It could be related to the front side bus. 440BX should be able to use a 133mhz FSB cpu (you never mentioned what p3 you're using) if i'm assuming that's what your problem is.

From this site, http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/pb/faq/model2.htm, I see that all the Pcakard Bell "Platinum" models use MSI 6119 Motherboards.

And from http://th99.dyndns.org/m/M-O/35986.htm, I see that the max supported processor multipler is 4.5. Only your SL35D may work.

Most of the bios for 6119 I see are of AMI make. If you don't mind bricking your motherboard, you can try one of those MSI 6119's official latest bios. 😉

leileilol wrote:

you never mentioned what p3 you're using.

AdamP wrote:

I've tried it with a SL35E and a SL35D

Both of these are 100mhz fsb. My motherboard doesn't have fsb speed jumpers. So, I'm assuming the fsb is still running at 100mhz.

Malik wrote:

From this site, http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/pb/faq/model2.htm, I see that all the Pcakard Bell "Platinum" models use MSI 6119 Motherboards.

I was just about to link to that 😀

Malik wrote:

And from http://th99.dyndns.org/m/M-O/35986.htm, I see that the max supported processor multipler is 4.5. Only your SL35D may work.

My manual says the motherboard supports 500mhz cpus. Also, my BIOS is Phoenix.

Yes, I noticed that you mentioned Phoenix bios. If you're comfortable with hot-flashing and have at least two pcs supporting similar sized bios chips, backup your current bios and flash to the latest AMI or Award bios for the MSI 6119 motherboard. A reference bios may work, but not guaranteed. It's worth a try.
Use Universal Flasher.

Before that, try with another 100MHzFSB PIII, if you can.

Just in case: Deschutes is P2, Katmai is P3. A P2-450 uses 100MHz just as any old P3 would. And with katmai, the multi of the mobo is irrelevant.

Provided the motherboard bios has overclock utility to move up the FSB o 133MHz, the board is still limited to a max multiplier of 4.5, accroding to the total hardware website.

That means, only the Pentium III 450MHz may work (FSB 100MHz + 4.5), which includes the models SL364 (kB0), SL38E (kB0), SL3CC (kB0), SL35D (kC0), SL37C (kC0). [Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Pe … microprocessors].

And if seen for another 4.5x cpu from the Katmai list is the Pentium III 600B, but that runs at 133MHz FSB. Furthermore, it requires a slight increase in voltage (2.05v), but may run without overclocking the voltage. These all if the current bios supports overclocking the FSB.

The only limiting factor, again if diagramatically correct with the one listed at total hardware, is the hard switch for setting the multiplier. Unless, of course, if there is an undocumented feature to up the multiplier, if any.

Finally, the Phoenix Bios - I'm not sure how're the overclocking options in it.

EDIT : BTW, I'm running a Katmai 450 in a PII (officially) motherboard - ABIT BX6.

Unfortunately, I don't have another PIII to try. I think my motherboard is OEM so a MSI or Intel BIOS is unlikely to work.

The working machine:

From the manual (bearing in mind that this was written before the Pentium III came out):

Upgrading:

For some reason, I couldn't get it to power up with the fan attached. I've had it "working" with the fan attached before, but it still hung during POST. Also, although the manual states that it does support 500mhz, the processor speed selection in the BIOS only goes up to 450mhz. This almost confirmed to me that I need an updated version of this BIOS, but I just can't find one.

There doesn't appear to be any fsb speed options on this motherboard.

That's an Intel SE440BX with OEM BIOS. The FSB on that is almost guaranteed to be automatically set. It supports 66 MHz and 100 MHz only, with multipliers of 3.5-5 only. And of course, with Pentium II-III, the multiplier is set by the CPU.

Since it came with a Pentium II, not a Pentium III, it is almost guaranteed to be an early model, before P3 support was added to the BIOS. They *DID* add support for the 450 MHz P3 in a BIOS upgrade, but that would have been on Packard Bell to implement for their computer. (BIOS P11, you have P04.) Yours is detecting the 100 MHz bus and the 5x multiplier, but can't provide the power necessary to actually run it.

You can decode Intel BIOSes easily enough. THe first part is the board name "interleaved". SE440BX (with a 1 tacked on) becomes 4S4EB0X with a 1 tacked on. The next part is the OEM. For Intel-branded boards, it's 86A, 11A means Packard Bell. (Dell was 10A, and Gateway was 15A, those are the only I remember off the top of my head.) The next section is a vendor-use, and the last one is the BIOS version, in your case, P04. On boards of that age, the BIOSes almost always had "P" as their start, for "Production". In fact, taking a quick look, that's the original launch BIOS for that board.

Hrm...

According to http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/pb/mb/870.htm, you CAN use the Intel-branded P12 BIOS! http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.a … Id=215&lang=eng

(Disclaimer, I worked for Intel's motherboard division when this board was current, that's why I know so much about it. I was officially engineering-level support for the low-end and mid-range server motherboards/systems, but later on, they added desktop boards to me.

Good info there.

Anonymous Freak wrote:

And of course, with Pentium II-III, the multiplier is set by the CPU

ehh, not for all Pentium II's.

Then why bother with a P-III 450 over a P-II 450? It only differs in SSE.

I got a Coppermine 700 to work in a Dell SE440BX that had originally come with a PII 450. I didn't really expect it to work but it did. I don't know what revision it was. There are 3 revisions AFAIK.

Anonymous Freak wrote:

Since it came with a Pentium II, not a Pentium III, it is almost guaranteed to be an early model, before P3 support was added to the BIOS. They *DID* add support for the 450 MHz P3 in a BIOS upgrade, but that would have been on Packard Bell to implement for their computer. (BIOS P11, you have P04.) Yours is detecting the 100 MHz bus and the 5x multiplier, but can't provide the power necessary to actually run it.

The 450mhz version doesn't work either, so I thought it must be something to do with the architecture.

Anonymous Freak wrote:

You can decode Intel BIOSes easily enough. THe first part is the board name "interleaved". SE440BX (with a 1 tacked on) becomes 4S4EB0X with a 1 tacked on. The next part is the OEM. For Intel-branded boards, it's 86A, 11A means Packard Bell. (Dell was 10A, and Gateway was 15A, those are the only I remember off the top of my head.) The next section is a vendor-use, and the last one is the BIOS version, in your case, P04. On boards of that age, the BIOSes almost always had "P" as their start, for "Production". In fact, taking a quick look, that's the original launch BIOS for that board.

Hrm...

According to http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/pb/mb/870.htm, you CAN use the Intel-branded P12 BIOS! http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.a … Id=215&lang=eng

Are you sure that one should work? The third number is 0032 whereas mine is 0005. Also, UKT Support says it's dated 21/5/99 whereas Intel says it's dated 17/12/99.

Also, I know this is the 86A version, but according to the release notes, the PII 450 wasn't supported until P09.

I just tried to update to the latest Intel BIOS, but it doesn't work. I get "Invalid reserved string in flash image header." and "The flash data image read from disk was found to be not valid." errors.

Looks like I'm out of luck. 🙁 UKT Support says the latest Packard Bell BIOS is P04, which doesn't support PIII.

Okay, scratch those last 2 posts. I downloaded the P12 BIOS from Packard Bell's website via archive.org, the BIOS worked, the CPU's identified as Pentium III, but it still hangs during or just after POST. 🙁 The Pentium II still works fine. I don't think it's an overheating issue (I got the fan working this time, although I couldn't fully secure it as those capacitors (I think that's what they're called) are in the way. The only other possibilities I can think of are: power supply issue, the motherboard doesn't support Pentium IIIs, or the CPU's defective.

I'm sorry if it feels like I'm messing you about, but I'm determined to get it working and I really appreciate all the help so far.

Ah! I just love the power of pictures that opened up a sea of information!

Maybe some more tinkering with the bios options may work. If the board can P.O.S.T. messages, half of the work is done. The only way to find out is to try with other cpu models.

I suppose the voltage is also autodetected? Maybe Anonymous Freak can help.

AdamP wrote:

Okay, scratch those last 2 posts. I downloaded the P12 BIOS from Packard Bell's website via archive.org, the BIOS worked, the CPU's identified as Pentium III, but it still hangs during or just after POST. 🙁 The Pentium II still works fine. I don't think it's an overheating issue (I got the fan working this time, although I couldn't fully secure it as those capacitors (I think that's what they're called) are in the way. The only other possibilities I can think of are: power supply issue, the motherboard doesn't support Pentium IIIs, or the CPU's defective.

I had a related problem last week. I was testing a slot 1 mobo with both a P2 and a P3 (600 MHz). The P2 worked fine. The P3 behaved extremely erratically - always hanging somewhere during POST. There's nothing wrong with the PSU. The BIOS is fine. On slot 1 mobos, there is usually a cluster of caps near the CPU slot. I noticed that a couple were slightly bashed about / chipped looking. I cannot rule out the possibility that the P3 600 CPU was defective, but my guess is that the board's caps were slightly damaged, and were unable to cope with the P3's power demands. I did a further test: I removed the P3, and put in an externally powered Powerleap adapter, with a P3-1GHz, and then a P3-1.4GHz. No problems at all.

IMHO, I think the list of possible problems can be put in this ranked order:

Defective mobo
Defective P3 CPU (I think replacements are still cheaply available on ebay)
Motherboard doesn't support Pentium IIIs (is there a .txt file that accompanies the latest BIOS file, saying what CPUs it supports?)
Power supply issue

I think it's unlikely to be an overheating issue. I had this once, but the CPU slot cartridge was physically slightly broken, and the heatsink had become slightly seperated from the CPU. As a temporary measure, I held it all together tightly with an elastic band, and that cured the erratic behaviour on that particular CPU.

retro games 100 wrote:

I had a related problem last week. I was testing a slot 1 mobo with both a P2 and a P3 (600 MHz). The P2 worked fine. The P3 […]
Show full quote

AdamP wrote:

Okay, scratch those last 2 posts. I downloaded the P12 BIOS from Packard Bell's website via archive.org, the BIOS worked, the CPU's identified as Pentium III, but it still hangs during or just after POST. 🙁 The Pentium II still works fine. I don't think it's an overheating issue (I got the fan working this time, although I couldn't fully secure it as those capacitors (I think that's what they're called) are in the way. The only other possibilities I can think of are: power supply issue, the motherboard doesn't support Pentium IIIs, or the CPU's defective.

I had a related problem last week. I was testing a slot 1 mobo with both a P2 and a P3 (600 MHz). The P2 worked fine. The P3 behaved extremely erratically - always hanging somewhere during POST. There's nothing wrong with the PSU. The BIOS is fine. On slot 1 mobos, there is usually a cluster of caps near the CPU slot. I noticed that a couple were slightly bashed about / chipped looking. I cannot rule out the possibility that the P3 600 CPU was defective, but my guess is that the board's caps were slightly damaged, and were unable to cope with the P3's power demands. I did a further test: I removed the P3, and put in an externally powered Powerleap adapter, with a P3-1GHz, and then a P3-1.4GHz. No problems at all.

IMHO, I think the list of possible problems can be put in this ranked order:

Defective mobo
Defective P3 CPU (I think replacements are still cheaply available on ebay)
Motherboard doesn't support Pentium IIIs (is there a .txt file that accompanies the latest BIOS file, saying what CPUs it supports?)
Power supply issue

I think it's unlikely to be an overheating issue. I had this once, but the CPU slot cartridge was physically slightly broken, and the heatsink had become slightly seperated from the CPU. As a temporary measure, I held it all together tightly with an elastic band, and that cured the erratic behaviour on that particular CPU.

What is a powerlead adapter?

I don't think the motherboard is defective (although I can't rule it out); not even the Pentium II would work if the motherboard's faulty.

According to this and this, the BIOS supports Pentium III 450mhz.

When I tried the SL35E, I got this:

So, either the manual lied when it said it supports 500mhz, or I need a Packard Bell BIOS for it (although as far as I know, Packard Bell's latest version is P04, which doesn't even support Pentium III).

I may have touched the capacitors near the slot when first installing the Pentium III (there wasn't enough room for the metal thing), but the Pentium II still works, how much more power does a Pentium III need?

This seems to support this, except it only happens when a Pentium III is installed.

Another possibility has occured to me: the SL35D is kC0. Maybe it only supports kB0 PIIIs, but I'm not sure, as this says 440bx does support the SL35D.

Powerlead = Powerleap. It's a socket 370 to slot 1 CPU adapter. You put a socket 370 CPU in to it. Its power comes from the PSU, not the mobo.

You say: "the SL35D is kC0. Maybe it only supports kB0 PIIIs" That's an interesting thought. Also, touching mobo caps is OK, but do any of the caps look either domed or damaged in any way? When you tried the SL35E and got that error message, it's to be expected because the BIOS revision notes say "Added check to not allow Intel(R) Pentium(R) III processor at 500Mhz operation"

SL35D is a special Katmai, btw. They usually have 300 MHz cache chips so they tend to be happy at 600 MHz.

retro games 100 wrote:

do any of the caps look either domed or damaged in any way?

Some of them have slight bends/marks on them.

I'm not ruling out a power/capacitor issue (although I don't think it is a capacitor issue, as the Pentium II works fine), but I think there may be a possibility it's an overheating issue after all (though I'm not sure if it can overheat that quickly). I once had a problem on an Athlon 64 X2 6400+ 3.2GHZ where I couldn't fit the fan on properly, it would power up, then after a few moments it would freeze and shut itself off. The problem didn't go away until I finally managed to fit the fan on properly. And as I can't fit the fan on properly here (because there are capacitors in the way), the same may be happening here (except it doesn't shut down, but I'm not sure if this machine has that feature). Also, after it hangs and I shut it down and power it back on after only a few moments, it'll likely not get as far as it does when I leave it longer (it usually hangs just after the POST beep (ruling out some sort of compatibility issue)).

This is about the best I've been able to get it:

Also, the fan I'm using is actually the one from the SL35E. The SL35D instead came with a large heatsink that I couldn't fit properly on this motherboard.

Would a POST card help? Maybe there's something wrong that the normal POST isn't picking up.

I also tried this Board ID Utility to try to identify the exact motherboard I have, but it wouldn't run on my Windows 98SE (Visual C++ Runtime Error).

retro games 100 wrote:

Powerlead = Powerleap. It's a socket 370 to slot 1 CPU adapter. You put a socket 370 CPU in to it. Its power comes from the PSU, not the mobo.

Interesting. Is it possible use any socket 370 Pentium IIIs? (Although I don't think there are any socket 370 Pentium III 450s, and unfortunately, underclocking is out of the question).