New BIOS Update & Setup remains confused!

[Kiwi]

Of the several PC's here that are all fully assembled and operational, the oldest has been mostly trouble-free for the past 3 1/2 years, in spite of being run in Win98se a majority of the time it's being used. It has a Via KT-133A chip set in a Gigabyte GA7-ZXE motherboard, and for three years and five months, it had an AMD Thunderbird 1.33 in it (10X multiplier, 133 HHz).

While working on a gift PC for a grandson, and then on a loaner to replace that one when it had to be returned almost immediately for replacement of the Epox 8RDA+ motherboard (just one cap looked bad afterward, with a stain on top -- no bulge, no big leaky smears anywhere), I had three PC's in the same room and my cottage is a pretty old one, without central heat or central AC. The window AC was struggling.

I have two GA7-ZXE's, and had a good buy on eBay, for two XP 2100 Palominos, one for each older system. But with the original BIOS, the oldest ZXE decided that the 2100 was an Athlon 1300 (13X, 100 MHz). It is a 13X multiplier all right, but 13 times 133 = 1733. The Gigabyte web site had only one BIOS Update that appeared appropriate, being F8.

There didn't appear to be any problems with the flash, but now the setup is identifying the cpu as an XP 1500, which is a 10X by 133 MHz processor, same as the old T-Bird I took out. I have a feeling that there was an F6 or F7 BIOS that is a bit harder to find a listing for and is what I should've used . .

Any ideas?

P.S. Parts not already named:

Antec 350 W True Blue psu
Kingston PC-133 SDRAMs (2 @ 256 MB each)
TDK 32X CD-R/+R
NEC 2510A 8X DVD-R
WD 80 GB 7200 rpm Hdd
Creative SB Live 5.1
nVidia Ti-500 video
dual boots W2K & W98se

[ror_b211]

Are you sure that the CPU and Mobo are totally compatible? It does sound like a hardware incompatibility.

[Kiwi]

.. and rechecked more recently, as well as today.

From roughly two years ago, I started having an itch to try my own hand at some PC building again. I'd done it before, but let White Box builders take over for several years there. I was shopping for the bargains in eBay auctions that ended at awful hours when no one much was bidding against me, or the seller misspelled something, or used a terrible picture in his description.

I was going to build a fairly nice system based on year-old design items, still new, but not current, after they had depreciated. Several times I saw super bargain items that seemed too good to pass up. The only spate of trouble I've had with my older ZXE coincided with a chance to get a Rev 2.1 version for literally pennies, and I did get it.

And did build it up, with an XP 1700 (which is now in that "loaner" my grandson has). That cpu was another steal of a deal. Of course I ended up with spares of stuff that way, and built the grandson's PC, and my own nice one, and now I'm looking at A64's, but it's only after they have REALLY got down to cheap and affordable, while the last of the XP's have finally been produced.

(My last employer didn't ask whether I was ready to retire, and I didn't find anything but part time work after that. My budget is pretty tight!)

[glc]

Have you checked the exact circuit board revision levels? I've seen it where an earlier revision doesn't support all the CPU's that a newer revision does, regardless of bios version - and there could even be different bios files for the different revisions.

[MaxRat]

I checked www.driverguide.com and found for the GA-7ZXE a FA, FB, F7, F8, F9....maybe will help...?

[Kiwi]

Originally Posted by gsrat I checked www.driverguide.com and found for the GA-7ZXE a FA, FB, F7, F8, F9....maybe will help...?

I may have skipped the F9 because it was for revisions past 2.0 -- while the one I tried was supposed to be for "all" (F8). It's a couple of days ago already, and like too many old farts my age, I can't be sure *what* I skipped past any more, while I can remember stuff that happened 8-10 years ago, just fine!