Problem with 'new' CPU (AMD K6-266)

Sean Fox

Sean Fox

Sean Fox

Associate
Joined
25 Dec 2019
Posts
50
I'm really hoping I might be able to pick your collective brains here!

So my new processor arrived today, an AMD K6-266 AFR (regular Socket 7)

However after installing it, all I'm getting is a black screen and "no signal" on the monitor. Swapping the old CPU back works perfectly, so I'm not sure what the problem could be. The seller assured me he had tested the CPU before shipping and it was perfect.

There are no real markings on my motherboard to identify it, other than a few numbers -

It says E139761 along the top edge, and a white socket with: 3M1X2YY 9709. A Google search didn't turn up much meaningful info.

It's a Gateway 2000 system with an AMIBIOS version of 1.00.07.DQ0T UAV

Could it be that the motherboard/BIOS is not compatible with AMD chips? The working processor that I removed was a Pentium 200MMX, and as I say this works fine if I swap it back in.

Any advice you can throw my way would be really appreciated! :)
 
Was it not those early K6s that had no thermal protection on them?
I mind melting the solder out from a Celly P2 slot processor back in the day, totally deliberate mind you as i had fiddled with the jumpers and taped over some of the slot pins to dump even more voltage through it.
 
To be honest, if its that old then its likely all the transistor gates have seized up.
You can get special stuff from the rainforest to put into your old old box to free them off and release the magic smoke.
 
Sean Fox said:
Nothing that makes any sense to me - I took a few gut shots this evening - as you can see, there aren't many jumpers, and the ones that are there aren't really labelled :(

Pics here: http://imgur.com/a/awpcOfx
Click to expand...
On the last screenshot you can see at the top left there is a box with "bus freq" and a list of variations.

You will need to set the bu freq to 66 and multi to 4x.

Although looking at that it only goes to 3x so its possible you cannot run that cpu at 266 on there.
 
px8JYw4

LewisRaz said:
On the last screenshot you can see at the top left there is a box with "bus freq" and a list of variations.

You will need to set the bu freq to 66 and multi to 4x.

Although looking at that it only goes to 3x so its possible you cannot run that cpu at 266 on there.
Click to expand...

Damn! I completely missed that!! Thanks for the advice! Am I likely to damage anything if I can only set the multiplier to 3x?

Something's telling me a newer motherboard might just be the best way forward... :(


Edit - thinking about it, there's no point me running it at 66 with a 3x multiplier anyway since my working CPU is already 200mhz. I guess I'm kinda stuck!
 
Sean Fox said:
px8JYw4



Damn! I completely missed that!! Thanks for the advice! Am I likely to damage anything if I can only set the multiplier to 3x?

Something's telling me a newer motherboard might just be the best way forward... :(
Click to expand...
You would not damage anything running a cpu slower than intended. You will need to see if there are any voltage jumpers on the board as that is where the damage is possible. Socket 7 motherboards really bridged the gap between AT and older style configs and ATX with more modern and familiar set ups. Your one appears to sit somewhere in the middle (a lot of onboard i/o compared to early ones!).
 
sideways14a said:
Dude this thing is older than many of my students, i wouldnt be wasting my time trying to get it to work now let alone find another main board for it.
Click to expand...

I see what you're saying, but this really isn't a waste of time for me - there are a whole bunch of games that simply don't function well on modern hardware which is why I'm keen on maintaining an old system.
 
So I did a little research to double check if I was right about vcore. Pentium 200 MMX is rated for 2.7-2.9v. The K6-266 is only rated for 2.1-2.3.

If that board isn’t automatically changing vcore (which I HIGHLY doubt for the vintage), there is a distinctive possibility that the AMD chip may have been overvolted and died. You might get lucky in that you only had it powered on for a short time, but that doesn’t bode well.
 
Agree with the above, there will be jumpers for voltage although from the photo it doesn't give a table so would have been on a manual or a sticker inside the original case instead to show the settings needed.
 
Duke said:
Agree with the above, there will be jumpers for voltage although from the photo it doesn't give a table so would have been on a manual or a sticker inside the original case instead to show the settings needed.
Click to expand...

No stickers inside, and none of the jumpers are labelled as being for voltage unfortunately :( Annoyingly, I haven't been able to track down a manual for this motherboard.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom