Refurbishing my trusty old BP6'er, BIOS help plz...

[BasilBadger]

Hiyas to everyone,

I would like some comments on setting up my BP6, once again, in a new guise.
The world seems to conspire to keep a BP6 on my desktop, would you believe?
So,,,, i give in. But not without tinkering now the cover is of.

The story (scroll down if bored):
The trusty old Mk.I BP6'er had gotten a bit quirky lately, so i had myself a shopping spree on Ebay. Got a nice computer out of that, indeed. Unfortunately the computer geek in residence (Wifey) eyed the freshly assembled wonder and claimed it. Her own PC not being able to edit flashgames on one monitor and show Star Trek DivX's on the other, without jitter....
In turn, the twins (5 years) claimed her PC, because "it has many games"!

So what does a poor man do: He makes do! Fresh install on an an empty harddisk and start diagnosing the BP6'er.
Result: It was indeed the hardware. Lockups on heavy disc usage and on heavy processor load. Install a Mobo Monitor and get a *YIKES* experience: Idle processor temps at 54C(129F) and 56C(132F) respectively, a wonder it still ran at all.
Time to take it all apart. Result: Two obviously leaking caps and a few more suspects. It must have been warm in there.
Fortunately i was long overdue with a visit to my old job at EWG-electronics. Result: Nice to see you, how have you been doing, sure there's an empty work table right overthere.... YaY!!
To keep it short; remove all electrolytes, a trip through the circuit board washer, a heavy spray of flux, a trip through the IR tunnel, reinstall fresh new electrolytes, finally a wash and the board looks new again. Including plenty of coffee, shoptalk, BBQ invites and so forth, it took me about 5 hours.

Back home i installed the BP6'er in original configuration, allthough with much better CPU heatsinks; result:

Much better! Suffice to say that the board is now running stable. Except that difference in core voltage is "interesting, to say the least. I'll look into that when i have posted this.

SO:
For now i have, no money, but: A nice set of fv524rx466 processors (SF3FL). To go with those and the rest of the old hardware i was also given a new 350W mil-spec powersupply.

Now i need advice on setting up the BIOS.

All the best,
Basil

PS: Here is a system info from: http://www.powerleap.com/
Model : Abit BP6 <-- Well whaddaya know
Operating System : Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Processor
Number Of Processors : 2
Type : Intel Celeron 300 MHz
Package : Socket 370 PPGA
Manufacturer Codename : Mendocino
Clock Speed : 451 MHz
Clock Multiplier : 4.5
Front Side Bus (FSB) Speed : 67 MHz
L2 Cache Size : 128 KBytes Stepping : mB0
Trace Width : 0.25
Microcode : 3h
Instruction Sets : MMX
Motherboard
Manufacturer : ABIT
Model : i440BX-W83977 (BP6) Rev. v1.0 ~
CPU Slot/Socket Type : Socket 370 PPGA
Chipset Vendor : Intel i440BX/ZX Rev. C1
Bios Manufacturer : Award Software International, Inc.
Bios Version : 4.51 PG
Graphics
Brand : LeadTek
Model : nVidia AGP Riva TNT2 M64
AGP Speed : 2x
Monitor : StudioWorks 995E
GPU Core: NV5M64
GPU Speed : 125 MHz
Storage
Hard Drive 1 : Maxtor 4 D080H4
Size : 78.17 GB
Buffer : 2048 KB
Hard Drive 2 : Maxtor 6 B160P0
Size : 131.07 GB
Optical Drive 1 : ASUS CRW-5232AS
Type : CD-RW drive
Optical Drive 2 : ASUS DRW-1608P3S
Type : DVD-RW drive
Current CD Read Speed : 62X ( Max 62X )
Current CD Write Speed : 94X ( Max 7X )
Memory
Total RAM Installed : 768MB
Type : SDRAM Not Available PC133
Used RAM Slots: 3 of 3
Memory Bus Frequency: 100 MHz
Memory Timings: 3.0-3-3
Slot 1: Micron Technology 256MB PC133 SDRAM 16LSDT3264AG-133B1
Slot 2: Micron Technology 256MB PC133 SDRAM 16LSDT3264AG-133B1
Slot 3: Micron Technology 256MB PC133 SDRAM 16LSDT3264AG-133B1
Accessories
USB Version : 2.0

[Dave Rave]

the voltage is
the core and the VTT 1.50 volt rail
leave it

[BasilBadger]

Thanks Dave,
I had misunderstood that

All the best,
Basil

[InactiveX]

You wouldn't be the first to get VTT and Core mixed up!

Well done for bringing the BP6 back to life.

[InactiveX]

One more thing - are you planning on overclocking the BP6?

Those Celeron 300s you have in there are great for overclocking! There's every chance you could get 450MHz out of them, possibly a bit more.

Have a look at long-time member hyperspace's overclocking FAQ here.

And let us know how you get on!

Edit: Looks from your attached image that you've hit 450MHz already.

[BasilBadger]

Sorry, double post.

All the best,
Basil

[BasilBadger]

Hello again everyone,

Yes, it hit 450 the day i got it, Pedal to the metal
That was in juli 2002 and it has been running like that since, more out of laziness than anything else.

This morning i moved the gizzards to an old server cabinet i salvaged. That went well except the power supply died sometime during the procedure. Now there is much better room for fiddling, without having to take anything apart to get to the motherboard.
First i think i'll see how high i can get the FSB to go, while keeping the processors at about 450 MHz.

Other things on the to-do list is trying out memory timings and perhaps see how fast a SATA disc is compared to the ones i have now.

All the best,
Basil

[Dave Rave]

you can't see how high an FSB you can do
AND
keep it at 450mhz

if the FSB goes up, the mhz goes up too .....
you don't get to play with the multipliers

[InactiveX]

Dave, he said about 450MHz.

[BasilBadger]

Hi again,
I had discovered that the multipliers are locked.
In the same post i should have mentioned that i have gotten hold of 350s 366s 400s 433s 466s and just today 533s. That should cover the available multiplier options.
Nice to have friends who are pack rats like myself

The project halted when the PSU packed in, but another one, from a friend, is in the mail and should be here in a few days.
Then the testing will commence.

In the mean time an Iwill DVD 266-R is doing the desktop work for me. Although it is in dire need of drivers and better cooling.

All the best,
Basil