Have you tried another BIOS chip? Sounds funny but I had that issue with my first BE6-II. Replacing it with a slightly newer one (W49F002U-12b, DIP32 variant) made it work again.

Seeing the brackets are missing I would also check the CPU is FULLY seated in. I had that issue about twice with a Thunderbird 700 and two boards - ASUS K7M and a DFI AK70.

PcBytes wrote on 2026-06-04, 23:51:

Have you tried another BIOS chip? Sounds funny but I had that issue with my first BE6-II. Replacing it with a slightly newer one (W49F002U-12b, DIP32 variant) made it work again.

Seeing the brackets are missing I would also check the CPU is FULLY seated in. I had that issue about twice with a Thunderbird 700 and two boards - ASUS K7M and a DFI AK70.

I have not tried another BIOS chip, that's worth a shot.

Edit: I borrowed a chip from a Via Socket 370 board, a Macronix 29f002NTPC, flashed it and the POST card now gives the codes 1F CF - I reflashed the original chip and tried it again, still just dashes. At this point I'm assuming that the Macronix chip gets stuck because it is a T (top) while the original Winbond is a B (bottom): "Boot Block Differences: Ensure you match whether the replacement is a Top Boot (T) or Bottom Boot (B) chip if you are using it in a motherboard BIOS socket."

The CPU has been removed and inserted many times, IIRC correctly I've cleaned both the slot and the contacts with contact cleaner and alcohol, but that's still a good suggestion.

From another motherboard I tried an SST39sf020 and great success! I will now go ahead and order a new one for long term use.

Sorry, this is a bit off-topic...

Could you please take some additional pictures of the board, so that the markings are readable? That would be great!

1 - ICS PLL
2 - HIP PWM controller
3 - sticker on the side of the ISA slot

kind regards
soggi

soggi wrote on 2026-06-05, 04:18:

Sorry, this is a bit off-topic... […]
Show full quote

Sorry, this is a bit off-topic...

Could you please take some additional pictures of the board, so that the markings are readable? That would be great!

1 - ICS PLL
2 - HIP PWM controller
3 - sticker on the side of the ISA slot

kind regards
soggi

Happy to do so, I should be able to do that tomorrow.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2026-06-05, 04:43:

Happy to do so, I should be able to do that tomorrow.

Great, thank you very much!

kind regards
soggi

soggi wrote on 2026-06-05, 12:53:

Great, thank you very much! […]
Show full quote

Repo Man11 wrote on 2026-06-05, 04:43:

Happy to do so, I should be able to do that tomorrow.

Great, thank you very much!

kind regards
soggi

Theres a few pis of my board here:
Project KA7, yay or nay ?

And I have decent closeups of most of the board with IC markings visible.

Close ups. If any additional shots are needed LMK.

Now that I know it works I decided to reapply thermal paste to the CPU. I've not had much to do with slot mounted CPUs over the years, and this is my first ever experience with Slot A - taking these things apart isn't for the faint hearted! I followed the instructions in the linked video, worked very carefully, and it seemed to go well; I still freaked out a bit when it failed to POST on the first try, but it just needed to be seated in the slot more firmly. So it has been repasted, the fan's bearing has been oiled, so it ought not to fry itself. I cringe to think how many teenagers accidentally damaged/destroyed these when taking them apart to do this; I'm very glad they had moved on to Socket 462 by the time I began fooling with computers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLOU9HYso2c

Heavy sigh - the way that Google now assumes that, when you specifically type in something like "AMD Slot A CPU" you actually meant something late model because you cannot possibly have meant that you are looking for information on a nearly thirty year old CPU... Increasingly, getting old means being able to remember a world that often worked better.

bofh.fromhell wrote on 2026-06-05, 17:52:

Theres a few pis of my board here:
Project KA7, yay or nay ?

And I have decent closeups of most of the board with IC markings visible.

Thank you, I already had a look at your thread before I posted my question - unfortunately the markings aren't readable.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2026-06-05, 22:48:

Close ups. If any additional shots are needed LMK.

Thank you! Unfortunately the ICS markings aren't readable enough (Is it 9179BF-01? This would be a clock buffer.), the two other pictures are good! Would be great if you can take a better picture of the ICS PLL.

kind regards
soggi

I wasn't sure if I could do better, but cleaning the component and adjusting the angle of the light seems to have gotten it.

Great, man! It has a lot to do with lighting and the angle, sometimes it's hard to get a good picture. But with today's cameras and smartphones it should be possible in some way in general. Remembering trying to do so with an iPhone 4 ~14 years ago. xD

-----------

on-topic:

Good work! I can feel your nervousness when taking of the cooler and then later starting w/o a POST. 😉 This makes me remember taking off the "heat spreader" of my K6-2 333 with a razor blade cutting into my thumb ... ~25 years ago.

BTW by searching exactly "AMD Slot A CPU" I get true Slot A results AND commercials (with pictures) from ebay, amazon and others which show much more recent CPUs - as you've said.

BTW2 you board still has the first BIOS (RJ), I would recommend to flash the latest BIOS (TY), available from my ABIT page -> https://soggi.org/motherboards/abit.htm.

kind regards
soggi

I began setting it up today, but there was an issue with the IDE ports. If I plugged the the hard drive (SSD with an adapter) into one port and the optical drive in the other, it would detect both but then tell me the hard drive had failed. I tried different cables and different adapters but all I got for my trouble was the secondary IDE port finally decided to stop detecting drives completely, while the primary one works fine and even booted into an existing install of Windows 98. I'm in the process of ordering replacement caps for the remaining original Jackon caps. Once I've done that, if the secondary IDE port is still dead, I'll use my Promise S150 TX2 for the hard drive.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2026-06-06, 22:33:

I began setting it up today, but there was an issue with the IDE ports. If I plugged the the hard drive (SSD with an adapter) into one port and the optical drive in the other, it would detect both but then tell me the hard drive had failed. I tried different cables and different adapters but all I got for my trouble was the secondary IDE port finally decided to stop detecting drives completely, while the primary one works fine and even booted into an existing install of Windows 98. I'm in the process of ordering replacement caps for the remaining original Jackon caps. Once I've done that, if the secondary IDE port is still dead, I'll use my Promise S150 TX2 for the hard drive.

Unfortunately it seems to be common for the ABIT VIA boards to have that issue. My VH6-II had that issue until the SB died somehow, and I had to move my stuff over to a MSI MS-6309. The only thing I don't kind of like about the MSI is how limited the OC options are compared to VH6.

PcBytes wrote on 2026-06-06, 22:59:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2026-06-06, 22:33:

I began setting it up today, but there was an issue with the IDE ports. If I plugged the the hard drive (SSD with an adapter) into one port and the optical drive in the other, it would detect both but then tell me the hard drive had failed. I tried different cables and different adapters but all I got for my trouble was the secondary IDE port finally decided to stop detecting drives completely, while the primary one works fine and even booted into an existing install of Windows 98. I'm in the process of ordering replacement caps for the remaining original Jackon caps. Once I've done that, if the secondary IDE port is still dead, I'll use my Promise S150 TX2 for the hard drive.

Unfortunately it seems to be common for the ABIT VIA boards to have that issue. My VH6-II had that issue until the SB died somehow, and I had to move my stuff over to a MSI MS-6309. The only thing I don't kind of like about the MSI is how limited the OC options are compared to VH6.

It's fun playing with this stuff, but it is very old, and this board was part of a stash that was going to be scrapped, so it wasn't stored in an anti static bag; if the worst issue it has is only one working IDE port I'll call that a win.

I finished recapping it, but the work only began there. Oxidized memory slot contacts caused memory errors, but I eventually got that taken care of. The secondary IDE port is dead, but the primary one works well, and I had planned on using a Promise controller card for the SSD anyway.

It was running well with no issues, completing both 3D 99 and 2000 many times, so I decided to go ahead and program the replacement BIOS chip (W49F002U) and that's when the fun began. With the latest BIOS on that chip, there were all sorts of weird issues. It would POST, you enter the CMOS to change things, then it would hang when you hit F10 (black screen) so I'd have to power it off. Then you'd power it back on and it would warn you "The CPU has been changed" so you'd enter CMOS to reset it, then it would hang again. I thought maybe the new chip was defective, but after hours of trying different things what I finally realized is that the only BIOS this particular KA7 works with is the first release (3/24/2000 RJ): any newer BIOS on either of the BIOS chips I have will cause these weird issues, but the RJ BIOS works fine on both! Sadly, the later BIOS offers a couple of nice options, including the ability to slow down the CPU's cache for overclocking and memory interleaving, but I really don't need to overclock it, and the memory interleave patch takes care of the memory interleaving.

I had the 3D 2000 score close to 7,000 points but then switched from the 21.83 drivers to the 45.23 and the 3D score dropped by several hundred points. Interestingly, the 3D 99 score was increased with the switch.

So quirky; the Quadro 2 Pro I have was working great, even at 4x AGP, but then I tried my GF3 Ti 200 and it didn't go so well. It did not work at 4x (I had to boot into Safemode and uninstall Rivatuner) and it seemed to have some weird issues with this board. I then tried my Ti 4600, and it works fine in general and handles being set to 4x with no problems.

I think the Quadro 2 Pro is a good match for this system.

Having a look at Ebay, there's very little chance I will be upgrading this CPU; by far most of the listings are for ones slower than what I have (meaning crazy expensive if one does show up).

Did you adjust the multiplier on the CPU by moving the soldered 0-ohm resistors? I see that the core shows K7750 (750Mhz), but CPU-Z is showing it as 800Mhz.