LPX motherboard booted up

I cleared away the ATX clutter on my workbench today and booted up the
LPX motherboard I found in another clutter. It is an Intel-made board
with an AST BIOS signature and an Intel 430FX chipset. For those who
can't remember, AST was a trailing edge name brand, and they bit the
dust rather early. But they did do LPX systems mostly with Intel boards
along with PB, HP, NEC and IBM. IBM even had a Pentium Pro LPX board.

With the voltage regulator now in the VRM socket and all the right
jumpers, the board is running a 233Mhz Pentium MMX. The BIOS thinks
that the CPU speed is 100MHz, because it evidently identifies the speed
from the motherboard jumpers. The same jumper settings are used for
both really-old 100Mhz Pentium and not-so-old 233Mhz Pentium MMX, as
Intel had to reuse jumper settings for higher clock multipliers and only
two CLKMUL pins on a Socket 7.

Although the VRM supports CPU voltages down to AMD's pretty low 2.2v, I
have my doubts whether a 400MHz AMD K6 will boot at all. Intel BIOSes
are really picky that way, and they only want to work with Intel CPUs.

I can send a photo to anyone interested, like Bob Watts, if you supply
me with an email address. Or I can post it on alt.bin.porn.stars just
to confuse people there.

I'll try an AMD K6 later today. You never know... Ben Myers

Hi!

For those who can't remember, AST was a trailing edge name brand,
and they bit the dust rather early.

They did build some pretty good hardware, and had a pretty good run. Not
five feet from me is an AST RAMpage ISA adapter, loaded down with DIP memory
modules. And somewhere, there is still an AST Pentium tower along with an
AST 486SX. Somewhere.

Interestingly, Beny Alagem (of Packard Bell fame) bought the AST Research
name and (re?)-founded AST Research, LLC in 1999.

Although the VRM supports CPU voltages down to AMD's pretty low
2.2v, I have my doubts whether a 400MHz AMD K6 will boot at all.

I found an HP Vectra VL P5 desktop that could also provide the voltages
after I inserted the right VRM into the socket in the board. With the latest
BIOS, it managed to POST and really did try to boot up. Windows 98 would
never boot, and the VRM got really, really hot.

I can send a photo to anyone interested, like Bob Watts

wct atsign walshcomptech dot com

I'll try an AMD K6 later today. You never know... Ben Myers

Be interesting to see what happens.

William

Hi Ben !

( you have my email )

I would tend to doubt that an Intel FX chipset board would recognize an AMD
chip, but stranger things happen. Interesting that it supports down to 2.2V
also.

I sure remember AST. Saw Gazzilions of 'em.

bobwatts
EartH



"Ben Myers" wrote in message
...
I cleared away the ATX clutter on my workbench today and booted up the LPX
motherboard I found in another clutter. It is an Intel-made board with an
AST BIOS signature and an Intel 430FX chipset. For those who can't
remember, AST was a trailing edge name brand, and they bit the dust rather
early. But they did do LPX systems mostly with Intel boards along with PB,
HP, NEC and IBM. IBM even had a Pentium Pro LPX board.

With the voltage regulator now in the VRM socket and all the right
jumpers, the board is running a 233Mhz Pentium MMX. The BIOS thinks that
the CPU speed is 100MHz, because it evidently identifies the speed from
the motherboard jumpers. The same jumper settings are used for both
really-old 100Mhz Pentium and not-so-old 233Mhz Pentium MMX, as Intel had
to reuse jumper settings for higher clock multipliers and only two CLKMUL
pins on a Socket 7.

Although the VRM supports CPU voltages down to AMD's pretty low 2.2v, I
have my doubts whether a 400MHz AMD K6 will boot at all. Intel BIOSes are
really picky that way, and they only want to work with Intel CPUs.

I can send a photo to anyone interested, like Bob Watts, if you supply me
with an email address. Or I can post it on alt.bin.porn.stars just to
confuse people there.

I'll try an AMD K6 later today. You never know... Ben Myers

Predictably, the board stopped with a post code of D4, when the AMD K6-2
/400 was installed. Only way to work around this would be to install a
hacked BIOS, well beyond any effort I want to put in.

Photo on the way to you, Bob.

Happy holidays to all 6 of us who use this newsgroup... Ben Myers

Robert E. Watts wrote:
Hi Ben !

( you have my email )

I would tend to doubt that an Intel FX chipset board would recognize an AMD
chip, but stranger things happen. Interesting that it supports down to 2.2V
also.

I sure remember AST. Saw Gazzilions of 'em.

bobwatts
EartH



"Ben Myers" wrote in message
...
I cleared away the ATX clutter on my workbench today and booted up the LPX
motherboard I found in another clutter. It is an Intel-made board with an
AST BIOS signature and an Intel 430FX chipset. For those who can't
remember, AST was a trailing edge name brand, and they bit the dust rather
early. But they did do LPX systems mostly with Intel boards along with PB,
HP, NEC and IBM. IBM even had a Pentium Pro LPX board.

With the voltage regulator now in the VRM socket and all the right
jumpers, the board is running a 233Mhz Pentium MMX. The BIOS thinks that
the CPU speed is 100MHz, because it evidently identifies the speed from
the motherboard jumpers. The same jumper settings are used for both
really-old 100Mhz Pentium and not-so-old 233Mhz Pentium MMX, as Intel had
to reuse jumper settings for higher clock multipliers and only two CLKMUL
pins on a Socket 7.

Although the VRM supports CPU voltages down to AMD's pretty low 2.2v, I
have my doubts whether a 400MHz AMD K6 will boot at all. Intel BIOSes are
really picky that way, and they only want to work with Intel CPUs.

I can send a photo to anyone interested, like Bob Watts, if you supply me
with an email address. Or I can post it on alt.bin.porn.stars just to
confuse people there.

I'll try an AMD K6 later today. You never know... Ben Myers