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Gibby · Guest

"NEW AMD CPU K6-III+ K6-3+ @ 550MHz 500ANZ 1.8v '02 RARE" - This item
is being offered on Ebay for Socket 7 MB's. Can the above CPU be used
with the later versions of the FIC PA-2013 motherboards? Note this is
higher speed that the AMD K6-III/450MHz CPU, which is more common. I
don't know whether the PA-2013 allows speeds greater than 450MHz. I
don't overclock my CPU's. Answers greatly appreciated.
Gibby

Alex Zorrilla · Guest

I believe it can, but I am not 100% sure. I cannot find the old FAQ's
they used to have up on FIC's Taiwan site. I know for a fact that the
VA-503+ and VA-503A can.

The key is that you need a special BIOS update to support the K6-2+ and
K6-3+ CPUs. These BIOS updates are "beta" BIOSes in that they are not
officially supported by FIC, but they do work. They do not appear on
the website, but they do appear in FIC's FTP site. They used to be
referenced in the FAQs that I cannot find anymore.

Try this link and get the most recent BIOS, which appears to be JI4333:
ftp://ftp.fic.com.tw/motherboard/bios/socket7/pa-2013/

By the way, some of the other fixes they had in the "beta" BIOSes
include support for larger hard drives (up to 65 GB or 137 GB, I forget
which), compatability fixes for some versions of Windows, and that sort
of thing. I am using the last beta BIOS for the VA-503A, and it works
just fine.

I do not know if the motherboard goes down all the way to 1.8V, but I am
pretty sure it goes down to 2.0V. If you do have to run at 2.0V, that
is not too big of a deal. Just make sure you have a decent heatsink. I
know that the VA-503A has dip switches that will let you run at 2.0V.
The VA-503+ has an undocumented jumper setting for 2.0V that I figured
out with a voltmeter (there turned out to be a simple pattern for
voltages 2.0V to 3.5V). If you cannot find a 2.0V setting, I could
probably figure it out for you.

I believe a "500ANZ" is actually speced to run at 500 MHz (5*100),
though the seller seems to have verified that it can run at 550
(5.5*100). It probably can, but that is just something I wanted to
point out, since you said you do not overclock.

Hope this helps.

--Alex

Gibby wrote:

Robert Akins · Guest

I would say, if you flashed the board to a BIOS version (JI4333) that
supported K6-III+ CPUs, you should have no problem. The 1.8V VCore and 5.5X
multiplier are natively supported by the 2013 so that should not be an
issue. Since the III+ CPUs are laptop processors, they are low power
consumption anyway so current won't be an issue. It would be easier to
first install a K6-2 400 or something similar, do the BIOS update, then swap
in the K6-III+, making sure to change all the appropriate jumper settings.
Sorry it took so long to reply.
Robert
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