Sounds like you were sent a fake, as all K6-2+/500 are documented as running at 5 x 100, and even if it has been thrashed and is no longer stable @100 bus, it should run at 5x. Can you post a pic where we can see the details? Need to see the engraving on the aluminium spreader and the corners of the ceramic.

Could be damaged

debs3759 wrote on 2021-04-06, 18:03:

Sounds like you were sent a fake, as all K6-2+/500 are documented as running at 5 x 100, and even if it has been thrashed and is no longer stable @100 bus, it should run at 5x. Can you post a pic where we can see the details? Need to see the engraving on the aluminium spreader and the corners of the ceramic.

I didn't think about it being fake. They are being sold "new" for $35. Ill take a picture of it when I get home. I did notice the text didn't look as deep as it would be on a k6-2. I just thought it was only like that on the plus versions, since I've never had one.

rmay635703 wrote on 2021-04-06, 18:16:

Could be damaged

It could be. I forgot to add that the first one I was sent didn't work at all.

Do you have the latest BIOS for the motherboard?

Have you tried clearing the BIOS by jumper or by removing the battery for a while?

What power supply are you using (brand and model)? How old is it?

Are there any bulging capacitors on the motherboard?

What RAM are you using?

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-04-06, 21:17:

Do you have the latest BIOS for the motherboard? […]
Show full quote

Do you have the latest BIOS for the motherboard?

Have you tried clearing the BIOS by jumper or by removing the battery for a while?

What power supply are you using (brand and model)? How old is it?

Are there any bulging capacitors on the motherboard?

What RAM are you using?

I cant find a bios for this board. The soyo website has been down for years. The manual says it should support it with all bios revisions.

It used to be a slot 1 IBM aptiva with a delta power supply. I had this computer for 9 years and the slot 1 board finally died. I still have it around, I'll get around to fixing it some day.

I recapped the soyo board in 2019. It had a bunch of bulging caps. It was running rock solid with the k6-2 500 running at 550mhz for hours.

I have a 128mb cl3 133mhz single in it.

That is quite old for a power supply. My guess is that part of the problem is that the power supply is not providing very clean power anymore.... I don't trust older power supplies as far as my 1 year old could throw them.

Here is the latest BIOS for your motherboard... from archive.org:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030303143017/htt … ew/5ssm2db1.bin

You can get the appropriate AWDFlash.exe from the archived page as well:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030226155917/htt … esc.php?id=1159

You can also get the BIOS file here:
https://www.elhvb.com/mobokive/Archive/Soyo/b … /586/index.html

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-04-07, 00:12:

That is quite old for a power supply. My guess is that part of the problem is that the power supply is not providing very clean […]
Show full quote

That is quite old for a power supply. My guess is that part of the problem is that the power supply is not providing very clean power anymore.... I don't trust older power supplies as far as my 1 year old could throw them.

Here is the latest BIOS for your motherboard... from archive.org:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030303143017/htt … ew/5ssm2db1.bin

You can get the appropriate AWDFlash.exe from the archived page as well:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030226155917/htt … esc.php?id=1159

You can also get the BIOS file here:
https://www.elhvb.com/mobokive/Archive/Soyo/b … /586/index.html

Holy hell, you actually found it. I've been looking for a bios update for years. I'll update it when I get home. As for the power supply, its quite heavy for its size. I have had other systems with delta power supplies and they all have been rock solid. The heaviest by far was my powermac 9600.

Here's a look at the cpu in question. This one is the first one I received. It didn't post in my board. The second one looks identical to this one. The text seems cut off at the bottom of the all the zeros.

The way the etching looks makes me think it's a fake or relabeled. I'd be curious to see what cpuz or hwinfo would say they are.

Just because a power supply is heavy doesn't mean it will last forever. Once the capacitors get old, the voltages may still read fine, but the power being supplied is going to get quite dirty/noisy.

Unless the power supply has had the capacitors replaced, I would not trust it to be supplying clean power.

Can you take a pic of the CPU at more of angle? The heatspreaders are engraved and taking a shot straight on generally doesn't show up very well.

The answer is probably much like the name of this section, "general old hardware" 😀. But I'm going to agree with the old capacitor theory

It doesn’t make sense that this would be caused by capacitors.
The OP said that a standard K6-2 500 OC @ 550MHz worked fine, and that CPU is definitely more power hungry, particularly when overclocked. Furthermore, he already did a MB recap 😀, and as for the PSU... my previous statement applies.
The markings on the new CPU do look strange, though. But that could just be caused by bad/hard direct lighting (photo quality).
My bet is that this is either a weird motherboard (BIOS) issue, or it’s a fake/damaged chip.
In this case, it would help to test it on another motherboard which is known to properly work with K6-2/3+ chips.

What do tools like CrystalCPUID/CPU-Z/Aida32/Aida64 report?

When I get home I'll swap the power supply to rule it out. I'll throw in my reliable k6-2 and do a bios update and install cpuz to figure out if the chip is fake. I did some research and the k6-2+ 500 ACR is an embeded cpu. Usually they are marked with an "E" in the name. I don't know if it is just a name scheme to sell older chips for embeded use or it is a different die than the normal k6-2+.

At first glance the CPU packaging doesn't seem off apart from the top markings seemingly being somewhat vague (as if there is some stuff filling up part of the engravings or it was not as deeply engraved as it should have been). Can't tell if this is from how the pic was taken though.
The 2 marks on the top side of the purple ceramic (at the top edge on the pic, one left and one right) and the 26727 at the bottom left also seem to correspondent with how it is supposed to look like.

But mind you, forging will have come a long way from the days of the counterfeit Pentium 2 days, for all we know todays counterfeits are visually indistinguishable from the real deal.

Imo if you find the CPU won't work for you (regardless of it being a real K62+ or a counterfeit), I'd consider to return it.
If it's a real K62+, it should have the 128kb cache though, should be able to see this using (benchmarking) software relatively easily.

It's not a fake. I have the same processor, and the markings are identical, even down to the exact printing style. My processor works. In fact, it's running in a Soyo 5ema pro.

Does the CPU work with 100MHz FSB and 3x multiplier?

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-04-09, 07:55:

Does the CPU work with 100MHz FSB and 3x multiplier?

Or 100mhz x 2.5x?

Is that a crack in the ceramic on the left side? Around the height of "Assembled".