AT Super Socket 7 Upgrade Failure

[@orangejuche]

The SB Live! SB0060 actually has pretty good DOS compatibility, they produce fairly accurate Sound Blaster SFX and they support general MIDI iirc. There's issues with certain games that can't handle virtual sound devices due to their memory handling, but the vast majority work acceptably.

[@Viczarratt]

Welcome to the fail academy, fellow retro enthusiast 🛡🔰

[@sandmanxo]

I always like seeing the k6's with the on board l2 cache. By the time those came out I had moved onto the original Slot A Athlon cpus. I used socket 7 for quite a while though with a p54-120, k6-200 and finally a k6-2 350, and all of them got a speed grade worth of overclocking. I even delidded the 200mhz one trying to reach 262mhz but had to settle at 225mhz(I always liked overclocking the bus as much as possible). Around 2003 I did pickup a k6-2 533, which is what lives in my ss7 today at 600mhz. The k6-3 and 2+ and 3+ were just too much money for a vastly outdated system. If they had they were released a year earlier, I would have been on ss7 longer. As far as hard drives, I just replace them with an sd card these days. Most of the parallel drives weren't very reliable regardless of brand whwn they were new, and I have no patience for them now. I managed around 40 socket 7 machines at my job from 2000-2004 when they started getting phased out, and hdd were the main issues with them. They all pretty much took a k6-2 400 without issue running at 2.5v instead of the stock 2.2v, as a lot of older boards that was the lowest voltage. Most of them were stable at 450mhz on a 75mhz bus too and ran MS Office good enough for the time.

[@retroboby007]

I dont think is the hdd. Maybe is the IDE cable or the motherboard. Something simillar happened to me too. I was having problems with hdd locking up with a socket A Duron 800mhz system. When I installed that hdd in other system, it runs fine, no problems. I changed that socket A motherboard+CPU with a slot 1 PIII 600 mhz and no more hdd problems.

[@bondjovi4595]

I threw a 233 mmx where a k6 was supposed to go. It runs awesome!

[@Shofotolavski]

Some commercial motherboards after 2020 also provide PCI and PS2 interfaces. It should be feasible to use a new model CPU to create a virtual machine and use a PCI graphics card and sound card to provide a Win98 environment.

[@masejoer]

For the stability issues, it could be something as simple as bad RAM. Memtest should be in order. Beyond that, I'd probably try a different controller card and different psu. Simplest would be to just replace everything but the mainboard, and go from there to narrow down the culprit. It's a good idea to stress test the hardware before even thinking about building out the OS and software, whether a retro PC, or a new machine today. CPU, graphic card, memory, hdd/ssd, power supply - any and all components can be bad, and often-enough are, straight out of the box, and with proper handling. One can even buy a new $20k server and have it fail testing, which the OEM will swap out. Always test hardware for stability and integrity.

[@AncientElectronics]

@@masejoer system was perfectly stable before the cpu upgrade which is why I don't suspect a ram or controller issue. Its probably either the cpu that has problems or the motherboard can't handle the higher speed due to to failing components.

[@shirley-h2o]

cool video ,, i like what you did to the video card i had a nosiy vga fan and pulled it and put a newer fan on my 64 mb vga video card,, i like older cool pcs

[@atheatos]

GF2 Ultra, GF3, with older drivers, the best for SS7. Voodoo cards also good.

[@stefanlelieveld7113]

Consider looking at the psu had simular issues with my ss7 built. A 300w psu of a cheap brand might not cut it. The voltage ripple could already be too much with your GF 2 and a power hungry CPU. As mentioned I also had issues with on paper a much biefier psu then required but still with a better psu same wattage i ran fine after. Good luck.

[@arnoldvanblanken2594]

Djeez,, I miss this time (Windows 95 / 98)

[@patricktrakzel9657]

K6's are great overclockers.

[@Romerco77]

I would say your instability issues are created by cache conflicts with the K6-3+. Disable L3 cache in bios and check, it will perform the same anyway. Also 768 MB ram is a hige no-no with windows 98, 512 is the max.

[@Xan0906]

Tom's Hardware had 36.6 FPS in Expendable timedemo with a K6-2+ 500, and 43.6 with a 550. I forgot already if you ran this with the overclock or not, but 26 FPS seems a bit slow in either case. Though memory timings or driver versions could play a role here, TH had PC133 CL2, Via 4in1 4.20 and Nvidia 5.30. So replicating that may be a start if you intend to troubleshoot this.

[@AncientElectronics]

@@Xan0906 what GPU were they running?

[@Xan0906]

@@AncientElectronics It just says GeForce, I'm assuming GF256. I'd post the link but yt tends to not like that. You should be able to find this with "600 MHz with Socket 7: The AMD K6-2+", July 13 2000.

[@metalworksmachineshop]

When overclocked, what did that boost the PCI and AGP slot and ram to? Some cards can't handle a overclock

[@0MeALot0]

Sounds like the cpu is unstable even at stock. What are the north bridge and vrm temps under load? My guess would be the motherboard. Low count vrm fases often make the cpu voltage fluctuate a lot. In such cases the cpu might need a bit more voltage. Or the vrm gets a bit toasty and needs a fan directed at it, same could be for the north bridge chip. You will want to keep temps well below 80 degrees on all those parts. Also cpus and gpus tend to use more power at higher temps.

[@AncientElectronics]

@@0MeALot0 at the moment its having a hard time getting into Windows even to run anything. If/when I try to fiddle with this thing again ill probably swap out the CPU and then keep an eye on temps as you suggest and see how that goes.

[@0MeALot0]

​@@AncientElectronics Might want to take the board out of the case to fully test it with different hardware. That way you can easily use a infrared thermometer on parts like the vrm.

[@0MeALot0]

@@AncientElectronics Ive also had psus not being able to provide a stable voltage anymore, if its dropping under load you will also have these kind of problems. Specially with more demanding hardware.

[@matthewday7565]

Drawing more power from the PSU, maybe the supply rails are noisy

[@Romerco77]

A K6-3 600 makes a huge bottleneck for a Voodoo 3, imagine for a GeForce (any) 😅

[@aspinx]

These errors looks like power supply issue. Maybe it can't deliver stable enough power with increased demands from upgraded hardware.

[@fradd182]

If default voltage is 1.7, i wouldn't go more than 1.85V for overvolt. 2v could be a bit too much.

[@JoCrt]

Maybe the hard drive controller is unhappy.

[@stephenkennedy6358]

Try a different cpu. A ustable cpu could very well corrupt the hard drive.

[@PROSTO4Tabal]

Good stuff. Personally I'd use aureal vortex 2 and proper tnt2 (not the m64 model). This will give very good/quick 1999 3D gaming pc

[@AncientElectronics]

Indeed, but I already have a Win 98 setup with a TNT2 Ultra and one with a Voodoo 3 so I wanted to go with something a little more over-the-top GPU-wise with this one.

[@shirley-h2o]

do you ever the flat panels for older pc gaiming ,, i might have to buy a older vga monitor,, cool video games,, games run good

[@dallesamllhals9161]

PFFFTH! Iwill P55XB2 Any Day! ATI Radeon 9250 128MB PCI > Tseng Labs ET6000 4.5MB...sry' Old HW-fan.. K6 200 MHz < K6-III (AHX)400MHz..sry' Sup' fans.. ^Left/right! YES! Meant too...'cause Jute. Why? Oh, 'cause ONLY one Socket 7 i made...poor Gal(thing?) still alive 😲

[@sebastian19745]

Why overclock old hardware? When I had my 486DX2@66, yes, I updated it to the max, and with the AMD5x86@133 I also tried to overclock it up to 150MHz I remember, water cooled. But by then, the Pentium 1 was old and Pentium 2 was on the market already and as a student I had not enough money to get an Pentium machine. However, I managed to play games that required an Pentium CPU just fine (Tomb Raider, Anno 1602, etc). Also, I was lucky to have a good motherboard with plenty of cache and almost enough RAM. But now, when if need a speedy computer can go with P2, P3 or Athlon XP, I do not see the need of overclocking. Yes, I also take advantage of the new hardware, I use an ATA133 HDD on ATA66 or ATA100 IDE adapter, I use the faster memory I can, (I use SDRAM133 instead SDRAM66) just because I have them memory sticks, I use AGP4x in AGPx2 slots if they work, because now I have them, but I use the CPUs at theirs stock frequency just to not stress that old hardware. Yes, is ok to max the old hardware, maybe to try to run DOOM or Quake at max fps to break a record, but hey, to reduce the life of that old hardware just to have an level up computer when can just get an level up computer I find pointless.

[@0MeALot0]

You do not actually reduce the life span of a part that is overclocked if you know what you are doing. Its worse to have parts running stock speeds in 0 airflow cases then overclocking parts that are well within thermal limits. The mosfets on the motherboard and gpu can handle way more energy if operated at low temps. I personally overclock everything i get my hands on and nothing ever died on me. Ive got lots of hardware that has been running like that for ages but pcs do need more maintenance that way. Heat is the only real enemy here. If you have a overkill cooler on your cpu there is no harm in running harder, given the vrm on the motherboard is well cooled. Its usefull too. Ive got a fx 5950 ultra that is just able to run at stock speeds, more degredation and the card becomes useless, or will need underclocking so i will not put it in a pc to game on it too much. On the otherhand i also have a Quadro fx 3000G which is basically a underclocked fx 5900 ultra that happily runs past 5950 ultra speeds all day long. Also have a xfx 6800 ultra that was shipped with the unreleased 6800 ultra "extreme" speeds so its overclocked no matter what, and that with the stock double slot cooler although the vbios lets the fan run at 100% all the time to get that speed.

[@AncientElectronics]

I'd also add that the entire point of a K6-III+ is to overclock, if you don't want to overclock you just get a regular k6-III. The III+ is well known for its easy OC abilities and it's mostly seen as common practice. Actually I'm not sure I know any retro gamer that doesn't OC the k6-III+

[@TheRealHeavyG]

The AM5x86 could easily do 160MHz without anything but a simple heatsink and small fan. I don't think it made a huge difference to performance over the 133MHz stock speed, but I always liked setting the 3 digit display to "160", because it was just cool.

[@b747xx]

These Maxtor hard drive are the worst hard drive I ever meet if we talk "reliability" I had so much stacks of theses dead Maxtor in the warehouse. Now add the extra years on the survivors and start to use them hard then totally not surprised they all pop. In order of reliability, Id say these "slimmer" DiamondMax 8 where the worst hard drive ever made (they did drop like flies when new), like designed to fail once you remove it from the anti-static bag. Then the older/newer Maxtor you had (the 60Gb unit that is based on an older more reliable design), where a lot more reliable but there old now. I can't comment on that Seagate you had. Seagate quality dropped hard 2-3 years after they brought Maxtor but that seagate seam older.

[@AncientElectronics]

@@b747xx your not the first person to comment on how crappy Maxtor is.

[@masejoer]

@@AncientElectronics My 4.3, 6.4, and 40GB Maxtors were still working fine 15 years later when they were gotten rid of. I believe they were turned off very night for a period of time, and later were left on 24/7 when used in a backup machine/home server. I have good memories of those drives. A few years ago I found some IDE Maxtors of 160GB or so size in some ancient "servers" (desktop athlon 64 x2 systems) at an office, and they were still chugging along fine under Windows Server 2003, always powered on. Doubt they were accessed much, but they worked when the systems were parted out about 5 years ago. I even ran hdsentinel for a few write/read sequential and butterfly passes on one and it had no problems. I think Seagate was known to be one of the best (along with earlier IBM drives) at the time, but I had a 30MB Seagate catch on fire in my 386 around 1993. Everyone had their good and bad products.