Doornkaat wrote on 2021-01-20, 06:43:

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-20, 00:18:

Also these guys asking 500$ for a voodoo are dumb 🤣.

Well, you're getting two processors that bring their own RAM and their speed can be adjusted through software in 1MHz increments without hardware modification. Some might argue it's actually a better deal than that 300$ K6-III+ you bought.😜

Ugh, damn them! Waving the thing I needed in front of my face and me not wanting to risk not finding another one 🤣

Maxing out the ram capacity on my motherboard

There has been some progress on breaking the 256mb barrier on 430tx boards.

Got many of the parts assembled today.

Still waiting on some things

It’s been a pain trying to figure out how to get an os on it after discovering my only ide cd drive appears to be bad and not being able to boot from usb

good news my board does 1.5v core when the jumpers are removed and it has a 2.2v option also.

since they used this chip in laptops at 1.6 I'm going to try 1.5 and see how it does. 2.2 is my fallback

You haven't made a photo of the motherboard ? 🙁

Deksor wrote on 2021-01-23, 14:34:

You haven't made a photo of the motherboard ? 🙁

other one is of one from internet.

I need one like the first one but without the big watermark.

Deksor wrote on 2021-01-23, 22:32:

I need one like the first one but without the big watermark.

Oh is this for the database?

Shoot, um, I’d have to take it all apart. Sorry, I didn’t remember you needed it. If I get it out again or run across one I’ll hook you up 😀

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-19, 19:57:

Looky what arrived today! 😁

One of those is a bit of a holy grail for me. My Super 7 system is now an Epox MVP3G-M with a K6-2+ 550. It's one of the rare Super 7 boards that can go as high as 133 FSB, though I don't know if it's actually possible to use it at that speed. It will do 5.5x112 with no issue, but to do 5x124, I have to disable the motherboard's cache because it cannot handle the FSB speed; this actually lowers the 3D Mark score. So I'd really like to try a K6-3+ at that speed, but so far I don't have one that can do it. Neither the 2.0 volt 450 nor the 1.6 volt 400 I have will run at that speed. I saw today where a Chinese seller has a K6-3+ 550 for a buy it now price of $285.00, and I actually considered it for a moment before I snapped out of it. Heck, if they sell very many at that price, they'll probably start making them again.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-01-24, 04:02:

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-01-19, 19:57:

Looky what arrived today! 😁

One of those is a bit of a holy grail for me. My Super 7 system is now an Epox MVP3G-M with a K6-2+ 550. It's one of the rare Super 7 boards that can go as high as 133 FSB, though I don't know if it's actually possible to use it at that speed. It will do 5.5x112 with no issue, but to do 5x124, I have to disable the motherboard's cache because it cannot handle the FSB speed; this actually lowers the 3D Mark score. So I'd really like to try a K6-3+ at that speed, but so far I don't have one that can do it. Neither the 2.0 volt 450 nor the 1.6 volt 400 I have will run at that speed. I saw today where a Chinese seller has a K6-3+ 550 for a buy it now price of $285.00, and I actually considered it for a moment before I snapped out of it. Heck, if they sell very many at that price, they'll probably start making them again.

Tbh, in benchmarks the extra 128k isn’t much help.

What you should do though. Is buy one of the 570 2+s that are for sale for 40$ on ebay right now. I bet they are binned for higher clocks.

I wish I had that board. 🙁

Also, snag a tillamook for testing! They supposedly can do 400

So news, I got a bunch of new parts to help in my attempts to get a os on this thing. Hopefully tomorrow will have news of a OS running on the motherboard.

Btw, I don’t think you will get a k6 to 800 without phase change and higher voltage.

Where are you at? Maybe we can collaborate on a phase change record attempt? Lol I have refrigeration experience.

"Tbh, in benchmarks the extra 128k isn’t much help.

What you should do though. Is buy one of the 570 2+s that are for sale for 40$ on ebay right now. I bet they are binned for higher clocks."

The difference in performance offered by the L3 cache is pretty small, but it's enough so that when going from 5.5x112 to 5x124, performance actually drops a bit. Going from 128 to 256 full speed L2 should be more than enough to compensate, but there's really only one way to find out for sure. On my TXP4, all of the benchmarks got bumped up a bit when going from a K6-2+ to a K6-3+.
I really doubt a 570 would help me - the next step higher in speed would be 5.5x124 and I don't think there's a K6-+ in existence that could actually do 682 MHz.

Meanwhile, after paying closer attention to the photos I noticed the "Iwill" logo in the silkscreen of your motherboard. So the brand is confirmed (but I'd still like a nice photo from you 😀 ), I have added each BIOS I could find here http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboard/show/4311
If your board has a older bios, please back it up and send it to us (you can use uniflash for that). You can probably update your motherboard's bios too since the latest version is from mid 1999.

Deksor wrote on 2021-01-24, 16:19:

Meanwhile, after paying closer attention to the photos I noticed the "Iwill" logo in the silkscreen of your motherboard. So the brand is confirmed (but I'd still like a nice photo from you 😀 ), I have added each BIOS I could find here http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboard/show/4311
If your board has a older bios, please back it up and send it to us (you can use uniflash for that). You can probably update your motherboard's bios too since the latest version is from mid 1999.

Yes, I have a 1998 bios currently.

Okay. Will do. I’ll snag it for you when I do the update

Btw don’t forget to load jan’s bios there that adds k6 3+ support and fixes hard drive issue.

No one around here knows how to add usb boot support to bios do you?

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-01-24, 14:51:

"Tbh, in benchmarks the extra 128k isn’t much help. […]
Show full quote

"Tbh, in benchmarks the extra 128k isn’t much help.

What you should do though. Is buy one of the 570 2+s that are for sale for 40$ on ebay right now. I bet they are binned for higher clocks."

The difference in performance offered by the L3 cache is pretty small, but it's enough so that when going from 5.5x112 to 5x124, performance actually drops a bit. Going from 128 to 256 full speed L2 should be more than enough to compensate, but there's really only one way to find out for sure. On my TXP4, all of the benchmarks got bumped up a bit when going from a K6-2+ to a K6-3+.
I really doubt a 570 would help me - the next step higher in speed would be 5.5x124 and I don't think there's a K6-+ in existence that could actually do 682 MHz.

Actually, I believe I have heard of 700mhz k6’s

Well Jan's bios is based on the 1999 bios. So I guess his bios is better ^^ (I have added it too).

I don't know how these bioses are patched but to my knowledge adding USB boot would require some more in depth patching than adding CPU support.

You can use anything (by putting it on a floppy disk, a CD-Rom, from the network ...) with "plop boot manager" to achieve USB booting though, but it's not direct booting.

Getting system to boot.

update. got around issue with being unable to boot to anything

yes, good point about the boot manager. that can work

I may be able to get you that bios soon. stuff seems to be working. lots of stuff to do though.

I have the k6 set to 200 setting on motherboard which in my notes should be 75x6 450
but in the bios just like old notes it says 66 mhz 🤣. i'm sure my notes are correct
if i haven't mentioned it, I'm running at 1.5v core right now without any jumpers installed so far seems stable the 2.2v option also seems to work but I have opted for 1.5 as some releases of this chip were clocked lower and set to 1.6v
this cpu can probably be run without a heatsink nearly 🤣 but don't do that haha a passive heat sink is more than enough for it. but of course I am running a copper p3 cooler with fancy leds haha

latest update, I have successfully booted to a windows xp live cd

Deksor wrote on 2021-01-24, 16:41:

Well Jan's bios is based on the 1999 bios. So I guess his bios is better ^^ (I have added it too).

I don't know how these bioses are patched but to my knowledge adding USB boot would require some more in depth patching than adding CPU support.

You can use anything (by putting it on a floppy disk, a CD-Rom, from the network ...) with "plop boot manager" to achieve USB booting though, but it's not direct booting.

got some stuff for ya! haven't gotten to the bios yet.

pic is not of my personal board but rather V1.2 mine is 1.23 I noticed fan headers change from board to board haven't noticed anything else. note two pin header by cpu and three pin header near middle front

the usb header pin out took a while to figure out, I think there is ps/2 in there also I made a diagram I hope it helps someone else someday

gonna work on the bios now

I downloaded that program having trouble figuring it out. does it not work from xp?

The PS/2 connector is just above the keyboard port. The USB headers were sometimes maddeningly proprietary on AT motherboards - more standardized I/O was one of the major benefits of the ATX form factor. I had a Chaintech 5AGM2 AT Super 7 board that used these tiny pins for the USB that no standard USB dongle would fit. I salvaged a connector from a dead CDROM, filed it down a little, and it would fit. I then had to check the pin out with a meter, and solder it to a standard USB dongle. Windows 98 works best if you use the PS/2 connection for your mouse, it's the only way to still have a functioning mouse in Safe Mode.

Thanks !

For Uniflash you can't run it from XP, this is a DOS application (running it from windows 9x isn't recommended either).

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-01-25, 00:06:

The PS/2 connector is just above the keyboard port. The USB headers were sometimes maddeningly proprietary on AT motherboards - more standardized I/O was one of the major benefits of the ATX form factor. I had a Chaintech 5AGM2 AT Super 7 board that used these tiny pins for the USB that no standard USB dongle would fit. I salvaged a connector from a dead CDROM, filed it down a little, and it would fit. I then had to check the pin out with a meter, and solder it to a standard USB dongle. Windows 98 works best if you use the PS/2 connection for your mouse, it's the only way to still have a functioning mouse in Safe Mode.

actually, I believe there is also a ps2 or IR port in that header as well I am aware that there is a ps2 header above the din plug and a IR header rear above the top isa slot but these were designed to plug into a card that had two usb plugs and a ps2 and or ir mini din on them

a header I am really curious about is the one below the southbridge that isn't explained in the manual

I took a break from trying to figure out the bios to try and optimize the memory timings

I can confirm that memory is faster with motherboard cache disabled

options are enabled and disabled? I want disabled right?

"Fast EDO Leadoff
Unless you have EDO DRAMS in a synchronous cache or cacheless
system, select Disabled. Enabling will cause a 1-HCLK pull-in for all
read leadoff latencies for EDO DRAMs (i.e., page hits, page misses,
and row misses). You should also select Disabled if any of the DRAM
rows contains FPM DRAMs.
"