Hello Jan and B24Fox

I have a M577 motherboard. I was having all kinds of issues with my compact flash replacement drive even after flashing the J3 version. I was going down the road of trying to patch things myself when I found this thread. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

You might want to consider uploading your J4 version to theretroweb. As a semi newbie that is where I started and only recently ventured out looking for info other places. This thread did not popup easily from a search.

Adding tags help others find this thread easily.
PCChips M577
Amptron PM-9900
M577+ITE8661-2A5LEH0AC-00
PM9900+ITE866-2A5LEH0AC-00

Scotty

sdw wrote on 2025-04-13, 14:44:

Hello Jan and B24Fox […]
Show full quote

Hello Jan and B24Fox

I have a M577 motherboard. I was having all kinds of issues with my compact flash replacement drive even after flashing the J3 version. I was going down the road of trying to patch things myself when I found this thread. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

You might want to consider uploading your J4 version to theretroweb. As a semi newbie that is where I started and only recently ventured out looking for info other places. This thread did not popup easily from a search.

Adding tags help others find this thread easily.
PCChips M577
Amptron PM-9900
M577+ITE8661-2A5LEH0AC-00
PM9900+ITE866-2A5LEH0AC-00

Scotty

I'm very glad that our little discussion here, also helped you out 😀

Did you by any chance also read my more recent posts on this thread, about the slowdown issue with my 2nd PCChips M577 Mobo?
(starting from this post: Re: Problem with UDMA, need BIOS fix for Taken TX3 (LGS Prime 3C))
I'm just curious if you also tested/benchamarked your mobo, before and after reflashing... and if it exhibits the slowdown issue.

B24Fox wrote on 2025-04-13, 20:59:

I'm very glad that our little discussion here, also helped you out 😀

Did you by any chance also read my more recent posts on this thread, about the slowdown issue with my 2nd PCChips M577 Mobo?
(starting from this post: Re: Problem with UDMA, need BIOS fix for Taken TX3 (LGS Prime 3C))
I'm just curious if you also tested/benchamarked your mobo, before and after reflashing... and if it exhibits the slowdown issue.
[/quote]

Yes, I read about the slow down with your second board. I have had no issues at all. Faster now than ever before with udma working properly. I have the rev 3 board with 374mb of PC100 ram. Have you validated the sdram voltage settings and run memtest86 to make sure your ram is good? You could also switch out the ram with the board you gave your cousin to see how it works in that machine and vice versa. Here is a pic of my speedsys 4.78 from philscomputerlab dosbench. I am over clocking a amd k6-2 450 cpu at the moment. I have several CPUs available to me. If I can change my set up and help you test as a comparison please let me know. Hope you figure out what's wrong with your machine. I know it's frustrating, I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out why my machine didn't like compact flash.

sdw wrote on 2025-04-14, 12:42:

I'm very glad that our little discussion here, also helped you out :) […]
Show full quote

B24Fox wrote on 2025-04-13, 20:59:

I'm very glad that our little discussion here, also helped you out 😀

Did you by any chance also read my more recent posts on this thread, about the slowdown issue with my 2nd PCChips M577 Mobo?
(starting from this post: Re: Problem with UDMA, need BIOS fix for Taken TX3 (LGS Prime 3C))
I'm just curious if you also tested/benchamarked your mobo, before and after reflashing... and if it exhibits the slowdown issue.

Yes, I read about the slow down with your second board. I have had no issues at all. Faster now than ever before with udma working properly. I have the rev 3 board with 374mb of PC100 ram. Have you validated the sdram voltage settings and run memtest86 to make sure your ram is good? You could also switch out the ram with the board you gave your cousin to see how it works in that machine and vice versa. Here is a pic of my speedsys 4.78 from philscomputerlab dosbench. I am over clocking a amd k6-2 450 cpu at the moment. I have several CPUs available to me. If I can change my set up and help you test as a comparison please let me know. Hope you figure out what's wrong with your machine. I know it's frustrating, I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out why my machine didn't like compact flash.

[/quote]

I actually used the same stick(s) of RAM & CPU that I used when I tested the 1st board.
Also, oddly enough; when I did the testing(on the 2nd board), speedsys did NOT show any sign of slowdowns, or anything else wrong with the 2nd board. 😕
Only when booting DOS; MEMtest; and in the games/benchmarks specified in my post here:
Re: Problem with UDMA, need BIOS fix for Taken TX3 (LGS Prime 3C)
(I didn't do any tests in Windows)

P.S. you do seem to have a slightly higher Memory Bandwith (of 263.70MB/s) compared to 252MB/s that I got in the 1st mobo (and also the 2nd IIRC).
But that's probably due to the fact that you installed two RAM sticks (256MB+128MB), and I only used one 128MB stick.

I am running 3 sticks each 128mb.

I see your bench marks now in the thread. What cpu are you using? I will run the same dos benchmarks and give you the numbers.

sdw wrote on 2025-04-14, 15:26:

I am running 3 sticks each 128mb.

I see your bench marks now in the thread. What cpu are you using? I will run the same dos benchmarks and give you the numbers.

Thanks 😀
At that time, I was using a K6/2 clocked at 300Mhz , 100Mhz FSB, and 128MB of RAM

P.S.
Fron PHIL's benchmarks i used the following:
For both Chris's 3D Bench & PC Player, I benched the Hi-resolution variants.
For doom, I benched with High details
and for Quake, i benched with that weird high resolution that is lower than 640x480 , but doesn't require a vesa video card (I think it might be 360x480)

I have that cpu. I will remove 2 sticks of ram and run dosbench using J3 and J4 on ms-dos 6.22 later.

sdw wrote on 2025-04-14, 16:00:

I have that cpu. I will remove 2 sticks of ram and run dosbench using J3 and J4 on ms-dos 6.22 later.

Don't bother reflashing with the J3 BIOS.
Just use the J4 that you have now.

They both have the same performance 😀

Also, don't bother changing the CPU.
Just underclock yours by jumpers. It's the same thing.

(in case yuu didn't see my previous edit: )
P.S.
Fron PHIL's benchmarks i used the following:
For both Chris's 3D Bench & PC Player, I benched the Hi-resolution variants.
For doom, I benched with High details
and for Quake, i benched with that weird high resolution that is lower than 640x480 , but doesn't require a vesa video card (I think it might be 360x480)

I have my board setup on a test bench so it is easy to cfg, plus I have the 450AHX that needs 2.4v. The M577 doesnt have a 2.4v setting so I am running it at 2.5v. I dont think the 0.1v will make a difference underclocked, but just want to make sure. I will run it with your attached BIOS against J4 and post the results here.

sdw wrote on 2025-04-14, 16:24:

I have my board setup on a test bench so it is easy to cfg, plus I have the 450AHX that needs 2.4v. The M577 doesnt have a 2.4v setting so I am running it at 2.5v. I dont think the 0.1v will make a difference underclocked, but just want to make sure. I will run it with your attached BIOS against J4 and post the results here.

That is perfect! Thank you VERY much!!

P.S.
On an unrelated note: If you ever need to install a 2.0V CPU, like the K6/2+ on the M577; here's an undocumented Vcore = 2.0V setting, that I discovered & tested stable:
JP6: A=off ; B=off ; C=off ; D=off

In summary there is not a statistical difference between BIOS versions J4 and B24FOX when default performance values are loaded. There is a difference when you manually tweak the common configurations to both BIOS and the additional unhidden configuration values in the J4 version. See attached PDF for detailed metrics.

These values updated for better performance are:
Bank 0/1 DRAM Timing = Turbo
SDRAM Cycle Length = 2
OnChip USB = Disabled
Everything in the PCI Dynamic Bursting column to enabled
Disable both serial and parallel ports.
Disable the onboard sound chip

sdw wrote on 2025-04-14, 21:02:

In summary there is not a statistical difference between BIOS versions J4 and B24FOX when default performance values are loaded. […]
Show full quote

In summary there is not a statistical difference between BIOS versions J4 and B24FOX when default performance values are loaded. There is a difference when you manually tweak the common configurations to both BIOS and the additional unhidden configuration values in the J4 version. See attached PDF for detailed metrics.

These values updated for better performance are:
Bank 0/1 DRAM Timing = Turbo
SDRAM Cycle Length = 2
OnChip USB = Disabled
Everything in the PCI Dynamic Bursting column to enabled
Disable both serial and parallel ports.
Disable the onboard sound chip

Thank you very much for this!!!!

I will try and redo my testing next week, and post back results 😀

B24Fox
Not sure you are aware of the the keyboard turbo switching features.

Turbo Switching and BIOS Speed Pin Option

SDW

sdw wrote on 2025-05-04, 16:00:

B24Fox Not sure you are aware of the the keyboard turbo switching features. […]
Show full quote

B24Fox
Not sure you are aware of the the keyboard turbo switching features.

Turbo Switching and BIOS Speed Pin Option

SDW

I may be wrong, but I faintly remember that the "ctrl+alt+plus/minus" Turbo switching shortcut, is universal.
I never used it, as I am planing to use a K6/2+ CPU, and adjust the speed through "setmul" & "k6spd".
But I made sure that in the "BIOS FEATURE SETUP" menu, the "Boot Up System Speed" was always set to "High".
I will test this out though; to make sure there isn't some turbo-function glitch.

P.S.
Sorry for not replying with benchmark results yet. Having some IRL troubles..
Hopefully I will redo the tests, by the end of this month.

Thanks! ☺️