help with PCChips M577 jumpers (old:can anyone id this mobo?)

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lbmcleod

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Jan 30, 2002
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its at/baby at form factor, has pci and isa, 2 ide, dimms, socket 7, 1 agp (2x i think) currently running a Cyrix MII 300mhz cpu
BIOS string:
07/15/1998-577+ITE8661-2A5LEHOAL-00
 
DAPUNISHER

DAPUNISHER

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I think it's a PCChips but the closest model I saw was the 07/15/1998-577+ITE8661-2A5LEH0AC-00 and it has 3DIMM and 2 SIMM and sound. Try putting in the FCC ID which should be on a sticker on the board FCC ID search the sticker may be underneath the board possibly requiring it to be taken out of the case to see it.
 
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DAPUNISHER

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That's gotta be it, you can see where the 2 SIMM slots on the model I mentioned would have been.
 
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lbmcleod

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yep got that bios update but although it fixes the 8Gb HDD limit as said here in German, it doesn't fix the 32Gb one i dont think, haven't tried yet though, but i have also downloaded a patched bios for the M577, which the author says is just the PCchips one but with harddisk support > 32Gb upto 128Gb. Here's the page.

I will try the PCchips one first, if that doesn't fix it then i will try the western digital trick of detecting a smaller hdd, then formatting the rest with its windows utility, and then if the board still crashes on detecting the "wrong" hdd, then i'll try the patched one.

thkz all v. much i wil post up how it went
 
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Peter

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Oct 15, 1999
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Smells like an M577 to me. v1.x still came with SIMM slots, v3.x had them removed and use DIMMs only.

Sorry, Award didn't fix the 32-GByte bug unti 6/1999. And there's no workarounds either, since the bug in the older BIOSes make the system hang when a larger drive is DETECTED, regardless of what size is SET.
If you dare use the patched BIOS, that'll help.
 
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lbmcleod

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v1.x still came with SIMM slots, v3.x had them removed and use DIMMs only
Click to expand...
Yup, it must be a v.3x then cos it aint got any SIMM slots. not that it bothers me tho
older BIOSes make the system hang when a larger drive is DETECTED
Click to expand...
Indeed. Updated the BIOS to bypass the 8Gb bug, BIOS dated 99, official PCchips and the damned thing hung again, and showed in the bios screen that i had set a 8.5 gb drive when i set a 40gb one.
If you dare use the patched BIOS, that'll help
Click to expand...
It doesn't fix the problem of the bios DETECTING the >32Gb drive, the bios still thinks its running a 8.5ish drive, but it doesn't hang and boots to windows. Drive is then shown in windows (once partition made in fdisk - 9x wont show drive unles its partitioned 1st) as a non-formatted 8.56 drive.

Fortunately for me it is a Western Digital hard drive, and their site has something called "data lifeguard", a caldera dos bootable disk which allows you to boot into the WD utilities, the util then bypasses the bios (maybe reads the model of drive and makes its own determination) detects it as a 40gb drive and allows to format and partition drive.
Something called EZ-BIOS is installed on the C: drive, (i guess to correctly inform windows about the drive) which boots after the main bios, before windows, and Viola, i have a 40Gb hard drive up and running.

Thanks for all your help!
 
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lbmcleod

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anyone know the jumper settings on this board for a AMD K6-2 533Mhz (97mhz x 5.5) 2.2V??? can i just use the 100mhz setting? i only haver a v1 manual, which does not have a 97mhz setting.
 
Iron Woode

Iron Woode

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Oct 10, 1999
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Originally posted by: lbmcleod
v1.x still came with SIMM slots, v3.x had them removed and use DIMMs only
Click to expand...
Yup, it must be a v.3x then cos it aint got any SIMM slots. not that it bothers me tho
older BIOSes make the system hang when a larger drive is DETECTED
Click to expand...
Indeed. Updated the BIOS to bypass the 8Gb bug, BIOS dated 99, official PCchips and the damned thing hung again, and showed in the bios screen that i had set a 8.5 gb drive when i set a 40gb one.
If you dare use the patched BIOS, that'll help
Click to expand...
It doesn't fix the problem of the bios DETECTING the >32Gb drive, the bios still thinks its running a 8.5ish drive, but it doesn't hang and boots to windows. Drive is then shown in windows (once partition made in fdisk - 9x wont show drive unles its partitioned 1st) as a non-formatted 8.56 drive.

Fortunately for me it is a Western Digital hard drive, and their site has something called "data lifeguard", a caldera dos bootable disk which allows you to boot into the WD utilities, the util then bypasses the bios (maybe reads the model of drive and makes its own determination) detects it as a 40gb drive and allows to format and partition drive.
Something called EZ-BIOS is installed on the C: drive, (i guess to correctly inform windows about the drive) which boots after the main bios, before windows, and Viola, i have a 40Gb hard drive up and running.

Thanks for all your help!
Click to expand...

EZ Bios is an overlay program which I would only recommend when all else fails when adding a big HDD.
 
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Peter

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Oct 15, 1999
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That WD utility replaces the system BIOS's HDD services, re-detects the drive size, and then boots the OS. So as long as your system BIOS reaches boot stage, you're set.

As for the oddball 533 MHz CPU you have there, you can run it 5.5x 95. This 97 MHz mode hasn't been available on but a handful of board models, the M577 not being one of them.
That'll give you 522 MHz then, which is close enough. 5.5x 100 most definitely won't work right; the 533s sort of are units that should have been 550s but couldn't.
 
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