Bios upgrade for PI55T2P4C ?

[Erland Stig Bredgaard]

I have been searching for some time now for a BIOS upgrade for my
antique ASUS motherboard PI55T2P4C (Crash problems in Windows
2000). So far, I have only been able to find some quite expensive
payment BIOS upgrade services, and it seems that ASUS does not
support this mainboard anymore. So, if anyone has a link (or the file)
for upgrading my BIOS I would be very grateful.

Data (according to BIOS Agent from www.esupport.com):
BIOS type: Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG
BIOS ID: 12/10/96-82430HX-PI55T2P4C-00
Chipset: Intel Triton 430HX rev 3
OS: Win2000 ver. 5.0.2195, Service Pack 3

CPU: Cyrix 6x86 running at 133 MHz.
256 MB EDO RAM

Please also tell me which flashing tool would be appropriate for
flashing this BIOS? And, I would be glad if anyone could provide
me with a guide for doing the operation (I never tried to flash a BIOS
before...).

Best regards,
Erland Stig Bredgaard

 

[Erland Stig Bredgaard]

I have been searching for some time now for a BIOS upgrade for my
antique ASUS motherboard PI55T2P4C

Now I found this at ASUS's ftp site:
ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/sock7/430hx/p55t2p4/

But, I am not sure which of the files will be the correct one to use?
And, I still need to know which flashing tool is appropriate?

Regards,
Erland Stig Bredgaard

 

[Stephan Grossklass]

I have been searching for some time now for a BIOS upgrade for my
antique ASUS motherboard PI55T2P4C (Crash problems in Windows
2000).

This sounds like a hardware rather than a software (BIOS) problem, but
the latest BIOS for the T2P4 I'm aware of is the patched one from
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/k6plus.htm

CPU: Cyrix 6x86 running at 133 MHz.

A very power hungry thing (I hope you've got a decent cooler on it?),
and Cyrix wasn't renowned for 100% compatibility back then. Good integer
performance AFAIR, but floating point sucked. Consider replacing that
with an Intel Pentium 166/200 or Pentium with MMX (a 3.x board revision
can use split voltage processors the the iP w/ MMX, the older ones need
single voltage ones like the older Pentium).

256 MB EDO RAM

Not bad.

Please also tell me which flashing tool would be appropriate for
flashing this BIOS?

Probably pflash or pflash2.

And, I would be glad if anyone could provide
me with a guide for doing the operation (I never tried to flash a BIOS
before...).

Then I'd try changing the CPU first. (Though admittedly your current
BIOS is really dated.)

Stephan

 

[Kevin Hamann]

Thanks for your help, and thanks for the link - but do those BIOS upgrades
work with other CPUs than AMD K6 as well? I don't know if it's a
hardware problem, but I thought it might be worth a try to upgrade the
BIOS. I keep getting BSOD with ntoskrnl.exe as the 'criminal'...

I'm fairly sure that the bios mentioned above was patched from 2.07
"beta" (rock solid in my experience) which was the last bios from Asus
for the board. So it would work with any cpu that the board can
handle, Cyrix, AMD, or Intel.

How about that AMD K6-2 or K6-III processor mentioned at the site you
linked to? Are they worth considering?

I've had a K6-3 in my T2P4 rev 3.1 for years (started with a Cyrix 200
in '96, then a K6 300, K6-2 400, and then the K6-3 400 at 450). From
my experience the AMD K6 chips are well worth considering.

With the patched bios, I'd try to get a K6-3+ if possible, then a
K6-2+ (both
mobile CPUs that run on low power) then a K6-3 then a K6-2 then an
Pentium
233...

Good luck,

Kevin

 

[Stephan Grossklass]

Thanks for your help, and thanks for the link - but do those BIOS upgrades
work with other CPUs than AMD K6 as well?

Yes - they're based on the latest official BIOS, with support for the
K6-x+ CPUs added and the 32 and 64 GB bugs removed.

I don't know if it's a
hardware problem, but I thought it might be worth a try to upgrade the
BIOS. I keep getting BSOD with ntoskrnl.exe as the 'criminal'...

I think you should run Memtest86 with all tests, that will probably take
a night or so. As a pure CPU test, run CPUBurn for a few hours while
doing nothing else at the computer. Should CPUBurn hang the machine or
exit itself then it's probably a CPU overheating issue.

BZW: I hope the board is already equipped with a tag RAM for
cacheability up to 512 MB? If so, what access time does that have?
Should be 15 ns.

How about that AMD K6-2 or K6-III processor mentioned at the site you
linked to? Are they worth considering?

Only if you have a revision 3.x board, which provides split voltage with
core voltage down to 2.0 V. If that's the case, the most desirable CPUs
will be AMD's K6-III+ (very rare, 0.18µ, 256K L2), K6-2+ (more
available, 0.18µ, 128K L2), K6-III (not so rare but still expensive,
0.25µ, 256K L2), K6-2 (not rare at all, 0.25µ, no on-die L2) roughly in
that order. Variants of those CPUs with 400 MHz or more can be run at 66
MHz with a multiplier of 2x which gets interpreted as 6x, i.e. 400 MHz.
The older 0.25µ CPUs run hotter (particularly the K6-III, which should
be cooled well). The models with on-die L2 cache are to be preferred by
a significant margin, since they are quite a bit faster. That's not
overly surprising, given a L2 cache running at full clock speed has a
much higher bandwidth than the L2 cache on the board which only runs
with 100 or 66 MHz. Which using a CPU with a L2 cache of its own, the
board's L2 cache will turn into a L3 cache.

Stephan

 

[Erland Stig Bredgaard]

I think you should run Memtest86 with all tests, that will probably take
a night or so. As a pure CPU test, run CPUBurn for a few hours while
doing nothing else at the computer. Should CPUBurn hang the machine or
exit itself then it's probably a CPU overheating issue.

Thanks for the tip - I will try those tests.

BZW: I hope the board is already equipped with a tag RAM for
cacheability up to 512 MB? If so, what access time does that have?
Should be 15 ns.

I didn't put tag RAM on the board. To be honest, I didn't know that
the board needed it to handle 256 MB of RAM. Btw. I think it's FPM
RAM (not EDO) I've got on the board - would that be a problem?

I wonder where I can find the right type of tag RAM... The manual says
I should insert one 16K8 or 32K8 SRAM chip (I suppose 32K8 would
be best?). And, I guess I need to adjust jumper JP4 accordingly?

Only if you have a revision 3.x board, which provides split voltage with
core voltage down to 2.0 V.

My board is rev. 3.10.

If that's the case, the most desirable CPUs
will be AMD's K6-III+ (very rare, 0.18µ, 256K L2), K6-2+ (more
available, 0.18µ, 128K L2), K6-III (not so rare but still expensive,
0.25µ, 256K L2), K6-2 (not rare at all, 0.25µ, no on-die L2) roughly in
that order. Variants of those CPUs with 400 MHz or more can be run at 66
MHz with a multiplier of 2x which gets interpreted as 6x, i.e. 400 MHz.

In case I get hold in one of those faster chips, how do I activate this
multiplier function?

The older 0.25µ CPUs run hotter (particularly the K6-III, which should
be cooled well). The models with on-die L2 cache are to be preferred by
a significant margin, since they are quite a bit faster. That's not
overly surprising, given a L2 cache running at full clock speed has a
much higher bandwidth than the L2 cache on the board which only runs
with 100 or 66 MHz. Which using a CPU with a L2 cache of its own, the
board's L2 cache will turn into a L3 cache.

I will have to search for some good old stuff at the marketplace ;-)

Stephan

Best regards,
Erland