M577 PC-Chips Mobo question

[Fafnr]

Hi all u brilliant persons out there!! (Yes, flatter will get me ANYWHERE!! LOL)

Any one of you know if can use a K6-2/3 + on my mobo?? I have NO PROBLEM with perhaps a BIOS update, but i'm not fond og surgery on my mobo... Anyone know where i can actually BUY a K6-2/3 +??

Thx!!

 

[Hanky]

Well, PC Chips is not exactly a high-quality manufacturer and their support is virtually non-existent. BIOS updates are rare if they list your board on their homepage at all (at least they have a homepage...whoohoo). So I can't imagine they have a BIOS update for K6-X+ CPUs! Anyway, the CPU would work most likely, but not as fast as it could be and maybe even slower than a supported K6-2.
To sum it up: I wouldn't buy such a CPU for this board. And please do yourself a favour and don't buy a board from such an almost-no-name manufacturer again!

 

[Fafnr]

Hi and thx for the reply!

There IS a BIOS update there, but i allready have it...
So i guess i won't buy it...

Anyway, the reason i wanted too ask, was that a normal K6-2 500 costs around 100$ here in denmark... :-( Pretty steep!!!

Well Thx anyway, i think i'll check the buy/sell forum for used K6-2's!

 

[Hanky]

<< a normal K6-2 500 costs around 100$ here >>



Then you better order here in Germany. The shipping costs shouldn't be so high and the prices are lower. The K6-2+ is also available here, but you should better go for a serious upgrade.

 

[Peter]

Well ... the M577 has been out of production for a LONG time now, the last BIOS update was from March 1999. That BIOS update does very well with plain K6-2. Many people use that combination, and found that at least the v3.x boards run the /500 speed grade very well. The /550, drawing substantially more power, might be limited to the latest v3.1 revision.

Normal K6-III also runs very well with it. &quot;+&quot; models definitely are a no-go, BIOS is way too old for that.

Regards, Peter

 

[mawelsh]

I'm stuck with a M577, bought before I knew better. I just upgraded from a K6-2/300 to a 500. I flashed it with the 3-6-99 BIOS upgrade. Even so, it won't run any faster than 450. Set it for 5x100 and it will fatal right after getting into Windows. At 450 it runs fine. I don't think the chipset takes advantage of all the K6-2's power.

I'm running 2.2 core voltage...there's some discussion of bumping it to 2.4 (C jumper only) but this is undocumented and didn't work for me.

My K6-2/500 was US$51.

 

[Peter]

The M577 uses the VIA MVP3 chipset just like most other super-7 boards. Actually, it's among the more carefully designed and faster MVP3 boards and, at the time, the only one with 1 MByte of cache. There have been much worse boards.

M577 v3.0 and up should have enough CPU voltage regulation strength for a K6-2/500. At least ours here do. Never used an older one, but it may well be that those don't.

Check also for windows driver issues, especially if that's W95 you're running there.

By the way, the CPU voltage regulator on the M577 is a digital one, and can be set to produce any voltage from 2.0 to 3.5V.

The baseline is 2.0V (no jumpers), and the jumpers add to that. A is worth .1V, B is .2V, C is .4V and D is .8V. So to bump from 2.2V to 2.3V, you put jumpers on A and B. C alone gives you 2.4, AC for 2.5, and so on.

Regards, Peter

 

[wirelessenabled]

I am running a k6-III+ 450 fine in my M577 with the 3-06-99 bios. Overclocking it to 550 mHz at 2.00 volts (take all the jumpers off the voltage bank to get 2.00 v). Runs great! I get a 41.5 on ZD Labs SysMark99 which compares to 37.3 for my Dell LS with a Pentium III 400.