old pentium 3 woes (Abit BH6 board)

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So I've built frankensteins monster from old PC bits. I have not reformatted the hard drive incidently.
I've put in a new mobo (AB - BH6) and Pentium 3 (650/256/100/1.65v costa rica). For which I have cleared the CMOS.
1) When I turn on the system for the first time, AWARD bios came up,
2) Then "Pentium III CPU at 433E MHz"
3) It detected the hard-drive, then an error came up saying CMOS Checksum error - defaults loaded.
I had to press F1 to continue or DEL to setup. F1 booted into windows 98 (which ran a bit pants to be honest) which then installed the drivers for new mobo.
Windows reports the CPU as "x86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 3"

I restart and steps 1 and 2 occured, but this time instead of the message in 3), it has changed to "CPU is unworkable or has been changed. Please recheck - CPU SOFT MENU.
so I checked ;). CPU soft menu II says " Intel Pentium III MMX" operating speed: 233(66).

Once again I can boot into windows by pressing F1 - but Im guessing Im not running the CPU at 650Mhz. Anyone got any explanation in plain English, or suggestions? Not vitally important, but would be nice to get it running alright.
 
If you go into the Bios, and select the correct speed then Save settings and exit, does it still do the same?

Normally this happens if the Bios is reset, or the processor has changed.

You should have some control over the clock speed, The PIII 650mhz should run at 133mhz, dependant on what model it is.
 
Last edited:
Monstermunch said:
ALWAYS re-format if you are installing a new motherboard.

It IS a must, not a maybe!
Click to expand...
Yeah - I know... I was just making sure the hardware all worked.. Unfortunatly its all been put away for the evening - I may get chance to have another go over the weekend / next week
 
Ok first of all you need to try and flash the bios to the latest version if it's not running it already. The BH6 is an old (1998) mobo which came out when the Katmai P3s were but a wee twinkle in Billy G's eye, never mind the Coppermine (256k) variants. You can get the latest version here: http://www.abit.nl/page/uk/download/download_bios.php?pMAIN_TYPE=Motherboard&pSUB_TYPE=Slot 1, it looks as though the latest was released 06/07/2000 for the original BH6 and 03/07/2000 for the v1.1

Once you have done that, if the BIOS doesn't autodetect the cpu correctly, go into the BIOS and manually set a 6.5 multiplier with an FSB of 100 (in all likelihood you will be able to overclock much higher if you have PC133 RAM and up the voltage a tad). Might be wise to manually set a vcore of 1.65v as well.
 
HangTime said:
Ok first of all you need to try and flash the bios to the latest version if it's not running it already. The BH6 is an old (1998) mobo which came out when the Katmai P3s were but a wee twinkle in Billy G's eye, never mind the Coppermine (256k) variants. You can get the latest version here: http://www.abit.nl/page/uk/download/download_bios.php?pMAIN_TYPE=Motherboard&pSUB_TYPE=Slot 1, it looks as though the latest was released 06/07/2000 for the original BH6 and 03/07/2000 for the v1.1

Once you have done that, if the BIOS doesn't autodetect the cpu correctly, go into the BIOS and manually set a 6.5 multiplier with an FSB of 100 (in all likelihood you will be able to overclock much higher if you have PC133 RAM and up the voltage a tad). Might be wise to manually set a vcore of 1.65v as well.
Click to expand...
Wow - thanks hangtime - I'll certainly give that a go and report back ASAP! :D
 
I think there was two versions of Socket 370. One supported CPUs of upto 400-500MHz, and the later version support speeds upto 1.4GHz.

I believe you can buy adapters on "the bay", which will allow you to use CPUs in excess of 500MHz on motherboards which don't normally support them.

Something to do with voltages, IIRC.
 
It's not clear from the OP whether he's running a s370 via a slotket, or Slot1 cpu though - I was assuming the latter as it's a Slot1 board.

Just as a side note, it's possible that the CMOS battery could failing if you find that settings keep getting lost.
 
HangTime said:
It's not clear from the OP whether he's running a s370 via a slotket, or Slot1 cpu though - I was assuming the latter as it's a Slot1 board.

Just as a side note, it's possible that the CMOS battery could failing if you find that settings keep getting lost.
Click to expand...

Tis a slot 1.
I was wondering if the CMOS battery was going, as I got the board working over xmas by clearing CMOS and thought "I'll get back to that when I have time". When I turned it on yesterday it needed a CMOS clear again before it would POST. Hmmm - just a standard battery yeah? nowt special or scary?
 
Amazing - a bios update didnt recognise the cpu, but manually setting multiplier to 6.5 and fsb of 100, and its running at 650 Mhz...
My sincerest thanks.

Now - how to shut that damn heatsink fan up... :p
 
Its running dandy now - apart from the rattly old fan
so i'ev unplugged it. mmmm passive cooling goodness. Watching the system temp in BIOS (I guess thats the CPU temp?) is hanging on 30 which is what it was on with the fan on... :confused:

edit: heatsink hot to touch now.
bum.. back on goes the fan
 
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