So, this newsgroup finally died

Nothing but spam.

Ah well, I just found out something interesting about my trusty old FIC
VA503+.
I don't know if it'll be news to anyone else but out of the box the
motherboard
was never reliable at ANY speed over 100Mhz (when memory speed is synched
w/FSB). Anyway, I put my NF7s v2.0 active northbridge cooler on the 597 N.
bridge and now I can install two 256MB DIMMs at 124Mhz.

I was hoping to use this old motherboard to play DVD's and as a file server
(I've installed a Promise ultra tx100 PCI card in it). Even w/a Geforce
2/GTS
overclocked and a K62-550 it's not enough to playback DVD's smoothly though.
I'm going to try and use Kyle Brant's K6speed and see if that makes any
difference (thanks Kyle), but I kinda doubt it.

I've got a DFI K6bv3+ rev. A1 board for sale if anyone's interested. It
supports
three DIMM's (up to 768MB), has 2048KB L2 cache and UDMA 66. It doesn't
seem to support any FSB over 100Mhz though :^(. There also doesn't seem to
be
anyway to enable writeback cache mode for the L2. I've got a K6-200 to go
with it, 384MB of PC100 SDRAM and a USB 2.0 card. If anyone's interested
just email me at andxornot <AT> gmail <DOT> com.

On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 09:39:29 -0700, Stampir wrote:

> Nothing but spam.
>
> Ah well, I just found out something interesting about my trusty old FIC
> VA503+.
> I don't know if it'll be news to anyone else but out of the box the
> motherboard
> was never reliable at ANY speed over 100Mhz (when memory speed is
> synched w/FSB). Anyway, I put my NF7s v2.0 active northbridge cooler on
> the 597 N. bridge and now I can install two 256MB DIMMs at 124Mhz.
>
> I was hoping to use this old motherboard to play DVD's and as a file
> server (I've installed a Promise ultra tx100 PCI card in it). Even w/a
> Geforce 2/GTS
> overclocked and a K62-550 it's not enough to playback DVD's smoothly
> though. I'm going to try and use Kyle Brant's K6speed and see if that
> makes any difference (thanks Kyle), but I kinda doubt it.
>
> I've got a DFI K6bv3+ rev. A1 board for sale if anyone's interested. It
> supports
> three DIMM's (up to 768MB), has 2048KB L2 cache and UDMA 66. It doesn't
> seem to support any FSB over 100Mhz though :^(. There also doesn't seem
> to be
> anyway to enable writeback cache mode for the L2. I've got a K6-200 to
> go with it, 384MB of PC100 SDRAM and a USB 2.0 card. If anyone's
> interested just email me at andxornot <AT> gmail <DOT> com.

I still check this newsgroup occasionally. I originally built an AT 503+
for my wife when she was in school. For the last couple of years it has
been running 24/7 as a linux firewall. When I stuffed it full of network
cards I also installed the je433apm bios and it has been incredibly
stable ever since.

I rebuilt a box for a friend of mine and got a bunch of decent hardware
in return. An xp2500 cpu, a gig of ram, etc. I just can't bring myself to
replace the 503. It's perfect for what it's doing.

"Stampir" <> wrote in message
news:VDaFj.65987$. net...
| Nothing but spam.
|
| Ah well, I just found out something interesting about my trusty old
FIC
| VA503+.
| I don't know if it'll be news to anyone else but out of the box the
| motherboard
| was never reliable at ANY speed over 100Mhz (when memory speed is
synched
| w/FSB). Anyway, I put my NF7s v2.0 active northbridge cooler on the
597 N.
| bridge and now I can install two 256MB DIMMs at 124Mhz.
|
| I was hoping to use this old motherboard to play DVD's and as a file
server
| (I've installed a Promise ultra tx100 PCI card in it). Even w/a
Geforce
| 2/GTS
| overclocked and a K62-550 it's not enough to playback DVD's smoothly
though.
| I'm going to try and use Kyle Brant's K6speed and see if that makes
any
| difference (thanks Kyle), but I kinda doubt it.
|
| I've got a DFI K6bv3+ rev. A1 board for sale if anyone's interested.
It
| supports
| three DIMM's (up to 768MB), has 2048KB L2 cache and UDMA 66. It
doesn't
| seem to support any FSB over 100Mhz though :^(. There also doesn't
seem to
| be
| anyway to enable writeback cache mode for the L2. I've got a K6-200
to go
| with it, 384MB of PC100 SDRAM and a USB 2.0 card. If anyone's
interested
| just email me at andxornot <AT> gmail <DOT> com.
|
|

Interesting comment on the heatsink and improved FSB speeds.

DVD playback MIGHT work with a "+" type cpu, but I suspect there is
insufficient memory bandwidth for DVD playback with a k62-550 and it's
smaller onboard cache. Further, are you running the FSB and memory
both at 124 MHz? 124 MHz may be too fast for a "+" type CPU, tho some
claimed success at 112 MHz.

Heh, my 503+ and my Soyo 5EHM systems (both k63+ 550 MHz systems) have
been sitting idle for some time now, but I still use two Vigor branded
mobos (both SS7 systems), one as a file server and one as a firewall
box. I'm just too lazy to redo systems that work reliably to gain 5
MHz on the FSB (the Vigor systems don't like 100 MHz FSB, the board
must have been a bad layout design, 3 dimm sockets, had to mod board
to add jumper for sync'ed FSB as jumper was not originally on board).
Oddly, one of the Vigor systems has a k62+ that runs great at 6x95Mhz,
but that same CPU will not even boot up at 100 MHz FSB in any system,
no matter what multiplier I use. I darn near tossed that CPU as I
thought it was dead, then tried 95 MHz just for grins, and it's worked
for years at that speed. Sometimes I have to wiggle a memory stick in
one of them after a power cycle to get the machine to boot, but once
it boots, it runs solid.

I also have a spare 503+ that I could part with if anyone needs it,
make me an offer.
--
Best regards,
Kyle

Hey, Stampir.

Wow, I thought the same thing about this newsgroup. That, and most tech
support stuff tends to take place on forums now, instead of newsgroups.

Anyway, the Geforce 2 GTS is killing you on the DVD playback, because it
offers next to nothing in the way of hardware DVD acceleration. You are
making the CPU do almost all the work. NVIDIA did not offer decent DVD
acceleration until the Geforce 4 MX series (but not the Geforce 4 Ti).
I can vouch from personal experience that the lowly Geforce 4 MX 420
64MB AGP card works great in the VA-503A with a K6-III 350. DVD
playback using PowerDVD is very nice and smooth.

You can probably pick up an MX420 or MX440SE for cheap on Ebay.

--Alex


Stampir wrote:
> Nothing but spam.
>
> Ah well, I just found out something interesting about my trusty old FIC
> VA503+.
> I don't know if it'll be news to anyone else but out of the box the
> motherboard
> was never reliable at ANY speed over 100Mhz (when memory speed is synched
> w/FSB). Anyway, I put my NF7s v2.0 active northbridge cooler on the 597 N.
> bridge and now I can install two 256MB DIMMs at 124Mhz.
>
> I was hoping to use this old motherboard to play DVD's and as a file server
> (I've installed a Promise ultra tx100 PCI card in it). Even w/a Geforce
> 2/GTS
> overclocked and a K62-550 it's not enough to playback DVD's smoothly though.
> I'm going to try and use Kyle Brant's K6speed and see if that makes any
> difference (thanks Kyle), but I kinda doubt it.
>
> I've got a DFI K6bv3+ rev. A1 board for sale if anyone's interested. It
> supports
> three DIMM's (up to 768MB), has 2048KB L2 cache and UDMA 66. It doesn't
> seem to support any FSB over 100Mhz though :^(. There also doesn't seem to
> be
> anyway to enable writeback cache mode for the L2. I've got a K6-200 to go
> with it, 384MB of PC100 SDRAM and a USB 2.0 card. If anyone's interested
> just email me at andxornot <AT> gmail <DOT> com.
>
>

Thanks Alex. Yeah, PowerDVD cannot be described as smooth
w/the GeForce 2/GTS.

Would it be possible to use an X850xt AGP in a VA503+? I have
one of those and I don't really want to waste any more money on this
project.

"Alex Zorrilla" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Hey, Stampir.
>
> Wow, I thought the same thing about this newsgroup. That, and most tech
> support stuff tends to take place on forums now, instead of newsgroups.
>
> Anyway, the Geforce 2 GTS is killing you on the DVD playback, because it
> offers next to nothing in the way of hardware DVD acceleration. You are
> making the CPU do almost all the work. NVIDIA did not offer decent DVD
> acceleration until the Geforce 4 MX series (but not the Geforce 4 Ti). I
> can vouch from personal experience that the lowly Geforce 4 MX 420 64MB
> AGP card works great in the VA-503A with a K6-III 350. DVD playback using
> PowerDVD is very nice and smooth.
>
> You can probably pick up an MX420 or MX440SE for cheap on Ebay.
>
> --Alex
>
>
> Stampir wrote:
>> Nothing but spam.
>>
>> Ah well, I just found out something interesting about my trusty old FIC
>> VA503+.
>> I don't know if it'll be news to anyone else but out of the box the
>> motherboard
>> was never reliable at ANY speed over 100Mhz (when memory speed is synched
>> w/FSB). Anyway, I put my NF7s v2.0 active northbridge cooler on the 597
>> N.
>> bridge and now I can install two 256MB DIMMs at 124Mhz.
>>
>> I was hoping to use this old motherboard to play DVD's and as a file
>> server
>> (I've installed a Promise ultra tx100 PCI card in it). Even w/a Geforce
>> 2/GTS
>> overclocked and a K62-550 it's not enough to playback DVD's smoothly
>> though.
>> I'm going to try and use Kyle Brant's K6speed and see if that makes any
>> difference (thanks Kyle), but I kinda doubt it.
>>
>> I've got a DFI K6bv3+ rev. A1 board for sale if anyone's interested. It
>> supports
>> three DIMM's (up to 768MB), has 2048KB L2 cache and UDMA 66. It doesn't
>> seem to support any FSB over 100Mhz though :^(. There also doesn't seem
>> to be
>> anyway to enable writeback cache mode for the L2. I've got a K6-200 to go
>> with it, 384MB of PC100 SDRAM and a USB 2.0 card. If anyone's interested
>> just email me at andxornot <AT> gmail <DOT> com.

"Kyle" <> wrote in message
news. ..
>
> Interesting comment on the heatsink and improved FSB speeds.
>

I managed to get one stick of PC133 down to 2-2-2-5 timings w/complete
reliability (in memtest and Sisoft Sandra's burn-in test at least)

> DVD playback MIGHT work with a "+" type cpu, but I suspect there is
> insufficient memory bandwidth for DVD playback with a k62-550 and it's
> smaller onboard cache. Further, are you running the FSB and memory
> both at 124 MHz? 124 MHz may be too fast for a "+" type CPU, tho some
> claimed success at 112 MHz.
>

124Mhz synched. FSB = memory bus speed. I wish I had know about
this 7 years ago.

> Heh, my 503+ and my Soyo 5EHM systems (both k63+ 550 MHz systems) have
> been sitting idle for some time now, but I still use two Vigor branded
> mobos (both SS7 systems), one as a file server and one as a firewall
> box. I'm just too lazy to redo systems that work reliably to gain 5
> MHz on the FSB (the Vigor systems don't like 100 MHz FSB, the board
> must have been a bad layout design, 3 dimm sockets, had to mod board
> to add jumper for sync'ed FSB as jumper was not originally on board).
> Oddly, one of the Vigor systems has a k62+ that runs great at 6x95Mhz,
> but that same CPU will not even boot up at 100 MHz FSB in any system,
> no matter what multiplier I use. I darn near tossed that CPU as I
> thought it was dead, then tried 95 MHz just for grins, and it's worked
> for years at that speed. Sometimes I have to wiggle a memory stick in
> one of them after a power cycle to get the machine to boot, but once
> it boots, it runs solid.
>
> I also have a spare 503+ that I could part with if anyone needs it,
> make me an offer.
> --
> Best regards,
> Kyle
>

Thanks for K6speed Kyle, but it didn't seem to make any difference in
my DVD playback stuttering problems. The memory benchmarks in
Sisoft Sandra indicate 191MB/s which is pretty good for an MVP3 board.

Stampir wrote:
> Nothing but spam.
>
> Ah well, I just found out something interesting about my trusty old FIC
> VA503+.
> I don't know if it'll be news to anyone else but out of the box the
> motherboard
> was never reliable at ANY speed over 100Mhz (when memory speed is synched
> w/FSB). Anyway, I put my NF7s v2.0 active northbridge cooler on the 597 N.
> bridge and now I can install two 256MB DIMMs at 124Mhz.
>
> I was hoping to use this old motherboard to play DVD's and as a file server
> (I've installed a Promise ultra tx100 PCI card in it). Even w/a Geforce
> 2/GTS
> overclocked and a K62-550 it's not enough to playback DVD's smoothly though.
> I'm going to try and use Kyle Brant's K6speed and see if that makes any
> difference (thanks Kyle), but I kinda doubt it.
>
> I've got a DFI K6bv3+ rev. A1 board for sale if anyone's interested. It
> supports
> three DIMM's (up to 768MB), has 2048KB L2 cache and UDMA 66. It doesn't
> seem to support any FSB over 100Mhz though :^(. There also doesn't seem to
> be
> anyway to enable writeback cache mode for the L2. I've got a K6-200 to go
> with it, 384MB of PC100 SDRAM and a USB 2.0 card. If anyone's interested
> just email me at andxornot <AT> gmail <DOT> com.
>
>

It's not dead, it's just resting.
>
I just retired my 503+ w K6-2 300 @ 3x112 after getting tired of
watching it struggling with SETI@home with an average daily credit of
about 15, for reference my modern version of fast and cheap a 3.24Ghz
Q6600 gets around 4000.

Now I'm going to have to drag it out of the archives and try the new
demon mods.

I'd better go and find my jumper tweezers at the same time. :-)


Marcus

Hey, Stampir.

Unfortunately, a Radeon X850XT AGP card will not work, as that is an AGP
3.0 card (1.5V/0.8V, 4x/8x speeds), and the FIC VA-503+ is an AGP 1.0
motherboard (3.3V only, 1x/2x speeds). In fact, you could not even
insert the X850XT into the VA-503+ even if you wanted to, since the AGP
slots have keys in different locations (because of the voltage differences).

If you happen to have any other ATI cards laying about your house, I
think any Radeon card will probably do as long as it fits (Radeon 9100
and below, I believe). In fact, I think ATI also had decent DVD
hardware support as far as the ATI Rage 128, if you happen to find one
of those laying about.

Basically, anything with "iDCT" support in this table:
http://www.cyberlink.com/english/pro..._comp_list.jsp

--Alex



Stampir wrote:
> Thanks Alex. Yeah, PowerDVD cannot be described as smooth
> w/the GeForce 2/GTS.
>
> Would it be possible to use an X850xt AGP in a VA503+? I have
> one of those and I don't really want to waste any more money on this
> project.
>
> "Alex Zorrilla" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> Hey, Stampir.
>>
>> Wow, I thought the same thing about this newsgroup. That, and most tech
>> support stuff tends to take place on forums now, instead of newsgroups.
>>
>> Anyway, the Geforce 2 GTS is killing you on the DVD playback, because it
>> offers next to nothing in the way of hardware DVD acceleration. You are
>> making the CPU do almost all the work. NVIDIA did not offer decent DVD
>> acceleration until the Geforce 4 MX series (but not the Geforce 4 Ti). I
>> can vouch from personal experience that the lowly Geforce 4 MX 420 64MB
>> AGP card works great in the VA-503A with a K6-III 350. DVD playback using
>> PowerDVD is very nice and smooth.
>>
>> You can probably pick up an MX420 or MX440SE for cheap on Ebay.
>>
>> --Alex
>>
>>
>> Stampir wrote:
>>> Nothing but spam.
>>>
>>> Ah well, I just found out something interesting about my trusty old FIC
>>> VA503+.
>>> I don't know if it'll be news to anyone else but out of the box the
>>> motherboard
>>> was never reliable at ANY speed over 100Mhz (when memory speed is synched
>>> w/FSB). Anyway, I put my NF7s v2.0 active northbridge cooler on the 597
>>> N.
>>> bridge and now I can install two 256MB DIMMs at 124Mhz.
>>>
>>> I was hoping to use this old motherboard to play DVD's and as a file
>>> server
>>> (I've installed a Promise ultra tx100 PCI card in it). Even w/a Geforce
>>> 2/GTS
>>> overclocked and a K62-550 it's not enough to playback DVD's smoothly
>>> though.
>>> I'm going to try and use Kyle Brant's K6speed and see if that makes any
>>> difference (thanks Kyle), but I kinda doubt it.
>>>
>>> I've got a DFI K6bv3+ rev. A1 board for sale if anyone's interested. It
>>> supports
>>> three DIMM's (up to 768MB), has 2048KB L2 cache and UDMA 66. It doesn't
>>> seem to support any FSB over 100Mhz though :^(. There also doesn't seem
>>> to be
>>> anyway to enable writeback cache mode for the L2. I've got a K6-200 to go
>>> with it, 384MB of PC100 SDRAM and a USB 2.0 card. If anyone's interested
>>> just email me at andxornot <AT> gmail <DOT> com.
>
>

"Alex Zorrilla" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Hey, Stampir.
>
> Unfortunately, a Radeon X850XT AGP card will not work, as that is an AGP
> 3.0 card (1.5V/0.8V, 4x/8x speeds), and the FIC VA-503+ is an AGP 1.0
> motherboard (3.3V only, 1x/2x speeds). In fact, you could not even insert
> the X850XT into the VA-503+ even if you wanted to, since the AGP slots
> have keys in different locations (because of the voltage differences).
>
> If you happen to have any other ATI cards laying about your house, I think
> any Radeon card will probably do as long as it fits (Radeon 9100 and
> below, I believe). In fact, I think ATI also had decent DVD hardware
> support as far as the ATI Rage 128, if you happen to find one of those
> laying about.
>
> Basically, anything with "iDCT" support in this table:
> http://www.cyberlink.com/english/pro..._comp_list.jsp
>

Interesting, the documents I've read suggest that all the S3 Savage
vid-cards had
iDCT and motion compensation, obviously POwerDVD 4.0 is using it because
it's so
much smoother than my GeForce 2/GTS (which only has motion compensation).
This
despite the fact my S3 Savage4 is only running at 162Mhz core, 180Mhz memory
and
the memory is regular SDRAM, while my GeForce 2/GTS was running at 225Mhz
core/180Mhz
memory (360Mhz DDR). BOth cards have 32MB of local video memory.

Of course my motherboard chipset (MVP3) isn't indicated as supported either.


> --Alex
>

Thanks ALex. Strangely enough, I had an ancient S3 Savage4 Pro AGP card
laying around and gave it a try. Even though the card was a dog for gaming
it
works MUCH better for DVD video playback. The difference is amazing, even
in PowerDVD. Unfortunately, even w/this card I still get the occasional
stutter.

I've had to add so many fans to this system that it's now as loud as my
gaming
rig, I think it's time to give up on this project.

What I wonder, and maybe Kyle B. or you can answer this question, is WHY
the memory bandwidth is so unbeleivably bad on my VA503+. I'm running
a single stick of 256MB of SDRAM at 124Mhz and the lowest latencies and
I only get 192MB/sec. PC66 is supposed to get something like 528MB/s
and I can't even get HALF that!