Will a Coppermine work in a Katmai board w/o bios upgrade for Coppermi

[diogenes10]

GA-6BXC board

PCB level 2

It has the right voltage chip for coppermine readiness.
A review (Can't remember if Tom's Hardware or elsewhere) indicated voltage settings on this board are automatic.
There are no voltage jumpers on the board.

Current processor is Pentium II

Bios level 2.8.
This is past Katmai upgrade but before Coppermine upgrade.

Early in my study process, because of what I thought was a reasonable price, I bought a 600E (1.65 volt) 100fsb processor and then continued doing reading and eBay searches on higher speed stuff.

This morning I started seeing a lot of threads on failed bios flashes on Gigabyte boards which is reducing my enthusiasm for flashing the bios until I have actually purchased a higher speed processor. (I have never done a bios flash before.)

Studying the processor tables at geeks.com I see
Preceding processors at 2.00 volts.
600\100fsb at 2.05 volts.
600E\100fsb at 1.65 volts. (This is what I bought.)

Trying to read about chip differences, I see comments about instruction set changes going from PII to Katmai. From Katmai to Coppermine, the changes seem to be packaging and the L2 cache and voltage.

So I am wondering, with apparently automatic voltage recognition and Katmai instructions in the bios, can I pull the Pii processor, set the mobo for 100 fsb, and put in the 600E and expect the system to run it ok?

 

[BadBigBen]

As I had mentioned in another Thread...

The Cellie (733 mhz) I used in that Board was a COPPERMINE, albeit with an adapter card... on that card you can set the Voltage and FSB...

btw. if I remember there aren't any Coppermine in SLOT 1 packages... someone correct me if I am wrong...


Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[diogenes10]

re: Slot 1 coppermine. I am a complete novice here, I am following terminology I have found in assorted tables at geek.com. PIII table here:

http://www.geek.com/procspec/intel/pentium3consumer.htm

Re: your upgrade:

Yes but was that with or without upgrade to bios level 3?

That is my question - can I plug this one in at bios 2.8 which is before their coppermine revision and have it run - the objective being to avoid the risk of bios upgrade at this time.

 

[diogenes10]

And also, I dont understand about those cards.

Does your comment above tell me that I can put a 370 on an adaptor card and plug it into a 2 volt Pii mobo and throttle the voltage to the processor down to 1.65 or 1.7 just with adaptor card settings? If so, that might actually be a more controlled and safer upgrade path than a slot one processor when going beyond the manual's specifications.

 

[diogenes10]

For others reading this thread, after rereading, I also see I forgot to mention slot 1. The board and processors referenced in my initial post are slot 1.

 

[BadBigBen]

Ok, I kinda stand corrected about the SLOT 1 thing...

read the website below, it gives a nice info on the Coppermine Core PIII...

http://studio-on-the.net/coppermine.html

I actually do not remember, if I upgraded the BIOS or not, I got the board from a friend with a busted PII, since I had that MSI6905 card, and a Cellie laying around, I decided to do some experimenting (if it would have gone kabloie, it would not have been a great loss)...

On boot it recognized the Processor correctly and functioned without any problems... so I put a system together and sold the darn thing for 100€...

PS: Upgrading the BIOS is not as difficult or dangerous as it may be out to be... but I would try the Coppermine first, and see if it gets recognized...



Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[garebo]

Agree with BadBigBen on the bios upgrade. If you follow the instructions its actually very simple.
You can get all the help you need here as well.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[diogenes10]

I put the 600E in, it did not work. I returned it and I think I am getting my money back.

I bought a 2 volt 600 mhz processor and plugged it in, it works fine. Unfortunately the heatsink is too big to clear the power supply so I have to do another case or yet another processor.

At any rate I know what works and what doesn't with the bios as it stands right now.