replacing most of the caps, all of them tested ok using basic tester.
Also, the AMI bios beeps only after all checks are ok and system proceeds with boot. So in case there is anything wrong with ram or gpu, it just doesn’t start up. In some cases of bad ram even diag card shows nothing.

Note: I have tested bios F6 and F7b.

AGP
Note: the board does not link ATX 3.3V rail to AGP port, Q6 (LX8383A-00CP) is responsible for 3.3V which makes it the limiting factor for gpu power. The limit seems to be below 20 W TDP (without additional heatsink).

I wanted something with DVI for easier monitor connection and capturing possibilities. Also, I don’t own any 3DFx cards with no plans to change that.
I’ve tested several GPUs with quite surprising results – the board is extremely picky.
- Rage based cards work
- Riva based cards work
- Radeon SDR hangs on second screen - boot… OK (system independent)
- Radeon 7000 works
- Radeon 8500LE works but Q6 heats up to 80°C in load
- Geforce 2 MX cards are never stable (regardless of card or driver version)
- Geforce 4 MX doesn’t even start up

Funny enough, my other SS7 board (EP-58MVP3C-M with K6-2/500) works perfectly fine with Geforce 2 MX cards (I know it’s Via chipset).

Any recommendations, ideas, notes?

RAM vs TAG
The board gets definitely slower and more unstable using 2x 128 MB sticks…
Using K6-III+, is there really limit of 128 MB cacheable ram (or is the board just picky)?

BIOS
Is there any way to enable SMART for HDD? Or better more advanced bios?
I was looking for anything but with no success.

Does anyone has any experience with IDE→Sata converter boards? Bios autodetect goes crazy regardless of ssd model. Industrial CF cards work without any issues though.

Onboard USB
Be careful, the pinout is not the standard one (as displayed in the manual). Using the USB2.0 standard heard will most likely destroy the 5V input though interconnected GND pins.

Reply 1 of 2, by NeoG_

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drx wrote on 2026-05-24, 10:12:

RAM vs TAG
The board gets definitely slower and more unstable using 2x 128 MB sticks…
Using K6-III+, is there really limit of 128 MB cacheable ram (or is the board just picky)?

The cacheable limit doesn't cause instability, it reduces memory performance so something else is up there. On top of that, the K6-2+ and 3+ have onboard L2 that can cache more memory than any SS7 board can support. The motherboard cache is converted to an L3 cache and it would be subject to the tag ram limit but since L3 has minimal impact on performance it's a moot point.

98/DOS Rig: BabyAT AladdinV, K6-2+/550, V3 2000, 128MB PC100, 20GB HDD, 128GB SD2IDE, SB Live!, SB16-SCSI, PicoGUS, WP32 McCake, iNFRA CD, ZIP100
XP Rig: Lian Li PC-10 ATX, Gigabyte X38-DQ6, Core2Duo E6850, ATi HD5870, 2GB DDR2, 2TB HDD, X-Fi XtremeGamer

Reply 2 of 2, by rasz_pl

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drx wrote on 2026-05-24, 10:12:

Note: the board does not link ATX 3.3V rail to AGP port, Q6 (LX8383A-00CP) is responsible for 3.3V which makes it the limiting factor for gpu power. The limit seems to be below 20 W TDP (without additional heatsink).

I would rip the bandaid and solder wire bypassing this mess.
http://www.plasma-online.de/index.html?conten … gabyte_tnt.html
http://www.plasma-online.de/index.html?conten … x_asus_tnt.html

https://github.com/raszpl/sigrok-disk FM/MFM/RLL decoder
https://github.com/raszpl/FIC-486-GAC-2-Cache-Module (AT&T Globalyst)
https://github.com/raszpl/386RC-16 ram board
https://github.com/raszpl/Zenith_ZBIOS Zenith Z-386 MFM-300 ZBIOS disassembly