ATTN: Franc Zabkar, I have a specific M572 question, if I may...

[Guest thanatoid]

Franc, I would really appreciate an answer to this simple

question regarding the difference between the M571 (which you

have so comprehensively discussed on the M571 site) and the M572

which I have.

 

The M571 site talks rather casually about using AMD K-2

processors up to 450 or 500MHz, even though the "stated" max CPU

speed of the two MB's is 300MHz. I now have the original

Pentium 166MMX and I can certainly live with it, but I also have

3 AMD processors which could be put to better use than as

mobiles hanging off the ceiling :-)

 

I tried an AMD 333 and a 350 last night, and could not get them

to work. (A shop nearby gave them to me for free :-)

 

I happen to also have a 450 but I never even dreamed of trying

it.

 

Here's the question:

 

It would /appear/ that the great advantage of the M571 is that

FSB settings, CPU base speed multipliers, voltage etc. settings

are achieved by using jumpers, which makes almost anything

possible - apparently including using those fast chips.

 

In the M572, I do not see any of those jumper settings. All

CPU's appear to be "recognized" and "processed" by the BIOS and

there is little that can be done. So putting a 350 let alone a

450 AMD in a 572 may be impossible while it /was/ possible in

the M571.

 

Is this correct or am I missing something? I should mention I am

not brave enough to snip connections with a nail clipper and

replace resistors - I will only work with the BIOS and jumpers.

I am willing to flash the BIOS to a later version - but without

actually going through the process, I don't know whether it will

allow me to use the faster chips with the M572, since little

info is available on what the BIOS upgrade actually "upgrades"

%-{

 

Terribly sorry to bother you with this, but it appears you are

the official world expert on the M57x's and have been kind

enough to help me in the past.

 

Thanks,

 

t.

 

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[Guest PA Bear [MS MVP]]

Re: Franc Zabkar, I have a specific M572 question, if I may...

 

Re: Franc Zabkar, I have a specific M572 question, if I may...

 

[get a room, please, or take it to email]

 

thanatoid wrote:

> Franc, I would really appreciate an answer to this simple

> question...

[Guest Franc Zabkar]

Re: ATTN: Franc Zabkar, I have a specific M572 question, if I may...

 

On 30 Aug 2008 15:07:39 GMT, thanatoid <waiting@the.exit.invalid> put

finger to keyboard and composed:

>Franc, I would really appreciate an answer to this simple

>question regarding the difference between the M571 (which you

>have so comprehensively discussed on the M571 site) and the M572

>which I have.

>

>The M571 site talks rather casually about using AMD K-2

>processors up to 450 or 500MHz, even though the "stated" max CPU

>speed of the two MB's is 300MHz. I now have the original

>Pentium 166MMX and I can certainly live with it, but I also have

>3 AMD processors which could be put to better use than as

>mobiles hanging off the ceiling :-)

>

>I tried an AMD 333 and a 350 last night, and could not get them

>to work. (A shop nearby gave them to me for free :-)

>

>I happen to also have a 450 but I never even dreamed of trying

>it.

>

>Here's the question:

>

>It would /appear/ that the great advantage of the M571 is that

>FSB settings, CPU base speed multipliers, voltage etc. settings

>are achieved by using jumpers, which makes almost anything

>possible - apparently including using those fast chips.

>

>In the M572, I do not see any of those jumper settings. All

>CPU's appear to be "recognized" and "processed" by the BIOS and

>there is little that can be done. So putting a 350 let alone a

>450 AMD in a 572 may be impossible while it /was/ possible in

>the M571.

>

>Is this correct or am I missing something? I should mention I am

>not brave enough to snip connections with a nail clipper and

>replace resistors - I will only work with the BIOS and jumpers.

>I am willing to flash the BIOS to a later version - but without

>actually going through the process, I don't know whether it will

>allow me to use the faster chips with the M572, since little

>info is available on what the BIOS upgrade actually "upgrades"

>%-{

>

>Terribly sorry to bother you with this, but it appears you are

>the official world expert on the M57x's and have been kind

>enough to help me in the past.

>

>Thanks,

>

>t.

 

First let me respectively suggest that a hardware newsgroup

(a.c.h.p-h), whose name I can't mention without triggering the

m.p.w.g_d filter bot, would provide more useful information. There is

an individual named Paul who is particularly knowledgeable about Intel

chipsets.

 

But in answer your question, I've done limited work on motherboards

with software selectable CPU settings simply because there is usually

no way or no reason to defeat this. However, there was a PnP version

of the M571 called the M571LMR which did have an override capability,

although undocumented.

 

See http://members.optusnet.com.au/~fzabkar/LMRvcore.txt

 

I don't know what to suggest to you other than to try the 990224S BIOS

update. FWIW, my M571's 990421S AMI BIOS of around the same date

supports my AMD K6-2 450MHz CPU, albeit on an SiS chipped board. Yours

uses an Intel i430TX chipset.

 

I notice that your BIOS setup gives you choices of 60/66.6/75/83.3 for

the CPU base frequency, 2.0V to 3.5V in 0.1V increments for the CPU

Vcore, and multipliers of 2/2.5/3/4/4.5/5/5.5 and 1.5x/3.5x. If you

can get your system to POST (Catch-22), then you could try manually

matching these figures against AMD's specs. Note that at least some of

the K6-2 and K6-3 CPUs interpret the 2.0x multiplier as 6.0x. If you

want to hack your BIOS, then this AMI utility will give you access to

a lot of hidden features:

 

http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/M571/AMIBCP.EXE

 

Among other things, there are a few RAM go-fast options which have

been disabled and hidden from view. You may also be able to set the

defaults for the CPU parameters above.

 

Here is the BIOS report produced by AMIBCP:

http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/M572/990224S.RPT

 

Anyone trying to tweak their old Win98 box for better handling of

Youtube videos, for example, may benefit from the above utility. Just

be careful, in case you turn your board into scrap.

 

It may also be worth editing some PCI registers by using Wpcredit and

Wpcrset (by H. Oda) and referring to Intel's chipset datasheet. I

managed to get at least a 10% improvement in my RAM benchmark by doing

this.

 

BTW, I'm fairly certain that my friend's M571LMR was able to work with

an AMD K6-2 CPU, so if your BIOS code uses a similar CPU module, then

I can't see why your M572 should have any trouble either.

 

Finally, I confess that my only real detective work with the M571 was

in determining how to obtain undocumented Vcore voltages. The majority

of the accumulated knowledge on this board was a result of a

collaborative effort by several contributors to the EYO forum.

 

- Franc Zabkar

--

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[Guest thanatoid]

Re: ATTN: Franc Zabkar, I have a specific M572 question, if I may...

 

Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@iinternode.on.net> wrote in

news:m9ljb4dn7h58qt9as2p755hdg8lr8p8gfh@4ax.com:

> First let me respectively suggest that a hardware newsgroup

> (a.c.h.p-h), whose name I can't mention without triggering

> the m.p.w.g_d filter bot, would provide more useful

> information. There is an individual named Paul who is

> particularly knowledgeable about Intel chipsets.

 

I will look in the NG list and try to find this group. Thanks.

> But in answer your question, I've done limited work on

> motherboards with software selectable CPU settings simply

> because there is usually no way or no reason to defeat

> this. However, there was a PnP version of the M571 called

> the M571LMR which did have an override capability, although

> undocumented.

>

> See http://members.optusnet.com.au/~fzabkar/LMRvcore.txt

 

Will do.

> I don't know what to suggest to you other than to try the

> 990224S BIOS update. FWIW, my M571's 990421S AMI BIOS of

> around the same date supports my AMD K6-2 450MHz CPU,

> albeit on an SiS chipped board. Yours uses an Intel i430TX

> chipset.

 

I have DL'd it, and also the "sj" (AOT "s") version by some guy

from the Netherlands which he claims even allows the use of K6-

2+ chips.

 

I used to be /really/ afraid of messing with stuff this deep (I

realize it's not even /that/ deep) but last night's experience

with adding the SDRAM and trying the different processors was

strangely calm overall. The MB very nicely informed me in red

letters "CPU configuration incorrect" - I tried all the others,

and none worked, so I'm back on the P166.

 

I actually flashed a BIOS upgrade once before, MANY years ago,

but since I had no reason to keep it and it was mainly an

experiment in whether, as so many say, "try to flash the BIOS,

and you will see a big flash and have to buy a new machine" was

true or not, I went back to the original one. Now there seems to

be a very good reason to try the new BIOS upgrades.

> I notice that your BIOS setup gives you choices of

> 60/66.6/75/83.3 for the CPU base frequency, 2.0V to 3.5V in

> 0.1V increments for the CPU Vcore, and multipliers of

> 2/2.5/3/4/4.5/5/5.5 and 1.5x/3.5x. If you can get your

> system to POST (Catch-22)

 

I don't know what POST is but I'll Google for it. Took me a LONG

time (albeit AGES ago) to find out what Catch-22 meant, since I

never read the book or saw the movie :-)

> then you could try manually

> matching these figures against AMD's specs. Note that at

> least some of the K6-2 and K6-3 CPUs interpret the 2.0x

> multiplier as 6.0x.

 

That's a very interesting and possibly valuable piece of info.

> If you want to hack your BIOS, then

> this AMI utility will give you access to a lot of hidden

> features:

>

> http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/M571/AMIBCP.EXE

 

Wow.

> Among other things, there are a few RAM go-fast options

> which have been disabled and hidden from view. You may also

> be able to set the defaults for the CPU parameters above.

 

Again, wow.

> Here is the BIOS report produced by AMIBCP:

> http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/M572/990224S.RPT

 

Again... wow.

> Anyone trying to tweak their old Win98 box for better

> handling of Youtube videos, for example, may benefit from

> the above utility. Just be careful, in case you turn your

> board into scrap.

 

I don't care much about YouTube and multimedia in general - for

nostalgia's sake I DL'd a few music videos from the 70's which I

have never seen before - I couldn't watch them on THIS machine,

but did on the other one - but I am really just playing around.

(Although come to think of it, being able to watch some TV from

around the world would be very interesting.)

 

As far as killing the M572, while it would be sad if it were to

happen just as it is about to turn 11 years old with NOT a

problem EVER, I /am/ prepared for this possibility.

 

As an experiment, I have installed XP on my other machine (2GHz)

and it seems I will be able to adjust to it, although it is

annoying at first, even with all the classic features enabled

and all the idiot prompts disabled, etc. (Anyway, a change of

"computer lifestyle" would not be bad anyway, I am SO bored of

looking at the same desktops on both computers for all these

years!)

 

So if I kill this machine, I will build a new one for serious

work (i.e. non-internet) and make the 2GHz machine my internet

machine with 98SELite. It has Ethernet and USB2 built in,

needless to say. So far, XP runs perfectly well with its 256 MB

of RAM - in fact it uses almost exactly the same amount as

98SELite (!) but the machine I build will have 1 or 2 GB's since

it's just so cheap these days. The 256MB of the 2GHz computer

will be more than enough for my internet habits I imagine - if

it isn't, the machine takes up to 2GB.

 

I /would/ stick to 98SE, but there are no more motherboards

available that can handle 9x. I always said I will go to Linux

before I ever touch XP let alone Vista but I guess you never

know what the future holds.

> It may also be worth editing some PCI registers by using

> Wpcredit and Wpcrset (by H. Oda) and referring to Intel's

> chipset datasheet. I managed to get at least a 10%

> improvement in my RAM benchmark by doing this.

 

BION, I found wcprset (the current one appears to be called

wpcrs120.exe) last night. I'll look for wpcredit. Although this

stuff sounds like it will be way too advanced for me.

> BTW, I'm fairly certain that my friend's M571LMR was able

> to work with an AMD K6-2 CPU, so if your BIOS code uses a

> similar CPU module, then I can't see why your M572 should

> have any trouble either.

 

Well, I was certainly surprised, but as I said, so many people

seem to run fast chips (there are even 2000 and XP drivers for

the board!!!!!!!) that it certainly appears possible.

> Finally, I confess that my only real detective work with

> the M571 was in determining how to obtain undocumented

> Vcore voltages. The majority of the accumulated knowledge

> on this board was a result of a collaborative effort by

> several contributors to the EYO forum.

 

Well, it's very nice of you to share the credit, and I am sure

there were many contributors, as it seems to have been quite a

popular board - and for some, still is ;-) , but ever since you

were the /first/ person ever (in ten years of on-and-off asking

in various places) who /knew/ *and* cared to tell me where

Windows 9x stores the desktop icon placement info, and a few

other things, I have considered you /extremely/ knowledgeable -

and that's putting it mildly.

 

In fact, I almost always read your replies to almost any

question just because I know I will probably learn something I

would never find out about otherwise.

 

The fact you are so prompt and comprehensive in your helping

others is a rare (and much appreciated) quality among computer

experts, a lot of whom seem to enjoy thinking "I know, and you

don't, and I'm not telling you!", or worse.

 

Thank you again, very much.

 

t.

 

 

--

[from a recent conversation]

thanatoid: So why did you decide you needed broadband?

Neighbor: I wanted to read my e-mail faster.