Cyrix in a 503+

Well, this is the third part in a three part story. The second 503+
went to my mother-in-law, she's really happy with it. Her former
computer was a P 1 100 MHz, socket 5. nuf said. This is the last 503+ I
have, the reset doesnt work, and the sticker says 2900 I believe. ver
1.1, no ATX connector. Anyway, I flashed it with a newer BIOS, and then
found Cyrix M II 300 75 fsb in a box of free stuff from a donation here
in town. Never used a Cyrix before, I popped it in there, found the last
socket 7 heatsink I had, set the jumpers, no boot. Figured the 70ns 72
pin ram couldn't handle the 75 MHz fsb, popped a stick of 32 MB PC100
in, set the jumpers again, and finally got a screen . woo hoo ! Got the
manual out, and then noticed I had left the voltage at 2.1 that I used
for the previous K6 III+, and realized that was way too low. yep, top of
Cyrix says 2.9, set that and all runs well. Enabled linear burst in
BIOS, and I am off to the races. My question is, how well or how bad
does this cpu perform ? No gaming here, just plain old fashioned
computing. What would a MII 300 compare to ? P 133 ? ha ha. JK.

Cheers, John

The 300-ish rating is actually fairly accurate, as long as you are
talking about non-floating point calculations. My old roommate used to
have one back in the day. He actually would play games on it, using a
Voodoo Banshee 16 MB PCI card. For the time it was acceptable, but this
isn't 1998 anymore.

By the way, you can try running the CPU at (3.5x66)=233 instead of
(3x75)=225 if you want to use that EDO RAM and save the PC100 for
something else.

--Alex



farmuse wrote:
> Well, this is the third part in a three part story. The second 503+
> went to my mother-in-law, she's really happy with it. Her former
> computer was a P 1 100 MHz, socket 5. nuf said. This is the last 503+ I
> have, the reset doesnt work, and the sticker says 2900 I believe. ver
> 1.1, no ATX connector. Anyway, I flashed it with a newer BIOS, and then
> found Cyrix M II 300 75 fsb in a box of free stuff from a donation here
> in town. Never used a Cyrix before, I popped it in there, found the last
> socket 7 heatsink I had, set the jumpers, no boot. Figured the 70ns 72
> pin ram couldn't handle the 75 MHz fsb, popped a stick of 32 MB PC100
> in, set the jumpers again, and finally got a screen . woo hoo ! Got the
> manual out, and then noticed I had left the voltage at 2.1 that I used
> for the previous K6 III+, and realized that was way too low. yep, top of
> Cyrix says 2.9, set that and all runs well. Enabled linear burst in
> BIOS, and I am off to the races. My question is, how well or how bad
> does this cpu perform ? No gaming here, just plain old fashioned
> computing. What would a MII 300 compare to ? P 133 ? ha ha. JK.
>
> Cheers, John

thanks Alex, yeah I may just try some EDO at 75, I have some Seimens
that can run 100 MHz stable, but 4x 8 MB is not enough, so maybe I can
find some larger sticks of EDO that can run 75. I am all out of SDRAM,
the in-law has the vast majority of it. I have a boat load of EDO and
fastpage, maybe a couple of 32 MB modules in there somewhere. I maybe
try 3.5x 75 if the haetsink can cool it well enough, they say these
chips are fairly fragile and are easy to toast. hey, you wanna see
something funny ? check this out

http://www.rabidhardware.net/index.php?id=44

Alex Zorrilla wrote:

> The 300-ish rating is actually fairly accurate, as long as you are
> talking about non-floating point calculations. My old roommate used to
> have one back in the day. He actually would play games on it, using a
> Voodoo Banshee 16 MB PCI card. For the time it was acceptable, but this
> isn't 1998 anymore.
>
> By the way, you can try running the CPU at (3.5x66)=233 instead of
> (3x75)=225 if you want to use that EDO RAM and save the PC100 for
> something else.
>
> --Alex

Ha ha. That's about right. I do remember that Cyrix chips ran pretty
hot. Well, for the time, anyway. These days, they would probably be
considered a low power CPU. At least coolers have gotten a lot better,
so any generic Athlon XP cooler will do a better job than the fanciest
cooler did back then.



farmuse wrote:
> thanks Alex, yeah I may just try some EDO at 75, I have some Seimens
> that can run 100 MHz stable, but 4x 8 MB is not enough, so maybe I can
> find some larger sticks of EDO that can run 75. I am all out of SDRAM,
> the in-law has the vast majority of it. I have a boat load of EDO and
> fastpage, maybe a couple of 32 MB modules in there somewhere. I maybe
> try 3.5x 75 if the haetsink can cool it well enough, they say these
> chips are fairly fragile and are easy to toast. hey, you wanna see
> something funny ? check this out
>
> http://www.rabidhardware.net/index.php?id=44
>
> Alex Zorrilla wrote:
>
>> The 300-ish rating is actually fairly accurate, as long as you are
>> talking about non-floating point calculations. My old roommate used
>> to have one back in the day. He actually would play games on it,
>> using a Voodoo Banshee 16 MB PCI card. For the time it was
>> acceptable, but this isn't 1998 anymore.
>>
>> By the way, you can try running the CPU at (3.5x66)=233 instead of
>> (3x75)=225 if you want to use that EDO RAM and save the PC100 for
>> something else.
>>
>> --Alex

I have a MII300 somewhere (need a spare?) that I used for a brief
spell. It ran just fine for everyday business type applications. I
sort of recall overclocking it a bit to the 350 rating speed w/o
problem.

Speaking of fried, I had a HS fan fail on an old k6-233 CPU based
system and when I touched the HS to check the temperature, it burned 3
stripes on my finger, yet the CPU did not suffer any damage.
Replacement of the fan returned the system to normal operation much to
my amazement.

--
Best regards,
Kyle
"farmuse" <> wrote in message
news:...
| Well, this is the third part in a three part story. The second
503+
| went to my mother-in-law, she's really happy with it. Her former
| computer was a P 1 100 MHz, socket 5. nuf said. This is the last
503+ I
| have, the reset doesnt work, and the sticker says 2900 I believe.
ver
| 1.1, no ATX connector. Anyway, I flashed it with a newer BIOS, and
then
| found Cyrix M II 300 75 fsb in a box of free stuff from a donation
here
| in town. Never used a Cyrix before, I popped it in there, found the
last
| socket 7 heatsink I had, set the jumpers, no boot. Figured the 70ns
72
| pin ram couldn't handle the 75 MHz fsb, popped a stick of 32 MB
PC100
| in, set the jumpers again, and finally got a screen . woo hoo ! Got
the
| manual out, and then noticed I had left the voltage at 2.1 that I
used
| for the previous K6 III+, and realized that was way too low. yep,
top of
| Cyrix says 2.9, set that and all runs well. Enabled linear burst in
| BIOS, and I am off to the races. My question is, how well or how bad
| does this cpu perform ? No gaming here, just plain old fashioned
| computing. What would a MII 300 compare to ? P 133 ? ha ha. JK.
|
| Cheers, John

well I really don't know if the ram really is bad but memtest flunked
the four modules of EDO I had in there, was having issues, could be the
75 MHz fsb, gonna try two 50 ns EDO I have in reserve, that should run
better. I am using a medium sized green anodized aluminum heatsink,
never seen one like it, screws tighten the tabs, and silicone grease, so
the cpu is cool enough. Not a bad idea though, I have several socket A
heatsinks ! but they are huge compared to the current one, not sure I
could mount one well enough. Anyway, ever onward ... as Jimmy would say

Alex Zorrilla wrote:
> Ha ha. That's about right. I do remember that Cyrix chips ran pretty
> hot. Well, for the time, anyway. These days, they would probably be
> considered a low power CPU. At least coolers have gotten a lot better,
> so any generic Athlon XP cooler will do a better job than the fanciest
> cooler did back then.
>
>
>
> farmuse wrote:
>
>> thanks Alex, yeah I may just try some EDO at 75, I have some
>> Seimens that can run 100 MHz stable, but 4x 8 MB is not enough, so
>> maybe I can find some larger sticks of EDO that can run 75. I am all
>> out of SDRAM, the in-law has the vast majority of it. I have a boat
>> load of EDO and fastpage, maybe a couple of 32 MB modules in there
>> somewhere. I maybe try 3.5x 75 if the haetsink can cool it well
>> enough, they say these chips are fairly fragile and are easy to toast.
>> hey, you wanna see something funny ? check this out
>>
>> http://www.rabidhardware.net/index.php?id=44
>>
>> Alex Zorrilla wrote:
>>
>>> The 300-ish rating is actually fairly accurate, as long as you are
>>> talking about non-floating point calculations. My old roommate used
>>> to have one back in the day. He actually would play games on it,
>>> using a Voodoo Banshee 16 MB PCI card. For the time it was
>>> acceptable, but this isn't 1998 anymore.
>>>
>>> By the way, you can try running the CPU at (3.5x66)=233 instead of
>>> (3x75)=225 if you want to use that EDO RAM and save the PC100 for
>>> something else.
>>>
>>> --Alex

update : the memtest errors were errors, upon boot from memtest
floppy the amount of total ram was 4 MB and the error list was
continuous. Some motherboards don't show the correct amount of ram, and
thus tests memory that isn't even there. I tried three different banks
of edo and one know good module of sdram, all tested bad. I then set
memtest to probe, and then all was good. I decided to leave the Samsung
GH sdram and finish the computer install. The other fluke I ran into was
when using windows update the machine would lock up when downloading. It
was not the memory, but rather the fact that the old Fujitsu UDMA drive
and the Maxtor UDMA drive do not play nice together on the same ribbon
cable, and so I had to disable DMA in device manager. It is possible the
VIA bus master driver is not the best choice, so I may remove that and
either use windows bus mastering or perhaps highpoint, if they are still
available. Any suggestions ? after I disabled DMA then update download
went smoothly and the machine runs stable. That Cyrix does run hot, but
still stable.


farmuse wrote:
> well I really don't know if the ram really is bad but memtest flunked
> the four modules of EDO I had in there, was having issues, could be the
> 75 MHz fsb, gonna try two 50 ns EDO I have in reserve, that should run
> better. I am using a medium sized green anodized aluminum heatsink,
> never seen one like it, screws tighten the tabs, and silicone grease, so
> the cpu is cool enough. Not a bad idea though, I have several socket A
> heatsinks ! but they are huge compared to the current one, not sure I
> could mount one well enough. Anyway, ever onward ... as Jimmy would say
>
> Alex Zorrilla wrote:
>
>> Ha ha. That's about right. I do remember that Cyrix chips ran pretty
>> hot. Well, for the time, anyway. These days, they would probably be
>> considered a low power CPU. At least coolers have gotten a lot
>> better, so any generic Athlon XP cooler will do a better job than the
>> fanciest cooler did back then.
>>
>>
>>
>> farmuse wrote:
>>
>>> thanks Alex, yeah I may just try some EDO at 75, I have some
>>> Seimens that can run 100 MHz stable, but 4x 8 MB is not enough, so
>>> maybe I can find some larger sticks of EDO that can run 75. I am all
>>> out of SDRAM, the in-law has the vast majority of it. I have a boat
>>> load of EDO and fastpage, maybe a couple of 32 MB modules in there
>>> somewhere. I maybe try 3.5x 75 if the haetsink can cool it well
>>> enough, they say these chips are fairly fragile and are easy to
>>> toast. hey, you wanna see something funny ? check this out
>>>
>>> http://www.rabidhardware.net/index.php?id=44
>>>
>>> Alex Zorrilla wrote:
>>>
>>>> The 300-ish rating is actually fairly accurate, as long as you are
>>>> talking about non-floating point calculations. My old roommate used
>>>> to have one back in the day. He actually would play games on it,
>>>> using a Voodoo Banshee 16 MB PCI card. For the time it was
>>>> acceptable, but this isn't 1998 anymore.
>>>>
>>>> By the way, you can try running the CPU at (3.5x66)=233 instead of
>>>> (3x75)=225 if you want to use that EDO RAM and save the PC100 for
>>>> something else.
>>>>
>>>> --Alex

It is indeed possible that the UDMA problems are because of the VIA
driver. As an example, I have noticed in Windows XP with the VA-503A,
UDMA devices do not run at their full speeds. For example, a Maxtor
ATA33 drive (UDMA mode 2) only runs at UDMA mode 0, and the DVD drive
(UDMA mode 2) runs at only UDMA mode 1. A Maxtor ATA100 drive (UDMA
mode 5) only runs at UDMA mode 3.

Keep in mind that my VA-503A uses the 686A southbridge, which is capable
of up to UDMA mode 4 (ATA66). I believe your VA-503+ uses the 596B
soutbridge (or something like that), which only goes up to ATA33/UDMA2.

I ran into these problems, whether I used the VIA IDE drivers that came
with WinXP or I downloaded the latest drivers from VIA. Then I came
across a post in the VIA Arena forums that suggested using the default
Microsoft IDE driver. I tried that, and BooM! All my drives were
running at full speed, and I could feel the difference, too.

--Alex




farmuse wrote:
> update : the memtest errors were errors, upon boot from memtest
> floppy the amount of total ram was 4 MB and the error list was
> continuous. Some motherboards don't show the correct amount of ram, and
> thus tests memory that isn't even there. I tried three different banks
> of edo and one know good module of sdram, all tested bad. I then set
> memtest to probe, and then all was good. I decided to leave the Samsung
> GH sdram and finish the computer install. The other fluke I ran into was
> when using windows update the machine would lock up when downloading. It
> was not the memory, but rather the fact that the old Fujitsu UDMA drive
> and the Maxtor UDMA drive do not play nice together on the same ribbon
> cable, and so I had to disable DMA in device manager. It is possible the
> VIA bus master driver is not the best choice, so I may remove that and
> either use windows bus mastering or perhaps highpoint, if they are still
> available. Any suggestions ? after I disabled DMA then update download
> went smoothly and the machine runs stable. That Cyrix does run hot, but
> still stable.
>
>
> farmuse wrote:
>
>> well I really don't know if the ram really is bad but memtest
>> flunked the four modules of EDO I had in there, was having issues,
>> could be the 75 MHz fsb, gonna try two 50 ns EDO I have in reserve,
>> that should run better. I am using a medium sized green anodized
>> aluminum heatsink, never seen one like it, screws tighten the tabs,
>> and silicone grease, so the cpu is cool enough. Not a bad idea though,
>> I have several socket A heatsinks ! but they are huge compared to the
>> current one, not sure I could mount one well enough. Anyway, ever
>> onward ... as Jimmy would say
>>
>> Alex Zorrilla wrote:
>>
>>> Ha ha. That's about right. I do remember that Cyrix chips ran
>>> pretty hot. Well, for the time, anyway. These days, they would
>>> probably be considered a low power CPU. At least coolers have gotten
>>> a lot better, so any generic Athlon XP cooler will do a better job
>>> than the fanciest cooler did back then.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> farmuse wrote:
>>>
>>>> thanks Alex, yeah I may just try some EDO at 75, I have some
>>>> Seimens that can run 100 MHz stable, but 4x 8 MB is not enough, so
>>>> maybe I can find some larger sticks of EDO that can run 75. I am all
>>>> out of SDRAM, the in-law has the vast majority of it. I have a boat
>>>> load of EDO and fastpage, maybe a couple of 32 MB modules in there
>>>> somewhere. I maybe try 3.5x 75 if the haetsink can cool it well
>>>> enough, they say these chips are fairly fragile and are easy to
>>>> toast. hey, you wanna see something funny ? check this out
>>>>
>>>> http://www.rabidhardware.net/index.php?id=44
>>>>
>>>> Alex Zorrilla wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The 300-ish rating is actually fairly accurate, as long as you are
>>>>> talking about non-floating point calculations. My old roommate
>>>>> used to have one back in the day. He actually would play games on
>>>>> it, using a Voodoo Banshee 16 MB PCI card. For the time it was
>>>>> acceptable, but this isn't 1998 anymore.
>>>>>
>>>>> By the way, you can try running the CPU at (3.5x66)=233 instead of
>>>>> (3x75)=225 if you want to use that EDO RAM and save the PC100 for
>>>>> something else.
>>>>>
>>>>> --Alex

Alex, thanks for confirming that, these are two older 2 and 4 GB
drives, on the same cable. I may copy the primary to the better drive,
and ditch the smaller primary, then load a better busmaster driver. Back
in the day there were drivers made by highpoint, that could be used with
the 503+. I may hunt them up and try them. Like I said a while back,
this is all experimental and just for fun. I guess I am just trying to
prove that older computers run plenty fast enough for average pc use. I
just think that newer software is too bloated, is mainly multimedia
oriented, and if one doesn't edit video, play newer games, run
statistical programs, then a good P II or K6 2 is plenty. The Cyrix runs
pretty well for business use like Kyle said. The fact that we now have
to run anti-virus software, spyware detection software, and firewalls
unlike we did back in 1998 take up even more resources from the cpu and
computer overall. Why can't they make a smaller version of XP that won't
hog resources ? seems like I read about a version to be released in
Japan that is made for light duty computers. Myself, I have a lot more
respect for someone who uses a somewhat less powerful machine properly
than one who goes to Best Buy and buys the top of the line OEM part just
to send e mail. Oops, sorry for the rant, but that is where this is all
coming from. Yes I do run much more capable machines than these, but
this is a whole lot more fun in some respect. Plus it costs me little to
nothing. Thanks again !



Alex Zorrilla wrote:
> It is indeed possible that the UDMA problems are because of the VIA
> driver. As an example, I have noticed in Windows XP with the VA-503A,
> UDMA devices do not run at their full speeds. For example, a Maxtor
> ATA33 drive (UDMA mode 2) only runs at UDMA mode 0, and the DVD drive
> (UDMA mode 2) runs at only UDMA mode 1. A Maxtor ATA100 drive (UDMA
> mode 5) only runs at UDMA mode 3.
>
> Keep in mind that my VA-503A uses the 686A southbridge, which is capable
> of up to UDMA mode 4 (ATA66). I believe your VA-503+ uses the 596B
> soutbridge (or something like that), which only goes up to ATA33/UDMA2.
>
> I ran into these problems, whether I used the VIA IDE drivers that came
> with WinXP or I downloaded the latest drivers from VIA. Then I came
> across a post in the VIA Arena forums that suggested using the default
> Microsoft IDE driver. I tried that, and BooM! All my drives were
> running at full speed, and I could feel the difference, too.
>
> --Alex