Massman

Hey guys,

It has been a while since I took my K6/2 500 for a 720MHz spin, but I'm back with another (read: better) motherboard. Yes, I needed a new one, as my P5A completely maxed out at 120x6 ... maxed out as in this is the maximum I can set the board to work at theoretically.

I needed to find another board, one that can do way more than 120MHz ... and I found one!



The Gigabyte GA-5AX Rev5.2 goes all the way up to 140MHz FSB, which suits me perfectly. Having looked on Ebay Belgium, but not finding anything, I switched to Ebay Germany as those pages have an incredible amount of hardware ready to be purchased. Veni, Vidi, Vendo ... yes, I found a GA-5AX and after a week it got here.

BUT ... (I guess you all saw this one coming, no?)



When I opened the box to have a first glance at my board of glory, I noticed this wasn't a Rev5.2 board ... it was a Rev3.0! Optimistic as I am, I quickly tried to find out if the revision might not be as bad as I thought it would be.

http://tw.giga-byte.com/Support/Moth...ProductID=1578

Perfect! A motherboard that has different manuals for different PCB revision, it doesn't look good.



Nope, it doesn't look good, only 100FSB at most ... this board wasn't worth the euros I spent on it and the worst part: it costed me quite some golden coins to bring the board to Belgium. Already brought down, I decided to have quick look at the Rev5.2, just to see what the big difference is.



Yeap, that's what I was looking for: 140MHz FSB. But wait, JP9 ... I came across that multiple times already. Yes, in the first manual as well and ...





You see that, lads and gents? I can turn this baby into a Rev5.1 with one simple modification. Turning this board into a Rev5.2 requires me to find the missing JP10, which I haven't found on this board.



Now, all is well, you'd think, but this is MADSHRIMPS, my friends, we are always pushing things over the edge. How can I eventually make this board run higher than 135FSB? In theory it's possible, the PLL supports 140FSB, the only thing I need to figure out is how I can find that last jumper: JP10. That'll be something for Geoffrey, I'm afraid .

Attached Thumbnails

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geoffrey

I have to work in Kortrijk next monday, maybe I can stop at your place, don't know the exact hour though. In between 9u and ...

Or maybe next thursday, then I'll be in Waregem.

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Massman

Next thursday I'm in Gent to do my first exam, tomorrow is not a problem, though. Back in the lab in the attic?

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geoffrey

No time tomorrow, neither sunday.

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Massman

Woops, I meant monday

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geoffrey

Where did you find the datasheet if the ICS 9148BF-36 PLL?

Are you 100% sure that rev3 and rev5.2 use the same PLL?

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Massman

I'm pretty sure the ICS is the exact same, there exist windows overclocking tools for the GA-5AX and there's no difference between the revisions.

Datasheet was from another pll: the ICS9148BF-04. I reckon they work the same?

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geoffrey

I know the ICS 9148BF-04, recap of its datasheet:



3 Frequency Select pins, maximum front side bus clock = 83.3MHz.

The Pcchips Socket 7 board I have over here has the ICS 9148BF-17 PLL, which has the option to set up to 100MHz front side bus clock via BIOS, no datasheet available either. The main pin functionality remains the same probable.

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Massman

This datasheet should be it: http://www.idt.com/?partID=9148BF-36

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geoffrey

Up to 100Mhz, so says the datasheet. So ICS 9148BF can have different frequency select with different Pattern Numbers. -04 up to 83MHz, -36 up to 100MHz. What precise pattern number do you find on the rev5 board?

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