AMD K6-2 550

[jake]

Just wondering if someone could help me. I recently bought an AMD k6-2 550 to replace my existing 450. I figured for $32, it was a cheap way to upgrade a little. Unfortunately, when I removed my 450 and put in the 550, I started up the computer and ran wintune diagnostic program and it still says that I am running a 450. Addtionally, there was no performance increase what so ever. Did I get sold a processor that says 550, but is actually a 450. I just got the processor three days ago and I have twelve days to return it if I'm not happy. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[Kelledin]

I believe you have to set a CPU multiplier on the K6-x line of processors in order to set their speed. It's usually set by a jumper on the mobo.

You may need to adjust CPU core voltage as well.

Kelledin
<A HREF="http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/" target="_new">LFS</A>: "You don't eat or sleep or mow the lawn; you just hack your distro all day long."

 

[Schmide]

If you really want to keep your existing computer, return it and get a K6-III 400 or 450. With a decent heat sink you should be able to get it to 500+. The K6-III has 384k of cache memory and should run circles around any K6-II processor, which I think has 64-128k of cache memory. The K6-III shares some of the cache architecture of its older brother the Athlon processor.

 

[Crashman]

You need to change your multiplier, which IS a jumper on your motherboard unless you have one of the extrememly rare motherboard that are adjustable in BIOS. Change it to 5.5.
Oh, but that's not all, most 550's were 2.3v or 2.4v I believe, while most 450's were 2.2v, so you might need to change the VOLTAGE to make it stable. Time to get out the motherboard manual!
And you might even need a better CPU cooler when you finally get it done!

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[pike]

You could also go for a K6-2 500+, if you indeed return the aformentioned 550 cpu. The + on the 500 means it has 128kb of L2 cache insted of 64 or 32 for the regular K6-2. Both the K6-2+ and the K6-3 and unfortunatly very rare. Also i have read, in Tom's guides, that the 500 can easily be overclocked to 600.

 

[girish]

yes, you need to change the multiplier ofthe processor on the board. socket7 board do not autodetect speed. The board is using the old settings for the new processor.

Check the board manual, if you dont have it the chart is usually silk-screened on the motherboard. Change the multiplier to 5.5x, In fact you can do a bit of overclocking by setting the multiplier to 2x which will be 6x giving you a K6-II 600 MHz processor. You will also need to increase the core voltage, again, follow the charts on the board.

Watch the temperature, if its too high (above 55~60°C) then either switch the multiplier back to 5.5x or get a better cooling fan. It wont be a problem most of the time but the system migt have lockups and crashes for continuous extended runs.

girish

<font color=red>No system is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

 

[girish]

Socket7 processors do not have onchip L2 caches. you might be talking about the L1 cache which is 64k split (32k data/32k code) for the K6-II processor. The L2 cache is usually made of a 512k PBSRAM chip onboard.

The exception is the K6-III processor which integrated 256k of L2 cache ondie and the onboard L2 cache demoted to L3! This in fact was the key to K6-III's superior performance, but its high cost dint let it stand against the K6-II!

girish

<font color=red>No system is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

 

[jake]

I made all the appropriate changed to the GA-5smm motherboard and when I restart the computer it freezes up right after the windows 98 screen. It says something like "windows fault protection error" and when I went through the step-by-step configuration, I got to the config.sys part and pressed Y to continue. When I did this it loccked up on me and said something about a stacking error.

Could it have something to do with my Emm386 setting in the config.sys. Because I am also trying to update my bios, when I start Awdflash program it says "fail-Due to EMM386 or QEMM. I just wnat to get the processor running properly. Please help. Thanks.

 

[Crashman]

Most likely you've either got the wrong voltage settings or you're overheating.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[Guest]

I gave my father my old rig (AsusP5A+K62 550) a year ago. I run slightly overclocked with FSB at 115MHz and mult. 5x (575MHz) (I use PC133 memory). It runs very well. But I have never been able to run it any faster! 600 MHz, no way. (=Window protection error...)

It is very important that you feed it with at least 2.4V (I use 2.5V but that require a GOOD heat sink). Remember to use new paste, do not try to reuse the old !

Check your bios where you can get the readings on voltage and temperatures. If you have set the MB up correct, you should read 2.4V and temperature no more than 40-42 celcius. If you have the voltage right and the temp is higher than 42 degrees, you have to put on a better heat sink. K62 is sensitive for heat, and the 550MHz get much warmer than the 400MHz version.

Until you get better cooling, you can test at 5.5*95=522MHz or 5*100=500MHz…

Good luck!

***A-Man***


...is it?...NO, it's AnotherMan...

 

[girish]

what settings are you using? Try 5.5x first, do not attempt to overclock just yet.

you are having voltage problem, read whats written on the processor surface. AMD writes the core/bus voltage on the CPU itself. set it accordingly. probably you are having heat problems due to too high voltage.

girish

<font color=red>No system is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

 

[Crashman]

I have a K6-2 380 running happily at 500MHz/2.8v! Using the 2x=6x conversion and 83.3MHz bus. The trick? A cheap AThlon cooler!

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[Ncogneto]

Socket7 processors do not have onchip L2 caches. you might be talking about the L1 cache which is 64k split (32k data/32k code) for the K6-II processor. The L2 cache is usually made of a 512k PBSRAM chip onboard.

No he is talking about the k6-2+ which does indeed have 128 l2 cache on chip as opposed to the k6-3+ which has 256 l2.

Another Cookie? Who is going to pay my dentist bill?

 

[Ncogneto]

If you really want to keep your existing computer, return it and get a K6-III 400 or 450. With a decent heat sink you should be able to get it to 500+. The K6-III has 384k of cache memory and should run circles around any K6-II processor, which I think has 64-128k of cache memory. The K6-III shares some of the cache architecture of its older brother the Athlon processor.

HUH?????
First off correction number one, the k6-3's were lousy overclockers 500 was very seldom obtained and certainly not easily. Later on when the + series came about this changed ever so slighlty but these chips are indeed rare.

Correction number two, the k6-3's have 64 l1 and 256 l2 giving them 320 kbytes of combined cache. The k6-2's have only the 64 level one cache.

Partial correction number three. Only in certain apps to the k6-3's run circles around the k6-2's, and these mainly are business apps and cache sensetive synthetic benches such as cpu mark99. Unfortunatly the k6-3's are crippled with the same poor fpu as the k6-2's and therefore do not perform any better in most graphic apps and games.

Correction number four, the athlon would actually be the younger not older brother of the k6-3.

Another Cookie? Who is going to pay my dentist bill?

 

[Ncogneto]

I made all the appropriate changed to the GA-5smm motherboard and when I restart the computer it freezes up right after the windows 98 screen.

Arghhhhh!!!!!!!

Hate to be the bearer of bad news but I have had the unfortunate expierance of working with one of these boards. My honest opinion? Complete POS! And I am refering to when they were current. I know just what you are going thru. And now I will tell you why I believe ( based on my expeirance) why you are going thru it. I think what you are expeirancing is the fact the motherboard is having problem supplying enough voltage to keep this chip running stable. I to uprgraded the one I worked on from a k6-2 350 to a k6-3 450 only to have the exact same problems. I knew the chip ( k6-3) was fine as it worked on several other motherboards. No amount of fiddling could ever get this thing to run stable.

One day I decided to, just for the heck of it, try a k6-3+ cpu in this board, a 450, just like the k6-3 that would not work reliably. To my amazement, the thing worked just fine. the only reason that I could possibly come up with was that the k6-3+, being a notebook cpu was designed to consume considerably less power( largly do to a die shrink) than the k6-3.

Another source of constant problems with that board ( which has a sis chipset) is the integrated graphics which are the absolute worse.

Another Cookie? Who is going to pay my dentist bill?

 

[girish]

Yes I know (and wrote) that K6-3 (and K6-3+) has 256k L2 cache, in fact it had the interesting tri-level cache design that improved its performance a lot!

Yes, K6-II+ had 128k L2 cache, but I dint mention them since they were supposed to be mobile processors, as AMD pages say. But I guess a lot of them were used on desktops too! I never had a chance to use them since they werent available in India (or at least my town)

Thanks for the correction though. ;-)

girish

<font color=red>No system is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

 

[Schmide]

Sorry about that.

I got my K6 III to 504 with back in the day. Then again I had a whopping HS on it, but that’s beside the point.

You’re right about the rest and again sorry about that.

The reason I said older brother is because the Athlon is more mature than the K6III.

Schmide