VOGONS


First post, by vetz

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Another day, another motherboard 😀

Started playing with this Freetech 586F52 motherboard and would like to use this thread to document everything...

kQc7rD8m.jpg

430FX Socket 5. 256/512kb async DIP cache.
My current BIOS string says: 586 PCI GREEN BIOS ( 52XS_Ver.A) 05/17/95
Assembly number: 01-00521A

Manual:
Available here: http://www.motherboards.org/files/manuals/42/MB-586F52.pdf

Available BIOS'es:
According to this official website ot says it can use another BIOS intended for the F61/66 boards (not tested by me):

Filename
61.rar
File size
86.72 KiB
Downloads
90 downloads
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

Original BIOS
12/29/1998-82430FX-2A59CF2NC-00
586F61/66 PCI GREEN BIOS

Filename
(Freetech 586F61 586F66).zip
File size
87.24 KiB
Downloads
86 downloads
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

Modified BIOS to support up to 128GB harddrives. Untested.
12/29/1998-82430FX-2A59CF2NC-00
586F61/66 PCI GREEN BIOS 128GB BETA

Filename
52xs-c2.rar
File size
82.21 KiB
Downloads
83 downloads
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

AWARD BIOS Ver C.2 02/01/96 for ASY# 01-00-522A
or lower number letter combination ( 01-00-522 , 01-00-521B ect... )

Filename
p200io-e.zip
File size
88.45 KiB
Downloads
72 downloads
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

AWARD BIOS Ver E 02/01/96 for ASY#01-00-523
If your ASY# is earlier than this (01-00-522A or earlier) Do not use this BIOS version. This BIOS version support Intel CPU 150,166MHz

Filename
52xs-z.rar
File size
89.36 KiB
Downloads
76 downloads
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

06/16/95-TRITON-2A59CF2HC-00
586 PCI GREEN BIOS (52XS_Ver.Z)a

Undocumented Jumper settings:
My revision officially only supports Pentium 75, 90 and 100.
586f52%20jumpers.PNG

But there are more speeds available. This undocumented jumper seems to work as a 2X multiplier setting:
2014-03-16%2022.04.26.jpg

Pentium 25mhz (speedsys reports this as 30mhz and benches it 22.19): 7-8
Pentium 33mhz (speedsys bench 27.73): 5-6, 8-9
Pentium 40mhz: 7-8 (Undocumented jumper short)
Pentium 50mhz: 1-2,3-4,5-6,8-9
Pentium 50mhz: 5-6,8-9 (Undocumented jumper short)
Pentium 100mhz (2x50FSB): 1-2,7-8 (Undocumented jumper short)
Pentium 120mhz (1.5x80FSB): 1-2,3-4,8-9
Pentium 120mhz (2x60FSB): 3-4,8-9 (Undocumented jumper short)
Pentium 133mhz (2x66FSB): 1-2,5-6,8-9 (Undocumented jumper short)
Pentium 150mhz (2x75FSB): 1-2,3-4,8-9 (Undocumented jumper short)

BIOS Options:
Not too many compared to later Socket 7 boards. Note the Serial Port MIDI option (dunno how it works).
All settings to their best:
vlcsnap-2014-03-16-22h42m00s173.png

Last edited by vetz on 2021-05-18, 11:21. Edited 2 times in total.

3D Accelerated Games List (Proprietary APIs - No 3DFX/Direct3D)
3D Acceleration Comparison Episodes

Reply 1 of 10, by feipoa

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Are you sure that jumper setting is an 80 MHz FSB and not an 83.3 Mhz FSB? My socket 7 and 486 board have an 83 MHz undocumented FSB option. I used an oscilloscope to confirm this.

Does this board with with the original Cyrix 6x86 at 2x40?

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 2 of 10, by vetz

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feipoa wrote:

Are you sure that jumper setting is an 80 MHz FSB and not an 83.3 Mhz FSB? My socket 7 and 486 board have an 83 MHz undocumented FSB option. I used an oscilloscope to confirm this.

Does this board with with the original Cyrix 6x86 at 2x40?

It's possible, but the CPU showed 120mhz, not 125mhz at boot. It showed the same behavior as my other 430FX Socket 5 board. Will try and confirm this when I get around for doing more benches with this board.

It should work with the original Cyrix at 2x40.

3D Accelerated Games List (Proprietary APIs - No 3DFX/Direct3D)
3D Acceleration Comparison Episodes

Reply 3 of 10, by feipoa

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I have witnessed false BIOS indentification of processor speed and even false FSB speed from chkcpu, although it is not common.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 4 of 10, by Skyscraper

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vetz wrote:
I never got it running until today :) Apparently it is a bit picky with RAM. […]
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Robin4 wrote:
That socket 7 586F52 is made by freetech.. http://www.tacktech.com/download.cfm?file=manuals/586f52.txt http://www.motherboards […]
Show full quote

That socket 7 586F52 is made by freetech..
http://www.tacktech.com/download.cfm?file=manuals/586f52.txt
http://www.motherboards.org/mobot/manuals/Freetech/586F52/

forum user `VETZ` as also one..

I never got it running until today 😀 Apparently it is a bit picky with RAM.

I have an earlier revision of the board with Socket 5 with no PS/2 header 🙁. Do you have the J26 and J27 jumpers for changing multiplier and PS/2 header?

I noticed some really neat with my revision. You can underclock the CPU down to 25, 33 and 50mhz! As well as overclocking to 120mhz. Incredible!

Im bumping this as I never answered in another thread back in 2014, I was AFK working.

Yes I have the J26 and J27 jumpers for changing multiplier but not the J28. The IDE interups jumpers JP4 and JP5 is also missing but connected as JP4 2-3, JP5 1-2.
My board dosnt have a PS/2 header and the spot for a crystal above ISA Slot-1 is empty for some reason.
The ODIN RTC is socketed! Thats a first, all my other boards which have one of these abominations have them soldered (and dead).

I will try to see if I can get my board running this weekend as my new 286 toys diddnt get here today which I had hoped.

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 5 of 10, by Skyscraper

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So far I have found out that the board works.

It booted DOS from my 2.5 GB Western Digital 2.5Gb disk at first power on.
The CPU Im using is a P133@1.5x66, the memory 2x8 MB FPM and the Video card a Voodoo 3 PCI.

The battery in the ODIN RTC is more or less dead so the board gets a BIOS checksum error every reset and throws up a CMOS battery failed message so I cant save any BIOS settings. The boards default floppy drive setting is 1.2MB 5.25" so I wont be using floppys until the battery issue is solved but as the CDROM works thats not a big issue. The BIOS detects my 2.5GB disk as 400MB so not being able to save BIOS settings dosnt matter much when it comes to the HDD.

The reason I say the battry is more or less dead is that the board still remembers the date and time, not the correct date and time but not far off.

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 6 of 10, by Skyscraper

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This turned out to be a rather short advanture for now.

I started the day with removing the dead battery from the ODIN RTC but I could not find a CR2032 battery holder although I know I have one somewhere so I did not finish the battery mod. I have three 2032 battery holders in transit from jameco.com. I reinstalled the RTC without a battery.

Except for not beeing able to save BIOS settings everything still worked fine until I installed an AWE 64 Value. Running ctcm.exe the card got really odd adresses and resourses but diagnose.exe seemed happy with the settengs except there were no sounds from the line out or speaker out... then i tried another AWE 64 Value, with this card the system would not post so I switched back to the first and tried different slots with the same result, diagnose.exe thought that the card was working but no sound...

Then one reset the system would not post, and it would not post again. I used my PCI post code diagnose card and the system stopped at "07" checking cmos battery... as the system worked without a battery just minuts ago i tried again and again until things deteriorated further to "C0" Checking RTC.

Im heating the RTC in the oven right now to 75C in case there is water in it as I water grinded my way down to the battery. I have a hard time seeing how water could get into the RTC chip though so I doubt thats the issue. Its not likely the RTC got ECD damage either as it is A) summer with high humidity and B) I water grinded it...

The conclusion seems to be that this board really wants a working battery, or at least a battery.

[edit]

It seems water in the RTC chip package was the issue strangly enough, I cant see how it could get in. The system is working again after the RTC chip spent 15 minuts at 75C in the oven.

So the testing can continue 😀

[edit2]

Still no luck with the AWE64, I can change the resources with CTCU to the standard adresses and CTCM and Diagnose thinks everything is fine and the games finds the card but no sound... I have checked that the line out is enabled in mixerset. Either both my CT4500 and CT4520 are broken or the motherboards PNP initialization which I cant disable as the board loads BIOS defaults every reset fucks things up.

I will try a CT3670 (SB32 branded AWE64 without memory but with memory slots) so see if the board likes it better. I think the CT2760 in my 286 is my only non PNP Soundblaster card out of ~10 cards, I hate Plug and Play 😜. Without a working floppy drive I cant get other brands of cards working, why did the stupid board default to 1.2MB 5.25"? One would think that 1.44MB 3.5" floppy drives were more common 1995...

[/edit]

[edit3]

The known to work SB32 CT3670 worked just as good... or bad as the AWE64, everything seems to be working but no sound... Plug and Play FTW! When my CR2032 battery holder gets here next week Im sure this will be solved by disabeling the motherboards PNP initialization... at least I can use this card to test 30 pin memory with diagnose.exe...

[/edit]

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 7 of 10, by Skyscraper

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I can confirm the jumper settings, they are exactly the same on my board with the only difference that I have two jumpers for multiplier selection so I can choose 1.5x, 2x, 2.5x and 3x multiplier.

The 2x75 = 150 MHz setting vetz listed is actually 2x80 MHz for my board even if the speed is reported as 150 MHz at post. Its probably the same with vetz board as I doubt the board will switch to a lower FSB just because the multiplier is changed from 1.5x to 2x.

I think the strange 80 MHz setting (and not 83MHz) is because they used an older PLL with support for 40MHz FSB which is needed for running early Cyrix Socket-5/7 CPUs, the 80 MHz setting and the really low FSB settings probably came as a bonus.

Last edited by Skyscraper on 2015-08-30, 13:44. Edited 1 time in total.

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 8 of 10, by Robin4

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I think its better when you host your data files on the forum, not on external websites that could come offline.. Which means, that data files are accessable anymore.

I ment this especially for the hosted manual..

~ At least it can do black and white~

Reply 9 of 10, by Stiletto

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Robin4 wrote:

I think its better when you host your data files on the forum, not on external websites that could come offline.. Which means, that data files are accessable anymore.

I ment this especially for the hosted manual..

Agreed. That and/or mirroring your upload on SquallStrife's VogonsDrivers. 😀
In fact, had I the time, I'd hunt down every post with attachments like drivers/manuals/BIOS and make sure they're posted to VogonsDrivers too. 😀
Anyhow, off-topic I guess.

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 10 of 10, by humgar

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vetz wrote:
Another day, another motherboard :) […]
Show full quote

Another day, another motherboard 😀

Started playing with this Freetech 586F52 motherboard and would like to use this thread to document everything...

586F52.jpg

430FX Socket 5. 256/512kb async DIP cache.
My current BIOS string says: 586 PCI GREEN BIOS ( 52XS_Ver.A) 05/17/95
Assembly number: 01-00521A

Manual:
Available here: http://www.motherboards.org/files/manuals/42/MB-586F52.pdf

Available BIOS'es:
According to this official website ot says it can use another BIOS intended for the F61/66 boards (not tested by me):

61.rar

Original BIOS
12/29/1998-82430FX-2A59CF2NC-00
586F61/66 PCI GREEN BIOS

(Freetech 586F61 586F66).zip

Modified BIOS to support up to 128GB harddrives. Untested.
12/29/1998-82430FX-2A59CF2NC-00
586F61/66 PCI GREEN BIOS 128GB BETA

52xs-c2.rar

AWARD BIOS Ver C.2 02/01/96 for ASY# 01-00-522A
or lower number letter combination ( 01-00-522 , 01-00-521B ect... )

p200io-e.zip

AWARD BIOS Ver E 02/01/96 for ASY#01-00-523
If your ASY# is earlier than this (01-00-522A or earlier) Do not use this BIOS version. This BIOS version support Intel CPU 150,166MHz

52xs-z.rar

06/16/95-TRITON-2A59CF2HC-00
586 PCI GREEN BIOS (52XS_Ver.Z)a

Undocumented Jumper settings:
My revision officially only supports Pentium 75, 90 and 100.
586f52%20jumpers.PNG

But there are more speeds available. This undocumented jumper seems to work as a 2X multiplier setting:
2014-03-16%2022.04.26.jpg

Pentium 25mhz (speedsys reports this as 30mhz and benches it 22.19): 7-8
Pentium 33mhz (speedsys bench 27.73): 5-6, 8-9
Pentium 40mhz: 7-8 (Undocumented jumper short)
Pentium 50mhz: 1-2,3-4,5-6,8-9
Pentium 50mhz: 5-6,8-9 (Undocumented jumper short)
Pentium 100mhz (2x50FSB): 1-2,7-8 (Undocumented jumper short)
Pentium 120mhz (1.5x80FSB): 1-2,3-4,8-9
Pentium 120mhz (2x60FSB): 3-4,8-9 (Undocumented jumper short)
Pentium 133mhz (2x66FSB): 1-2,5-6,8-9 (Undocumented jumper short)
Pentium 150mhz (2x75FSB): 1-2,3-4,8-9 (Undocumented jumper short)

BIOS Options:
Not too many compared to later Socket 7 boards. Note the Serial Port MIDI option (dunno how it works).
All settings to their best:
vlcsnap-2014-03-16-22h42m00s173.png

Sorry for necrobumping the thread. Thanks a lot for the BIOS, especially the one that support larger hard drives! It saves my day.

Just want to let the world know I've confirmed that "(Freetech 586F61 586F66).zip" BIOS works for Freetech 586F52 Assembly 01-00521A today. However, the BIOS cannot be programmed using Award Flash programmer of any sort because it figured that the model numbers are different (protection mechanism). I had to use a UV-EPROM eraser then a programmer to put the image on. There's also a cosmetic quirk that before booting, it'd say "Unknown flash type", which can be safely ignored.