Question regarding ASUS P5A-B

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tim Brown
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Tim Brown

I want to max this system out...it's my old system...

I was wondering how high I could go with the CPU...I am guessing K6-2 500mhz

I have no idea what the best performing video card would be, but I am
leaning towards Rage Fury Maxx...I have heard stories about it not
performing to its MAXXimum potential on a K6-2.

I'm good with the RAM...3x256, but what is the best brand? I am guessing
either Crucial or Kingston.

I appreciate the help...thanks!
 
Tim Brown wrote:
....
I'm good with the RAM...3x256, but what is the best brand? I am guessing
either Crucial or Kingston.
Click to expand...

Well, Crucial offer suitable SDRAM DIMMs for the P5A-B in their online
shop - Kingston don't.

Roy
 
I want to max this system out...it's my old system...

I was wondering how high I could go with the CPU...I am guessing K6-2
500mhz

I have no idea what the best performing video card would be, but I am
leaning towards Rage Fury Maxx...I have heard stories about it not
performing to its MAXXimum potential on a K6-2.

I'm good with the RAM...3x256, but what is the best brand? I am
guessing either Crucial or Kingston.

I appreciate the help...thanks!
Click to expand...

I've used 2.2V K6-3 450 (onboard 256KB L2 cache) as well as 2.0V K6-2+ 500
(onboard 128KB L2 cache) on P5A-Bs v1.04 and v1.05 (on v1.05, I had to
bump Vcore up 0.1V to 2.1V for K6-2+), with GF2gts 32MB video card and
256MB RAM under win2k, and it ran Quake3. I didn't play with
overclocking, but it seems possible to run 120MHz bus at 4x or 4.5x with
the right memory (and suitable PCI cards).

--
We HAVE been at war with Iraq for 13 years now, bombing their
country on at least a weekly basis.
"U.S.-led sanctions have killed over a million Iraqi citizens,
according to UN studies" - James Jennings
3,000+ innocent Iraqi civilian casualties can't be "wrong"...
 
I have a Geforce 2 MX 440 64meg in my newer system and thought that if I
could get it towork with my old Pp5a-b then why not just get a new radeon
for my newer rig?

the problem is when i tried this vid card with the old system it locked up,
but that was before i found bios and ali aladdin v agp updates. I am also
going to update the p5a-b ram to at least 512 and the cpu to around 550.

My GeForce II make is a maddog champion and it says my board needs AGP 2.0
compliancy, but since the card does work in 2x I figured maybe it would work
in my old mobo.

If not I'll just get a 32 megger. I appreciate all of the input.
 
I have a Geforce 2 MX 440 64meg in my newer system and thought that if I
could get it towork with my old Pp5a-b then why not just get a new
radeon for my newer rig?

the problem is when i tried this vid card with the old system it locked
up, but that was before i found bios and ali aladdin v agp updates. I
am also going to update the p5a-b ram to at least 512 and the cpu to
around 550.
Click to expand...

How exactly does it lock up (at POST, during OS boot, during heavy CPU
load)? It may be an issue with the 64MB memory size on the video card.
I've heard this can be an issue with older AGP boards, not being able to
support more than 32MB video card (forget exactly why). It might also be
a power issue, where that board's AGP slot just can't handle the juice
requirements (I had a P6L40 slot1 440LX motherboard that would lock/reboot
randomly in the OS with a perfectly good GF1ddr 32MB card). It's worth a
quick inspection of the capacitors on the board, particularly around the
CPU and AGP slot, for signs of 'bulging' or 'leaky black oozing' caps...

FYI, I flashed to the latest 1011 beta 005 bios on each board, used the
chipset/AGP drivers from ASUS site, and only used 32MB video cards - but I
also had success with a GF2mx (not a 400/440) 32MB card.
My GeForce II make is a maddog champion and it says my board needs AGP
2.0 compliancy, but since the card does work in 2x I figured maybe it
would work in my old mobo.

If not I'll just get a 32 megger. I appreciate all of the input.
Click to expand...

--
We HAVE been at war with Iraq for 13 years now, bombing their
country on at least a weekly basis.
"U.S.-led sanctions have killed over a million Iraqi citizens,
according to UN studies" - James Jennings
3,000+ innocent Iraqi civilian casualties can't be "wrong"...
 
The lockups...Computer would load up normally then would have random lockups
either during gameplay or during reg windows app running. I am also
thinking it might be a 64 meg issue although I have seen others post that
they have successfully used geforce cards with that high megs.

If it does turn out to be a 64 meg problem, then what would be the best 32
meg card? Thanks...I didn't think I'd get any responses regarding such an
old mobo, I appreciate it.
 
Tim said:
The lockups...Computer would load up normally then would have random lockups
either during gameplay or during reg windows app running.
Click to expand...

Make sure AGP is running at no more than 1x. The ALi V was a bit
critical in that regard. AGP power supply should already be adequate on
an Asus board from that era.
I don't know whether the P5A-B was ever affected by the bug causing slow
operation with K6-x+ chips, IIRC this was an issue of newer chipset
revisions.

Stephan
 
Hmmm 1x would eliminate the video card I have becaue it backwards compatible
to 2X only.

In my P5A-B board description, it is stated that AGP 1.0 Compliance
Interface Supports both 1x and 2x Speed Mode with Sidehand Address
Capability

Doesn't this mean that 2x should be managable? I do have the latest Aladdin
V update from 2003 that were supposed to fix issues with nVidia cards.

Thanks
 
I want to max this system out...it's my old system...

I was wondering how high I could go with the CPU...I am guessing K6-2
500mhz

I have no idea what the best performing video card would be, but I am
leaning towards Rage Fury Maxx...I have heard stories about it not
performing to its MAXXimum potential on a K6-2.

I'm good with the RAM...3x256, but what is the best brand? I am
guessing either Crucial or Kingston.

I appreciate the help...thanks!
Click to expand...

My wife's PC is a P5A-B Bios rev 1011.005 beta
40 gig HD
SB Live Value
128MB of ram
K6-2 500 (was a K6-3 400 but it died)
Powergene GeForce2 MX200 32 mb running at AGP x 2 with a 32mb aperture
Windows Millennium
Really sucks at 3D Mark 2001, but "The Sims" runs well, Wife happy!

Try and source a K6-2 550...
 
My wife's PC is a P5A-B Bios rev 1011.005 beta
40 gig HD
SB Live Value
128MB of ram
K6-2 500 (was a K6-3 400 but it died)
Powergene GeForce2 MX200 32 mb running at AGP x 2 with a 32mb aperture
Windows Millennium
Really sucks at 3D Mark 2001, but "The Sims" runs well, Wife happy!

Try and source a K6-2 550...
Click to expand...

A K6-2/550 will run just fine on this board.
 
I've heard a bunch of stuff about lowering the multiplier to increase FSB on
the board. How would I go about doing that?

Thanks...
 
I've heard a bunch of stuff about lowering the multiplier to increase
FSB on the board. How would I go about doing that?
Click to expand...

Download the PDF of the manual.
It's all done with 2 groups of jumpers at the top of the board.
However, I don't think it's worth messing with, because raising the bus
frequency for the CPU raises the PCI and AGP frequencies as well, and they
don't handle overclocking so well.
As an example, raising the CPU frequency to 120Mhz will raise the PCI bus to
40 Mhz and the AGP bus to 80 Mhz. The "theoretical" maximum of this board is
660Mhz, a 120Mhz FSB with a 5.5 multiplier
If you've got nothing to lose, and time on your hands, go for your life! :)
 
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