Greetings Tekkies,
Why, oh why, do I keep messing with these old SS7 boards? Could be because they are handed to me. If they get fried, it's not the end of the world. Take this latest one..
The BIOS string reads:
04/16/1999 VP3-586B-W877-2A5LESNCC-00
which I take to mean that it is a Soltek "SL-54U1"
http://www.plasma-online.de/english/...al/mainboar...
QUESTION:
How I can overclock this board without frying the BIOS or new CPU?
More specifically, what is the latest AWARD BIOS flash upgrade for this board mounting an AMD K6-2/533 MHz?
I have been looking for an answer to this question and I cannot find the definitive source for BIOS flash updates for this specific board. For instance, following this link:
http://www1.soltek.com.tw/downloads/bios/54u5-a11b.bin
gave me a dead end.
According this this thread, however, this board has some promise:
>Begin Quoted Comments: -------------------------
From:
LordLore@hotmail.com
THESE BOARDS ARE HOT!!! ..... Now I am running the 54U1, witch is the same board with 1MB cache. Very smooth running board. If you want to know how to OC with AMD, check out, alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd. They don't talk a lot about Soltek boards, but you can get a very good idea of what to do by reading through the posts.
comment> My ISP does not provide Usenet / News </comment
From:
LordLore@hotmail.com .....
Update for earlier posts.... I have upgraded from AMD K6-2 333Mhz to AMD K6- 2 400Mhz. Just a few days after I got the CPU, OC'd to 450Mhz. on my SL-54U1. Have had no problems at all. System is running very stable. Sandra99 shows at par with PII 450Mhz. on CPU benchmark, and pulls ahead of PII 450Mhz. on Multi-Media benchmark. Hoping to get more with future OC's, but if I don't I can't complain for the price I paid. Good luck people. I like my board.
http://adforce.imgis.com/?adiframe|2.0|34|111423|1|1|ADFORCE;
>End Quoted Comments: -------------------------
Thus, I have identified the board and have read at least one reviewer who seems to think it have promise for OC'ing.
Now, on to identifying the BIOS.
FACTS:
Current BIOS = AWARD BIOS v.4.51PG
AWARD PnP ext v1.0A (c) 1999
System = TBA - Win98, possibly RedHat Linux ver. 8.0 or Fedora
[no system loaded yet. Just booting off freshly formatted and partitioned HD w. system disk, e.g. "format C:/s"]
CPU = AMD K6-2/350 MHz, will install 533 MHz CPU
While Soltek doesn't seem to have anything specific on their site about their most recent BIOS release for this board, they DO indicate jumper and voltage settings for 350MHz+ CPUs. see:
http://www.soltek.de/English/home/01.htm
-->search --> "K6-2" -->"54U5"
If I recall reading from Anandtech, Jan Steunebrink and Tom's Hardware, AMD CPU's are very sensitive on core voltages and you don't want to exceed 2.2v, yet Soltek is suggesting 2.3v?
But, before I move one jumper and unplug anything on this board (which seems to be purring at the stock 350MHz) I'd like to find out what the latest BIOS update is, load it, and see if it takes. THEN, I'll drop in the 533 CPU and work on OC'ing from there.
So if any of you know where it is and if there are any issues with said flash updates (some are less stable than others, etc.) please let me know.
Lastly, in case someone else has the same board and is researching the same question, here is another link which they may find to be of use:
virq13aw.exe
This will help anyone with a 'pci.dll' problem that is using a Soltek SL-54U1/ U5 Mother Board running under Windows 98
http://members.driverguide.com/drive...?driverid=7559
Regards,
KJ
Linear Mode
