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Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Check this one out...very unusual looking, complete with Laptop cdrom, NIC, modem, etc. http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=easysilver 10-28-2001 05:39:36

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Linuxguru Profile | Email Is my eyesight that bad, or is it really that butt-ugly? I can't figure out what that circular eye in the front bezel is. They should give it away for free to get rid of the eyesore . 10-28-2001 13:01:15

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) vwbug19 Profile that's the part of speaker system :)wondering it look like the charcter in new movie(guy with one big eye)? i seen that pc ,intersting one but note it's super socket 7 with 100mhz fsb? max mhz is 500 might be a good candicate for winxp? :) unless it have video out port for tv winxp has great tv out quality due to anti aliasing font :) 10-28-2001 13:55:57

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) vwbug19 Profile additional info, this thing has no fdd connector meaning no floppy drive! but dont worry, use the fdd controller card or use usb floppy drive :) 10-28-2001 16:16:43

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile I posted this deal on Anandtech Hot Deals forum: More info there. http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=40&threadid=610201 That front "eye" opens up....the cdrom is there, flat side forward. This is a pretty complete setup...cpu, hard drive, you're set to go. Add a K62+450...oh and a cheap stick of ram. Sitting next to a KDS Rad5....cool. 10-28-2001 16:44:27

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) vwbug19 Profile additional info, this thing has no fdd connector meaning no floppy drive! but dont worry, use the fdd controller card or use usb floppy drive :) 10-28-2001 18:01:17

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) pentbob Profile I first saw this on AMD's website a couple years ago, I think its still there. Search EasyNow. It was AMD's wet dream to promote the K6 series, but they never seemed to be for sale many places. Directron.com had them at one time and still has a page on them. Biostar has a page on them. They refer to them as Sunflower in their barebones series. They came in 6 colors. Hi-tech had them on their website for 2 days (all colors) for $79. I about broke my arm getting my web order in for a Purple/green combo that has always been my favorite. They had 100 quantity. The next day they were totally gone from the website. I called them to make sure mine had shipped. It had. (they will often sell out to a bulk buyer and screw you) I was told they decided to "do something different with them" but they could always get more. Biostar must be dumping them now. I have the machine running a K6-3 333mhz at 450 mhz. 9 Gig WD 7200 drive and 256 meg pc133. It's pretty fast, I think since it's made for AMD chips that it enables all the caching and special features on the K6-3. The Sandra benchmarks look pretty good. I don't think you could run anything else but K6 chip,the manual doesn't mention it. Jumpers for bus speed and voltage. There is no user-accessable bios on this machine, and unless you have a bootable Win install CD, you must pre-install CAB files on your HD. This is reduce-legacy, NO serial, NO parallel, NO floppy. USB Floppy was an option. There are 5 built-in USB Ports. Built in Network, Modem, Sound (with four jacks includes separate jack for earphone)built in video what more could you want? Inclued Driver CD is all drivers for Win 98. They say No to 95. My next step will be to try ME (for better USB support) When I put it to sleep in 98SE, it doesn't load back the Hid mouse driver for the ps/2 mouse that attaches to the keyboard. If you use a USB mouse, it's fine. There is a fan at the bottom of the machine that blows upwards and all heat goes out the top. And, of course the cpu fan. When you press the sleep key on the keyboard, It stops all fans and puts the machine to sleep. Total silence, but one quick press on the power button and it quickly comes to life. All in all, I rate this as a real steal for the price, especially if you have most of the necessary parts laying around as I did. My completed machine feels faster than the Celeron 900Mhz that I am typing this on. Any Questions? P.S. I tried both a K6-2+ and a K6-3+ in this machine (known good chips) and couldn't get it to screen up with either. That was a big dissappointment as this rig runs pretty hot, and that would help. Maybe if we bugged Biostar for a Bios upgrade? 10-28-2001 23:32:01

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Thanks for the info...mine is on the way. Too bad about the chips not working...I've got a K63-333 and a K62+450. I was going to use the 450. How about the space available for a cpu fan? Can't have a whole lot of room in there. How did you get your 333 to run at 450? 10-29-2001 03:51:14

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) pentbob Profile There is room for a normal heatsink. Actually I used a stock Celeron Factory style heatsink and then added a beefier fan to it. The whole system is in a rectangular metal cage that slides into the designer (?) case. There is an expansion bubble in the metal over the CPU. To take the system apart (there are no included instructions) you simply remove the 3 screws on the back and then push toward the front with your thumbs. The faceplate stays on and the unit slides out frontwards.When you get it apart, it will be apparent that the shape is dictated by the unusual upward mounted Mitsumi CD-Rom. There is a review and several pictures of the interior etc on the German version of Toms Hardware (Reviewed in 1999) I found several links by doing a Google dot com search for EasyNow or EasyNow! Every K6-3 333 (which is really a 400 labeled down) that I'v ever worked with will do 450. Just keep increasing the voltage. Some will go at 2.6V or 2.7V. All will go at 2.8V. The theory is to throttle the Voltage back after burn-in. I have one system that has ran at 2.8V now for over a year ("forgot" to set it back) and it is still going strong. I guess the worst that can happen is you "could " (not likely) ruin a $30 chip or over time the increased voltage will get it, but by that time it will be worth less than $10. Beware if you have a Cat. This system is the Purple/green combo and the powerswitch is a green oval with a light in it perched on the top near the front. It looks very much like a large fat caterpiller or similar insect that my cat is convinced needs to be removed. She has spent much time and many admonishments trying to do so. 10-29-2001 11:46:44

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Thanks for all the info.....On the anandtech site, one guy said he couldn't get the audio to work in XP. This could be a problem, but I bet the right drivers can be found. Here's a link to the German Tom's Hardware site. This article has a number of good pictures...scroll around, there's quite a few pages. The mainboard appears to be a Biostar M5SAF. You may get into the bios with ctrl-alt-esc. http://www.de.tomshardware.com/consumer/99q4/991215/minipc-04.html 10-30-2001 17:46:00

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) pentbob Profile I hope that now that we know how to get into the bios, someone can come up with a bios setting that will enable the K6-2+ or K63+. Then we could probably get to 600mhz. I know that some systems have to have the bios caching turned off before they will run those chips. I didn't have a lot of time to play with it when I tried the + chips. 10-30-2001 21:05:26

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) TheHegemon Profile Hrmm, I wonder why it didn't work with winXP according to this site here it uses th SiS 7018 PCI Audio WDM driver which is available from sis here . I'll try it all out when mine comes, but there should be no impediment to XP love! 11-01-2001 11:48:46

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Well....I got mine today and am in the process of checking it out. Very impressive. The pictures do not do it justice. The case is silver and the cdrom cover is actually a dark translucent blue. The keyboard, mouse and speakers match exactly. I have it sitting next to a Rad5 and they look fine together. This board is Biostar M5SAF Rev. 1.2. The on-board jumpers allow up to a 550 setting....5.5x100.There is enough room in the case for a tall stick of ram, and a normal heatsink/fan. Very high quality throughout...looks good so far. 11-05-2001 17:13:03

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile Yes I ordered one from Geeks also. Ordered a memory stick but wanted a suggestion on what would be the fastest processor or what would give me the most bang for this little flower child....thanks in advance. Pete 11-05-2001 17:46:47

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Hard to say about the CPU....It supports up to a K6-550. If you can get a 450+ series to work, you might overclock using software. Funny, I got into the BIOS first try with ctrl-alt-esc. Since then I have been unable to do so. It may be a timing thing.....there is no documentation on this. There are quite a few changable settings(Award bios). I'll have to read up on a lot of them...... 11-06-2001 04:33:57

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Well....I don't want to mis-lead anyone about this, but my board has the listing for a 550 setting, but no jumper setting. The manual doesn't mention 550. Anyway I cannot get my K6III-333 to run at 100mhz....but it will at 66mhx(66x5=333). Win98 is installing right now.....if everything works I'll probably do an upgrade to XP later. It has the cpufan and another case fan on the bottom...but the loudest thing is the cdrom when it's running. There is a hard drive led and a cdrom access led on the front which shine through the translucent front cover. After this is running W98, I'll try the K62450+, and hope it works. This 333 is pretty fast by itself. 11-07-2001 05:23:28

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 1 times) smee Profile Got mine yesterday. If you look inside (past the unusual outside), it's a pretty good little system. If you pull the cd-rom off and cut one piece of sheet metal, you've got a pretty small box left over - external power supply certainly helps there. I've got mine running a K6-2 500 and Windows ME. Still working on the drivers - video's up but nothing else yet. The thing makes a lot of noise. I haven't determined if the loudest fan is on the case or the cpu but it's definitely not an unobtrusive box. And, as was mentioned above, the cd-rom is very loud. I can't imagine using it for something that needed to run it all the time or to play a music cd. It's also not something you'd want to subject anybody else in the room to. For a small system that you could pretty much fit in anywhere, the noise seems like a significant flaw. The keyboard is very light/inexpensive feeling but seems to work well. Some of the keys are smaller than normal (cursor, function, PageUp, etc). That takes a little getting used to. Overall, I'm pretty impressed. Just need to see if I can avoid using the cd-rom and maybe find quieter fans. Once I get it on the network, I probably won't need the cd much anyway. Also, I too haven't seen any reference to being able to run a 550 processor. But, I may be missing something since I'm not all that familiar with AMD chips and motherboard tweaking. 11-07-2001 05:55:26

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile He, he...I got Win98 running ok. All the various drivers included on the cdrom installed ok. Video, audio, 10/100 LAN, modem, keyboard etc. Here's the neat part for me....the modem is actually a multi-function device....contains a 1.0 HPNA device. This uses the one phoneline connection. You plug in your phoneline and bingo...you're on the network. I ran the XP network setup on it, and I'm now on the XP network....rest of my computers use HPNA 2.0, but this 1.0 version works just fine. I'm impressed. Neat little keyboard...has a wake-up function key, a sleep key, a WWW key....I'm still trying to figure everything out. As soon as I get this all down pat, it's XP on the way. 11-07-2001 17:36:50

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Well XP installed ok, but.....No sound. The drivers from the above link installed but the installer said there was a problem and they don't work. No modem...XP cannot detect a modem...also no com port shows up and also won't install...strange. So when you try a std modem, there's no com port to use. Device manager detects a problem with the XP display driver, but it seems to work ok. Through all this, the HPNA device works ok, even though it does not show up in device manager....no mention of it at all. Fun.fun,fun. 11-08-2001 05:13:44

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) pentbob Profile ckbone Your machine should run at 100mhz bus. It will be much snappier. Jp4 on the MB Needs to be set for it according to the manual. Mine came already set that way. There is also a bios setting in "Chipset Features Setup" that also needs to be set to synchronous cpu/dram mode. That is a bios default setting. I simply stuck in the K6-3 333, set the multiplier jumpers to 4X , and it came right up. Then on up to 4.5 X 100. At 2.8 Volts these Cpus run very hot and there is no way to put a humongous heatsink and fan on it as in a normal desktop, So I have ordered a K6-2 550Mhz which I will try to run at 600Mhz. There is no documented jumper setting for 2X so I will have to play around with them and see what the magic combination is. At the same time, I will probably give the + series chips another try. The Sandra 2001 results for the K6-3 at 450Mhz are 1116 mips and 527 mflops. Sandra says that Cpu should get 990 mips and 547 mflops. I've played with the bios setting and can find no setting that will give any higher test results than the default settings. 11-08-2001 15:28:18

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Claudius Profile I tired installing XP on it as well, since thats the only bootable OS install disc that I have. I had the same problems with the Video, Sound, and Network. The Video 'card' says that it doesn't have enough resources to work, and the Sound, even with the XP drivers isntalled, says that there's a problem and can't start. The network refuses to detect a connection, ethernet, even using the latest XP drivers on SIS' website. For those of you who installed Win98SE, or other Consumer Windows OS, how did you do that? if anyone has any insight into these problems that seem to be plauging this cool little box, let us know! It seems odd that for a box which is legacy free, it doesn't work on the OS that is supposed to be most PnP compatible etc.... For those that don't know, there is a BIOS update available on Biostar's website under M5SAF. I don't know what if fixes since I don't have a floppy to boot up to or an OS that I cna boot into DOS mode... so - tell us how you got WIn98SE on. I might just end up throwing Linux on it to play with it. we'll see. 11-08-2001 23:42:54

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) pentbob Profile Claudius Install Win 98 cab files on the drive and system it so it is bootable. This is done with the drive installed in another computer. Then install the drive in the Sleezy Now, boot to a dos prompt and run the windoze installer. Alternatively, buy a bootable copy of 98. This system was made around 1999 and was made to run Win 98. It was out long before all the later versions of "Billy's Bloatware" were. It does a good job of running 98 and is snappy. You are probably only causing yourself unneccessary stress by trying to install something else. 11-09-2001 00:38:45

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile I installed W98 just like pentbob stated.....I put the drive in another machine, used a Maxtor setup disk to format and sys, then I added a real mode dos cdrom driver. Transferred the drive back to the Easy Now! (The name Sunflower sounds silly) Then it booted to a DOS prompt...allowing me to install W98 from the cdrom. For whatever reason I could not get either W98 or XP to boot from the cdrom....even though they do so in another machine....and in the BIOS the boot order shows the cdrom first....strange. Anyway Win98 works fine for me....so I'll use it if XP won't straighten out. Pentbob....my default settings were the same as yours. But when I tried to get The K63-333 to boot at 4x100, 2.2v, the computer just hangs at the startup screen. Maybe an increase of the voltage will help? At 333 this computer is relatively cool running....maybe I can lessen the noise with a different fan setup....it's really not that bad though. 11-09-2001 04:30:14

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) smee Profile I've installed WinME on mine. I still haven't had time to install any of the drivers except video so there may be problems that haven't shown up yet. I was able to boot from a Win98 CD. When it came up, I chose the option to go into DOS mode with CD drivers. From there, I could put in the WinME CD and run setup. No problems, but it took a long time to install. 11-09-2001 05:48:19

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) pentbob Profile ckbone The cdrom only works when the machine is sitting upright. I did a doubletake on mine when it wouldn't work with the machine lying on its side while I was working on it. Somewhere in the manual or elsewhere I read that thats the way it is. Maybe thats why you couldn't boot? You will need more voltage to boot at 400. Try 2.4V. Some of the higher speed K6-3 chips came marked for 2.4V right on the chip. You might have to go to 2.5V or 2.6V depending on your chip. As you go up, so does the temp; by the time you get to 450 at 2.8V it is generating massive heat. It feels pretty snappy at 450 on a 100mhz bus. Unfortunately it will be next week before I can play with mine. I have computer jobs lined up all weekend. 11-09-2001 23:00:27

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Here's what one guy on E-Bay said about his k6III-333....Take it with a grain of salt... AMD K6-III 333mhz @ 500mhz Processor This auction is for a AMD K6-III 333mhz super socket 7 processor that has been overclocked stable at up to 500mhz. First I want to say a little about what AMD did with these processors. The K6-III processor was initially released at 400mhz and 450mhz. It was basically a K6-2 processor with extra L3 cache to give it more performance. AMD then decided to mark down the speed of some of the 400mhz processors and use them as mobile processors for laptops. They released the 333mhz, 350mhz, and 380mhz chips and used them for this purpose. This means that this chip is really a 400mhz chip that was just marked down for mobile use. So, it is really more like a 400mhz @ 500mhz chip. This chip has the AFK core that runs at 2.2 Volts stock. To successfully overclock a K6-III you need to increase the core voltage. Here is a table with my results. I listed the cooling method I used at each speed to keep the heat at an average level. You might get away with less cooling, but it might run a little hotter than normal. CPU Speed Cooling Used Core Voltage 400mhz Cheap Heatsink 2.2 Volts 425mhz Cheap Heatsink 2.4 Volts 450mhz Moderate Heatsink 2.6 Volts 475mhz Good Heatsink 2.9 Volts 500mhz Cheap Homemade Watercooler 3.2 Volts My motherboard topped out at 3.2 Volts so I was unable to go any further. If your motherboard supports more than 3.2 Volts, and you have adequate cooling, I'm sure you could get to 550mhz (some super socket 7 motherboards even support 600mhz!, mabe with extreme cooling and a high voltage you could do it). I did my own benchmarks and the K6-III at 400mhz beat a K6-2 500 I had running at 550mhz! Every step higher I set the K6-III, the bigger the lead it took on the K6-2. You could really feel the performance difference over the K6-2. The K6-III processor was designed to compete with early Pentium III processors at equal speeds and it does a very good job. The K6-III was the only processor ever made with the extra L3 cache. This is what made it beat out the Pentium III on many tests. Also, the AMD 3DNow! instructions that the Pentium III did not have also helped. The K6-III is the fastest processor ever made for the super socket 7 platform. As with all overclocked processors, the speeds you can achieve are based on many factors including your motherboard, memory, cooling, and much more. I cannot gurantee 500mhz for your system, but I can gurantee 400mhz because that is what this processor really is. I am also going to include a Foil AMD K6-III Case sticker with this auction. This processor has been lapped for improved cooling effectiveness. Lapping is when you sand the top of the processor or heatsink on a flat surface to achieve a better contact area. All AMD K6 processors have a slightly curved top that really degrades cooling performance. By lapping it, more surface area makes contact with the heatsink. AMD K6 processors have a metal plate covering the CPU die to protect it. This can be removed to improve cooling performance. Once it is removed, the chip looks alot like an AMD Athlon or Duron processor. You might want to leave it on because it is alot easier to damage the processor with it off. This is why I never took it off. This particular auction is over....Fry's sells these for about $30...last I heard. 11-10-2001 06:44:49

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Update...I upped the voltage to 2.4v, changed the FSB and Multiplier to 4x100....Sure enough, it booted right up. Runs ok so far...and I don't see any increase in temps. The benchmarks increased: 814ALU...385FPU......333mhz 5x66 1021ALU..493FPU......400mhz 4x100 This is using the Sandra 001(latest version I think, on XP). This is a snappy setup....I see no need to try my 450 chip. If I can get XP to run ok, I'm satisfied. Here's one thing I did...The hard drive IDE cable has a tendency to hang down, partially blocking airflow over the board from the lower fan. I tucked it up, cable tied it to the bottom of the drive holder...this really increased the airflow to the top of the case. You can feel the increase with your hand on the top outside of the case. 11-10-2001 09:32:49

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile To set this unit for a 2/6x multiplier set J1 as follows: 1-2 closed 3-4 open 5-6 open Also Revision 1.2 of this board is listed as not supporting the K6+, but Revision 1.4 does. I can't see any difference in the hardware that would stop a K6+ from working on a Rev 1.2, maybe just a bios upgrade is needed? The most recent bios update (7-24-2001) is located at: http://www.biostar.com.tw/products/mainboard/socket_7/m5saf/bios.php3 11-10-2001 11:12:52

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile For 5.5x multiplier the JP1 settings are: 1-2 open 3-4 open 5-6 closed And to see dancing?!? Easynows: http://www.biostar-usa.com/Sunflower/EasyNow/SunFlower.htm 11-10-2001 13:57:02

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) gino Profile Im thinking on buying one...do they have any PCI or Isa slots? thanks 11-10-2001 22:13:27

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Sorry Gino....no slots. You're supposed to do any expansion via USB. The Tom's hardware guide link above shows some pictures of the inside. When I get some time I'll post some pictures of mine. Ok...here's how I modified the fan setup to lessen the noise to an acceptable level. My K6III-333@400mhz does not run very hot. I'm using the biggest heatsink I could fit in there, an Antec AQ3(BestBuy $15). This has 80 fins, 150 square inches of area. It's solid aluminum, the fins are mounted for correct airflow, air passes through the fins bottom to top. The fan was way too noisy, so I replaced it with a small 3pin fan off an unused slot one dual-fan heatsink. I also replaced the lower fan with the other small fan from the slot one setup. These fans are .08amp, run slower, but at least 50% quieter. I have to get up close to the computer to tell if it's running. I can't give an exact temp for this setup...I haven't been able to find a temp monitor that works in XP. The sensors are LM78, and the Win98 sensor monitor won't work...neither will cpucool, MBM, or mbprobe. Still looking for one. However the computer remains relatively cool to the touch, even after 24 hours of running. I don't know how this setup would work with other cpus, or with more over-clocking. There is a definite problem with the default display driver in XP...Hard to explain, maybe it's the refresh rate...I'm using a Rad5 LCD monitor. Say when you go to a darker screen...the color darkens in visible waves up the screen. I cannot manually adjust the refresh rate...no option is available. I tried to get some sound using a set of Philips DSS350 USB speakers...no go, the drivers just don't work, and I can't find any updated ones on Philips website. Since the modem isn't working in XP, I set up connection sharing over the HPNA....that works. I tried the MS update site but there are no updated drivers available for XP....hopefully these driver problems can be solved. Doesn't look too promising however. 11-11-2001 06:39:22

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) smee Profile Has anybody else been working with Windows ME? I've got video and network running, but I'm having no luck with audio. Has anybody been able to find audio drivers for ME or gotten the included ones to work? If I can't work this out, I guess it's back to 98. 11-11-2001 07:38:59

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) technomage Profile Did anyone figure out how to get a K6-2+ to work in this? My EasyNow arrived this morning (not as ugly as it looks in the pictures) and I have a 450MHz K6-2+ in search of a socket. Is there something more required than setting JP19 to match the voltages on the chip, and JP1/JP4 to the 450MHz settings for K6-2/K6-III? 11-12-2001 13:49:43

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) smee Profile An update on sound under Windows ME. I still haven't been able to get any audio (audio/modem) drivers to load under ME. I attached a USB to audio-out adapter (Xitel AN-1) and the machine/ME had no trouble recognizing it. I now have sound out - but nothing in and it required using extra hardware. It sounds pretty good, though. My original plan for this machine required two separate audio outputs. I had wanted to use both the onboard sound and the AN-1. I'm still working on trying to find drivers that will work. Has anybody had any success with ME? 11-12-2001 14:52:25

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) thnkgrn Profile I got all of the drivers loaded under ME. I have the system boxed up to sell at the moment, so I cant rattle off everything at the moment. When it dials, you even get the dialtone out of the speakers as well. What I do remember was that one of the device problems was corrected when I pointed it at the 2000 drivers instead of the 9x drivers. I hope that helps a little. I can always unbox and check a little closer if you like. Anybody want to buy one with a 450, 128MB, 4gb and ME (for testing ) for $360? Peace, Thnkgrn "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make" 11-12-2001 17:07:46

OK, I waited too long (modified 0 times) NormConquest Profile | Email Now sold out at compgeeks. Anyone have another source? Or ordered one and decided they don't really want? normnconquest at yahoo dot com 11-13-2001 17:00:06

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Here you go...complete with CPU: http://www.pcliquidator.com/specials.htm 11-13-2001 19:02:44

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) technomage Profile We have ignition! The K6-2+/450 screened up at 300MHz (bus speed 100MHz, multiplier set to 3 on the board), voltage set to 2.0V/3.3V. Ctrl-alt-esc gets me to the BIOS setup. I don't entirely understand why it needs the slower clock speed to boot, but I got the idea from scanning the posts about adding this chip to an I-Opener. Apparently it has a similar limitation, boot at 300MHz and then speed the clock up under software control. Maybe something to do with the power management in the + models? Anyway, time to liberate a disk and install something. 11-13-2001 20:43:02

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Nice to know....I use cpucool to do the software warp on my I-Opener. You can set it to everything automatically....boot at 300, warp to 450 or higher after the boot. Note you can only do this with the "+" series, K62+ or K63+. CPUCool is a killer program: http://members.tripod.de/podien/ FWIW: The EasyNow from pcliquidators includes a K62-266 cpu, a cpufan, 64 megs memory. You only need a hard drive and the OS. This one looks to be all blue. 11-14-2001 04:26:22

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) smee Profile Thnkgrn: Do you think you could check on where the audio driver came from? I spent more time working on this thing last night and still can't get it to work. Most of the drivers could not recognize the hardware - ME didn't think it had any audio devices. One driver, I don't remember which one - was recognized. ME even thought it was playing audio - but I never heard anything. Now I'm starting to wonder if there's a hardware problem. I was using speakers that are known to work. Thanks 11-14-2001 06:18:35

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) pentbob Profile Folks You are not dealing with a traditional soundcard and modem here. You will notice that when you install or de-install the drivers in Win98, it does so together and also makes a directory named Modio on the "C" drive. This is typical of the software interpolated combination soundcard/modems made for clones such as the Combi-modio and Asound brand combination cards. They typically run from one chip, dump most of the work on your CPU,and you get both sound and modem together, not one or the other. You will notice that when you dial, there is quite a lag while it loads software from the drive and it gets slightly slower connect speeds, that is typical for this type of equipment. I have not seen drivers for beyond Win98 for any of these type of cards. Hoping for Biostar to write newer drivers is probably a lost cause as this is DC/d equipment. If you insist on running the latest "Billy Bloatware", your best chance will probably be to first install Win98 (which is what this older equipment was made to run) get everything working hunky-dory in 98SE, then do an upgrade over the top. That will probably do the trick for Millenium. Traditionally the true 32 bit systems do not do well with software interpolated hardware, they seem to prefer the real thing. As an aside, someone may wish to track down the Combio Express Modio. I just looked at one here, Model # AC-5618. It runs on an "Analog Devices" chip. Perhaps someone could track down the actual chip on the EasyNow to see if it is similar or the same. I haven't tracked them down in quite a while, they may have newer drivers out. 11-14-2001 13:10:07

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) NormConquest Profile | Email http://www.pcliquidator.com/specials.htm took my order, then emailed back that they're out of stock. Anyone else have an idea? 11-14-2001 18:22:44

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Too bad about the out-of-stock situation. I'll bet more of these computers will show up....Why don't you contact compgeeks to see if they can get more? Ok...here's my question. UDMA66 is supported according to the documentation, and it's written on the front of the box. I swapped the 40 wire cable with an 80 wire cable(actually I cut up a dual-drive cable, using the short section). In the BIOS the UDMA is set to AUTO...the other option is disabled. After I did this, in the device manager the current transfer mode shows up as PIO. And a Sandra benchmark is very low....checks out at 4012. What am I doing wrong? The drive is a new Maxtor, 5400rpm....UDMA transfer modes are supported. This is using XP. Arrg..... 11-15-2001 18:08:24

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) pete Profile Well setup my system with 256 Meg Mem/550 Mhz K-2 processor. Booted up first time BUT noticed the processor getting very hot and after about 20 minutes or so start getting many errors then no boot until cool again. I have a Pentium cooler/fan but did notice it still got pretty hot. How cool does the processor need to be to run efficiently and what's recommended. Noticed also that computer appears to run as fast or faster than my kid's 550 PIII computer... I am impressed with the size of the machine....any suggestions? 11-16-2001 06:25:41

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) orange Profile If anyone needs Ethernet/HPNA drivers for Windows 2000 (and maybe XP), these worked for me: http://www.malabs.com/drivers/DM1006a/Driver/LAN/1.10.00/ (btw, you only need the \WIN2000\ directory) It looks like they removed references to "AMD," and changed a few registry entries in the 1.14 version at sis.com. Also, you can only do one at a time -- either HPNA or Ethernet. Might have been an interesting bridge, but not possible... About the BIOS... I flashed mine using the 316F at biostar.com.tw. The ACPI seems to be locked at ON now, and I can see an fan icon when it starts up. I'm guessing the fan icon is there because I don't have an RPM sensor in the CPU fan. Has anyone tried the 317 at biostarusa.com? I'm still looking for a working SiS7018 Win2K/XP drivers... I don't really care about the modem part, but I would really love to get the audio working. 11-16-2001 19:00:25

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile FWIW...The HPNA works without any specific driver in XP....The Ethernet adapter shows up as an SIS 900 based....I don't know if it's working though. I'll be very sad if I have to go back to Win98 to get everything working....the display driver problem for me in XP is particularly annoying. But this whole computer works so well in XP I really don't want to go back....bloatware or not, XP works extremely well with this thing. This may have a lot to do with it's being "legacy free". Maybe Codeman can start a separate category for EasyNow! I think it qualifies very well as an Internet-Appliance, even though it's a pretty good complete computer. We need to find another supplier to get more people involved. I spent some time tonight fine-tuning the cooling aspect. I have a digital infra-red aimed non-contact thermometer. Running it over the top of the computer yields a temperature of 105F after running a cpu intensive screen-saver for about an hour. Just sitting at the desk-top, the temp drops back to about 90F. I shaved about 6 degrees off those readings by sanding the top of the CPU, and the bottom of the heat-sink. AMD cpus are not very flat on top, giving inconsistant contact with the heatsink. Lay a piece of sandpaper on a pane of glass (flat). Rub the CPU and heatsink in circular motions till they are dead flat. I started with 220 grain, then 600, finally 1500 for a smooth finish. When you're finished with the cpu, all the markings on top will be gone. Use Artic Silver paste for the best heat transfer. I'm also using a different heatsink...CompUSA sku280152, but with a very small fan I mentioned earlier. Seems to work better than the BestBuy heatsink I had in there. Also, I cut away the metal parts of the case next to the fan intake on the cpu, and cut away the metal on the bottom case above the bottom fan so the fan blows straight into the case. Also on the very top next to the heatsink, I cut another opening in the metal so air exiting the heatsink can go straight out the top. None of these metal cuts are visible with the case back on....and I'm using very small fans, with a low noise level. Anybody having heat problems should try these things before resorting to a more powerful/noisy fan. 11-16-2001 21:35:04

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Bee007 Profile I used Thermaltake Golden Orb for cooling, but have to cut the side with a Dremel. It works great and be able to overclock AMD k6-III 333mhz to 450mhz at 2.8v. 11-17-2001 01:08:13

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile UDMA66 update.....I'm back to Win98 and UDMA66 works with my hacked up 80 wire cable. Sandra benchmark on a Maxtor 15gig 5400rpm checks at 17013...pretty good. I then installed the IDE performance utility off the driver cdrom....with that running the Sandra score increased to 18416, quite an improvement. 11-17-2001 19:38:54

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) pete Profile Working well here with WIN98SE. Still running too hot and noticed that will continue running setting multiplier to 4x using a K2-550Mhz. Like your suggestions CKBONE so will probably do same with IDE cable and cooling. This is a nice and small hackable box. What I noticed was to always be able to get to the BIOS just hit the ALT-DEL-ESC combo just as it recognized the USB keyboard on startup. The CD-Drive is pretty loud so its functional but not aestically pleasing. Be nice to find the external floppy USB drive....I have seen them somewhere before but don't remember where....will search....probably a good buy 'cuz I really don't see a purpose for them other than for this box....This box would also work well as a firewall/router with the folks that currently are getting DSL with USB type of modems (routers)... 11-18-2001 11:28:01

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Easystreet Profile Has anyone figured how to optimize the bios? There are settings in there I havent seen before or are worded differently. 11-19-2001 20:10:58

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) pete Profile <Easystreet> I just went to each option hitting the <F1> key to look for the defaults and that appears to be working for me. I am currently just upgrading from a K-2 550Mhz (which works but is still kind of slow) to a K-III + 450 which I can probably clock up a little bit and also adding an IDE cable (UDMA66) to give me some more speed. Think I will be using this machine as a USB video capture device for my new ADS USB hardware MPEG capture device. 11-20-2001 14:24:52

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Easystreet Profile Yeah, I have a K6-2 550 too. I just used a Samsung 3.5 hd that I had lying around and it seems to boot kinda slow. I havent had time to try to use the 6x multiplier yet. I am running at 2.2 Vcore though,chip says 2.3.....mb has 2.2 or 2.4.....but it's stable. I liked the Easynow enough to get a Gateway flex mb from fleabay for $19 and an Inwin flex case. I like the size of this stuff. 11-20-2001 16:58:17

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) pete Profile Tried the updated BIOS last week but appears to hang midway into booting 98SE. I am guessing that it is a setting somewhere but haven't found it yet. I was thinking of getting a BOOKPC just for this video stuff but most of the video I have been playing around with I edit a lot on another PC...so want to dedicate this one to just capture...no editing, CD burning etc...putting it on the network let's me copy the MPEGS over to my Video editing computer....ghosted working base 98SE image to move to a bigger drive... 11-20-2001 17:18:59

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile FWIW...There are updated drivers available off the MS update site for the sound, both Win98 and XP. I can't notice any difference in W98....when the driver for XP installed I heard a pop...but the sound still has a problem, code 11, and it still doesn't work. Grrr. 11-20-2001 19:55:40

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Ok....Here's what this computer needs: A power-on light you can see from the front, and a little perking up from a front view. Here's my idea of the day. An EasyNow logo sticker right above the cdrom door. I'm going to print one on a clear decal which should hold on the translucent front cover. Now, here's the neat part. Tap into the 12v internal lead, install a few small LEDs behind the sticker. You now have a lited EasyNow logo sticker. All I have to do is find an appropriate logo somewhere, or make one up. I haven't been able to find many ideas....I have yet to see any picture of this computer with any logos at all. Any ideas here? 11-21-2001 17:34:10

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Ok...here's a set of benchmarks on Win98se with all updates, using Sandra 001, K6III-333@400mhz (2.4v), Maxtor 15gig 5400rpm using an 80 wire cable, 256meg ram PNY 133, default BIOS settings. CPUIDLE 5.8 running, and the XStore utility applied...no other tweaks... CPU.....994-470 ALU-FPU CPU-Multimedia.....1191-1659 MMX-3DNow File system(hard drive).......14420 Memory...102-101 MMX-FPU Here are the temperatures with the cooling tweaks already mentioned. Ambient temp 72f at idle.....cpu 34c mboard 38c top outside of case 87f Hi-usage....cpu 38c mboard 45c Top outside of case 92f I'm not certain about the hard drive score....first time I did this the score was much higher, only changes since then are a disk-defrag. Go figure. Anyway, these should give you an idea of how your system checks out. This is a really fast setup...it handles everything I've tried very well, including video capture. Amazingly, this win98/XP setup has never crashed once.... 11-22-2001 10:57:33

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile More Info....Pivot 5.01 screen rotation software works fine with Win98 and the SIS530 video driver. Get one of the Mag LT501 LCDs on sale tomorrow at BestBuy...cool setup. 11-22-2001 17:49:12

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Here's another supply...This guy currently has four auctions going on E-Bay(pc systems, AMD, K6). He's installing a K62450, 32mbram, complete with a Win98cd.....These appear to be the all-blue version. http://www.cyberdenizen.net/ 11-22-2001 18:25:37

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) thnkgrn Profile Here is a auction for one of the cool silver ones with a 450, 128MB and a 8GB HD http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1301255073 "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make" 11-23-2001 14:45:15

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile More cooling tweaks....I opened up the holes in the bottom of the plastic case with a drill...by looking it it I'd guess the air intake area increased 50%. This computer has a perfect configuration for totally passive cooling, cool air on the very bottom rises up, over the board, through the cooling fins of the cpu which is on the very top, and then out the top of the case. When you put a cpu fan in its normal position, some of the hot air off the cpu is blown back into the case, upsetting the airflow from the bottom, thereby upsetting the normal thermal air movement...cool air on the bottom is pulled up by the hot air rising off the cpu. This was confirmed by my original temperature measurements....motherboard temps were much higher than cpu temps. Ok...here's what I am trying right now. I totally removed the cpu fan. Now I have only the one smaller than stock fan on the bottom blowing up. Here's the new temp readings: Idle temps: Cpu 37c....mboard 42c.....top outside of the case 85f High usage: Cpu 44c....mboard 45c.....top outside of the case 88f This is well within safe temps for me. Maybe I could remove the bottom fan, for a totally silent computer? Remember to apply all the case tweaks mentioned above, if you want to try this. Again this is using a K6III-333@400, 2.4v. Also a very large heatsink, compUSA sku# 280152. Also cpuidle 5.8 is running. This last test is not over yet, but it looks like it'll be ok. The noise level is down at least 75% from when I first got this computer running. 11-25-2001 07:54:08

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Update to lighting up the front of the case.....I'm using four RadioShack Mini colored lamps #272-0199. These are 12v, but I'm running them on 5v (the red 5v and black ground on the hard drive).I tried the different colors, red, green, yellow. I settled on the yellow... so I have four yellow lites, one in each corner, behind the translucent front cover. These lite up when the computer is turned on. For the logo stickers, the clear decals don't look very good. So I settled on regular sticker paper (it removes easily), printed out 1" square stickers I got off various sites. There's an EasyNow logo off the AMD site that looks pretty good. I used blue/green and black for the colors, laminated the stickers, and applied them on the top of the cover right over the center point of the lites, which shine through the stickers...looks pretty good. I'm still on the look-out for different designs. FWIW ....I've been running this computer for over 24 hours now without a cpu fan...no problems yet.....the cpu remains about 38/40c. 11-26-2001 14:44:50

Overclocking FSB (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile The next step up from 100Mhz FSB is 112Mhz. Set JP4 as follows: 1-2 Open 3-4 Open 5-6 Closed 7-8 Open This sets cpu/ram at 112Mhz FSB. There are 2 faster FSB settings, but the IDE controller chokes on them. (PCI too fast) 11-27-2001 12:22:35

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Crap...CompGeeks had these back in stock....I posted this morning, but whatever problem this BBS had earlier eraced my post. Now they're out of stock again. I lucked out and got in an order for two more. Just keep checking CompGeeks regularly I guess. TigerDirect has the K62+450 for $35. Hey Reverand...just how fast do you have yours running? Any benchmarks? Have you got XP on the thing? Anyone know where the temperature sensors are located? 11-28-2001 17:40:06

Here's another source -- $92 (modified 0 times) NormConquest Profile | Email http://shop.store.yahoo.com/cyberex/sys-oem-easyblue.html 11-28-2001 22:15:10

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile <ckbone> I am running a K6-2+ at 502Mhz. (3 x 112 at boot). My benchmarks are pretty bad compared to my Soyo/FIC Super 7 comps, but here is where I am at: CPUMARK 27.2 Sandra ALU/CPU = 1208 FPU/CPU = 606 ALU/RAM = 110 FPU/RAM = 160 This is on Win 98 at 502Mhz. (4.5 x 112) The CPU temp sensor is the brownish plastic strip in the middle of the CPU socket. It needs something put under it so it makes contact on the CPU. The motherboard temp sensor is at the lower back of the board in the power supply. Locate the black heat sinks, the sensor is the blue part labeled "RT2" right next to them. 11-28-2001 23:08:42

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile I got the chips I ordered from TigerDirect in two days flat, with the cheapest shipping...wow! These are K62+450ACZ, 2.0v. Good deal at $35. I changed the fan setup again...this is the best compromize between cooling/noise. I found two really small 12v fans (I think off a hard drive cooling setup). I mounted them blowing up on the very top, between the heatsink and the top of the metal case. These are within 1/16" of the heatsink, so they draw air directly off the heatsink fins. For now the bottom fan is in it's original position(it's a smaller than stock fan though).New temps: Idle.........cpu 32c Mboard 41c 100% cpu usage....cpu 39c Mboard 48c For this last test I ran an MPEG full screen for two loops of 20 minutes each. Top outside of the case didn't register over 85f. I may try two of these very small fans on the bottom of the case. They're dead quiet...maybe one in the voltage regulator area would bring down the Mboard temps. Even now the outside of the case is completely cool. I'm hoping this K62+450 will be even cooler, perhaps allowing some tweaking without getting too hot. 11-29-2001 20:44:03

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile <CKBONE> Tried an AMD K3 450+ 2.0v with no luck....have u had any luck with this chip or any one else out there? Any suggestions? 11-30-2001 18:27:49

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile <PeteC> Try setting the board at 100Mhz FSB with a 3x multiplier and see if it will boot. 11-30-2001 22:31:36

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile <ckbone> FSB was set to 100Mhz as I have been using the K-2 550Mhz with no problems. No luck with 3x. Next going to try updating BIOS. BIOS update works but hangs as it's booting 98SE with current setup. Odd that the 450K3+ doesn't work. Have not tried bringing the speed down at all below 100. Will try 66Mhz also. Frustrating. 12-01-2001 00:13:58

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile PeteC....Haven't tried the 450 chip yet, mine is a K62+, not a K63+. You would think a K63+ should work about the same though. Here's a new project....This computer will drive a set of passive speakers using the headphone out port (no amplifier). The sound level is controled by the wave volume. Anyway, you could easily mount a set of small speakers completely inside the case. You would have to make openings in the plastic, construct a speaker grill cover.....I like the idea of a completely self-contained system. If you don't care for really high volumes, this would work out just fine. 12-01-2001 04:28:49

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile <ckbone> Was able to get it to boot with the K-2III+ 450Mhx with the 3X setup. So far no luck upping the speed....tried the software mentioned earlier in this thread and it appears not to work....will keep playing.. 12-01-2001 22:28:27

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile <PeteC> After booting with a 3x multiplier use k6clkwin.zip to raise the multiplier. Put the winclkini.com file in your autoexec.bat and then use k6clkwin to change the multiplier in Windows. http://www.geocities.com/uart0/ This works great with my K6-2+ . There are also some good files for enableing write combining and write allocation. 12-01-2001 23:29:01

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile <Reverend Jones> Thank-you for your suggestion. Worked great! Clocked it to 6X in autoexec. Confirmed speed in Sandra. Noticed that K3 + 550Mhz chip runs much cooler than the K2 550Mhz processor. Now to HD and CKBONE's cooling suggestions. 12-02-2001 07:49:05

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile PeteC...glad to see you got your K6-III+ working. Did you also bump up the FSB to 112 like The Reverand suggested? I'm interested in the sandra benchmarks, cpu, memory etc with your setup. This computer is really shaping up.....I pin-striped the edges of the front cover with some black/silver stripes. While I was at the auto parts store I found a small 4" 12v neon lite (purple). Had to try it....the controller board is very small, and I mounted it on the top behind the front cover, the lite itself fits cross-ways on the bottom, directly behind the lever that opens the cdrom door. Since the whole of the front cover is transulent, the soft neon glow lites up the whole bottom half of the front. It doesn't get even warm, and the current draw is very small. I like this setup....too bad I can't fit another one on the top of the case. This lite is made by Quest Industries, #22670. Got it at AutoZone.....$17. It's called a 4" Neon Mood Lite. 12-02-2001 14:56:58

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile More cooling mods....I put a small 486 fan on the bottom right next to the regulators. It required removing some of the plastic channels on the case...It's not visible though. Running this fan setup really brought down the monitored mboard temps...The Reverend was right about the location of the sensors. Here are the new temps Idle temps................32c cpu 32c mboard Mpeg running for 40 minutes.....42c cpu 37 mboard. I suspect the K6II+450 will run slightly cooler....if I ever get it installed. Here's something I found out....You can lessen the noise of the cdrom quite a bit by a few strips of duct tape on the edges of the metal inner case, insulating it from the plastic outer case. It's vibration that makes it so noisy....you can bring the noise way down without a whole lot of sweat. 12-02-2001 18:06:35

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile <ckbone> Will up FSB to 112 Mhz next. Did you flip the direction of air flow of the quieter lower case fan you installed? Does the neon light you installed cause any rf? Would you know where to get a translucent monitor? Thinking of a Peltier junction module for the CPU. 12-02-2001 22:55:08

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile PeteC....All four fans blow up. In order help out thermal air flow, cooler air on the bottom must go up, being helped out by the placement of the cpu (on top). I think I'll replace the last noisy fan with another 486 fan....all the temps are down now, so it should work. With two small fans on the bottom, the airflow across the board is pretty even. I haven't found any RF problems with the neon lite...or any problems for that matter. It's very cool-looking, also somewhat practical, liting up the lever for the cdrom door, and liting the two front USB ports. 12-03-2001 04:37:30

Benchmarks (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile Some benchmarks for a K6-3+ @616Mhz CPUMark = 40 Sandra ALU/CPU = 1470 FPU/CPU = 741 MMX = 2336 3DNOW = 2699 ALU/RAM = 111 FPU/RAM = 162 For some reason this thing is slow. For comparison a K6-3+ @ 560 on my Soyo MB does 56 CPUMark and a K6-3+ @560 on my FIC MB does 63 CPUMark. Excuse me while I go screw with the hardware some more. 12-03-2001 23:33:23

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) gadgetjon Profile | Email anyone running win2k? I can't seem to get the video driver to work. I've tried 3 versions of driver and only get 16 colors. Video works fine with win98, but then I can't get the ethernet to work. 12-04-2001 05:45:16

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) gadgetjon Profile | Email I flashed the bios with the 316 version. that got the vga working in win2k, but stopped the ethernet from working. on the bootup screen where it checks each component, the LAN didn't appear to pass. I downgraded to the original bios image and now the LAN works again but the vga is back to 16 colors. 12-04-2001 12:54:28

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) HammerinHank Profile When you had 2000 up, did the audio work? A couple of us have had XP up, and as I recall both the video went at least 256 colors and 800/600, and the NIC worked as well. However, no one seems to have XP up with audio????? Has anyone brought one up with all the 98SE drivers installed (everything working) and upgraded this configuration to XP? Hank 12-04-2001 15:47:45

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Yeah...that's the first thing I tried. Had everything working in 98se...upgraded straight to XP...no go. Audio n/w, no modem, video problem after the upgrade. I wiped that install, reinstalled 98se, then set up a dual-boot with XP. Xp is right back with all it's problems. I'm waiting for a SIS530 vga driver for XP...none out yet. I think a set of USB speakers will get you sound, if you find XP drivers . A USB modem would work...again when XP drivers are out. 12-04-2001 17:05:21

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) numbski Profile Could someone do me a favor? If you have XP installed on this, go into device manager. I found out a while back that M$ did something really stupid under 2k/XP. Non Plug and Play devices are under 'hidden devices'. That's right. HIDDEN. Why? I have no freaking clue. View/Show Hidden Devices Tell me if you don't see our missing modem and sound devices there now. Kthx. 12-05-2001 05:18:21

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) gadgetjon Profile | Email mine dual boots win98se and win2k. In win2k under other devices it shows multimedia audio controller not working. Display adapters it shows sis530 having a conflict with d000-d07F (mine's the one that got the vga working after the bios upgrade, but the ethernet stopped working. i've reverted back to the original bios). If I view hidden devices, under non plug and play it shows parport and serial as not working. In network adapters it shows direct parallel, wan miniport (IP), wan miniport (L2TP), wan miniport (PPTP), all working properly. 12-05-2001 05:42:37

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile I checked out another AutoZone to see if they had anymore/different 12v neon stuff. This place had a number of different neon devices all by Quest Industries. I picked up what they call an "EL StringLight". This is a 5' long neon string about 1/8" diameter, with a very small control box, available in purple, blue or red. The string is very flexable, and could fit around the inside of the front cover, with enough length to also surround the inside of the cdrom cover. Haven't done anything with it yet, but it has a number of possibilities....very, very, cool-looking. $20. 12-05-2001 18:53:30

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) gadgetjon Profile | Email still can't get LAN and VGA with win2k with BIOSes 1107f(11/9/00) and 0316f(3/16/01) the ethernet fails the bootup (with the picture of the computer) screen. Display looks good with 0316f, didn't try it with 1117f with BIOSes 1117b(11/17/99) and the original BIOS(12/15/99) the ethernet works but VGA is still 16 colors. 12-06-2001 13:02:59

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile There is an update available for the SiS530 vga bios. Maybe a cure for some of the vga problems? http://www.sis.com/support/driver/530.htm (bottom of the page) 12-06-2001 15:56:00

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) gadgetjon Profile | Email Rev, I've been using ver. 108. also tried 105 thru 107. I'll try that VGA bios thing on that page. thanks. 12-07-2001 07:09:53

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) HammerinHank Profile Check ComputerGeeks. 0800 Sunday morning 12/9 they had EasyNows up for $88.00. Their pricing is a classic economics lesson: they were first up for $78.00, then "cleared out" for $62.00, and now $88.00. 12-09-2001 06:06:56

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile I got my second order from compgeeks. Now I've got a K62+450 from TigerDirect running on another EasyNow. Here's one guy's opinions on this chip: "The K6-X series of processors have never really been taken seriously as a choice for the hardcore gamer. The K6 was plagued with a 66MHz Front Side Bus and a 66MHz L2 cache, The K6-2 added 3DNow! Instructions that made the K6-2 the choice budget Quake 2 rig. Unfortunately, 3DNow! was not implemented as well on most other games and a series of hacked patches and drivers kept K6-2 users searching for ways to improve performance at the game and driver level. The K6-III boasted 256K of full speed on die L2 cache, which made up for the K6-X's anemic floating-point unit, but the K6-III suffered production problems and would not ramp well. AMD only officially released the K6-III in speed grades of 400MHz and 450MHz for the desktop which retailed at over twice the price of similar clocked K6-2 Processors. OEMs chose the K6-2 over the K6-III in order to keep cost down regardless of performance. Enter the K6-2+. AMD dropped the K6-III line earlier this year in favor of targeting the mobile market with the K62+/III+ processors. By shrinking the 0.25-micron die down to 0.18-micron the K6-2+ was able to run at higher clock speeds with minimal cooling. The K6-2+ ranges from 500MHz to 550Mhz with a 600MHz model to launch shortly. With 128K of full speed on die cache and added 3DNow! Instructions, the K6-2+ makes for a quite powerful mobile CPU. In the midst of the launch of the K6-2+/III+ many motherboard manufacturers were lead to believe that the K6-2+/III+ series would indeed make their way to the desktop market. Identification for the + line of processors were added to many motherboards through BIOS updates. Unfortunately, there is a wealth of motherboards that will never officially support the K6-2+, which brings us to the methods of unlocking the potential of an otherwise mediocre chip. Part 1: Optimizing the K6-2+ The K6-2+ has the ability to be a very powerful CPU. Unfortunately without proper hardware support the K6-2+ can run as slowly as a 486. The best known optimization for the K62+ is Write Allocation, this can add up to a 30% increase in Direct3D performance as well as memory throughput. The majority of SS7 motherboards support this feature, however, they will only enable it if the CPU is detected properly. I encourage everyone to first find the latest BIOS for their motherboard to see if the BIOS reports a "K6-2+." If this is the case, you are halfway there. SiSoft Sandra can be used to determine whether or not write allocation is enabled, Check under the CPU&BIOS properties from Sandra and look at Extended CPU Features.” You will see the following: Power Now Data Prefetch Speculative Write ordering Write allocation Write allocate 15-16Meg Everything should be enabled save for PowerNow!, as this is a new feature only available in notebook systems. If any of the above features are not enabled then your K6-2+ is not properly optimized. The next step in optimizing your K6-2+ system is to enable linear frame buffer optimization and the K6-2's enhanced write buffer extension or EWBE.”Once again, some systems will automatically enable this feature. If you cannot enable these features in the BIOS, you must use a third party application. I have compiled a list of programs that work with the K6-2+. Powertweak RawPower MxK6opt (Write allocation and speculative write ordering) K6WAON (Write Allocation) Set-EWBE (Enhanced Write Buffer) K6wc1 (Enables Write Combining) Out of all the programs tested, only Powertweak was able to enable all of the advanced CPU features. I spoke with the author of Powertweak and he will soon be releasing the patch for full K6-2+ support. I am sure that all registered users can receive the Alpha patch. RawPower enabled all features except Speculative Write ordering. Benchmarks showed no difference with this feature enabled or disabled, so RawPower makes a great alternative. Both Programs have downloadable evaluation copies that will last for 20 days. Overclocking The K6-2+ I will keep this part short and sweet. The K6-2+ is the most overclockable SS7 CPU to date, which doesn't say a lot. I tested five chips and, with the aid of an Alpha Cooler, I was only able to reach 617 MHz with complete stability. The funny thing is, I can reach the same 617 MHz with an ordinary Pentium heatsink/fan and the CPU temperature never rose above 32C at any time. The K6-2+ is rated at 80C, so I doubt that heat is going to be a limiting factor on this chip. Once again the full speed L2 cache is the problem here. Here is a list of recommended clock speed combinations. Also there is absolutely no reason for any K6-2+/500 to reach less 600 Mhz. As for the Vcore, 2.1-2.3v is sufficient for any of the listed speeds. 133X4.5=598MHz (Top Choice) 124X5.0=620MHz 112X5.5=617MHz 120X5.0=600MHz 100X6.0=600MHz " Since we have no BIOS support for a K62+ chip, it is necessary to use software to enable all it's features. I'm using CPUCool to adjust the multiplier and a few other things under "CPU optimazation". I took this guy's suggestion and down-loaded PowerTweak. It works just fine for me, and the Sandra program now reports everything is enabled....except PowerNow of course. Anyone finding anymore tweaking info for this computer/CPU combo, please let us all know. Here's a link to PowerTweak.... http://linux.powertweak.com/ 12-09-2001 15:22:14

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Oh, forgot something. On this new setup I spent some time applying sound deadening material to the inside of the plastic case. I used stuff from BestBuy called Xtreme Dynamat #10425. This is used during Hi-end auto speaker installs....I also filled the six plastic channels with closed cell foam. This really cut down the cdrom and fan noise....can't say how much, but it's noticeable. 12-09-2001 15:39:53

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Bluesguy_1 Profile Just ordered mine plus a K6-2 550 from compgeeks.com. I ordered the K62 because I plan on running linux on this thing, and no one seems to have a utility yet to soft modify the CPU speed on the fly for Linux. The http://linux.powertweak.com/ reference above looks like it will eventually support it, but not quite yet. Besides, the 550 was only $38 and it was easier to buy it there than hunting around somewhere else (and paying shipping twice). Hopefully this thing will make a good router, and I can get away with jsut passive cooling (i.e. no moving parts). I got a decent copper heatsink from buy.com and I'm adding a second USB nic and I've got a compact flash (256MB) -> IDE adapter on the way that I'll use as storage mechanism for the OS. Hopefully it's not too loud. Some of the earlier posts mentioned noise as a problem. I want a cheap set top router without any moving parts. Bluesguy_1 12-10-2001 13:28:36

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile As the last post just said, EasyNow computers are back in stock at CompGeeks.....this time for $88. http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=easysilver 12-10-2001 17:10:02

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Here's something that may or may not be true. I reformatted my first hard drive and installed Win98 again...this time I used an 80 wire IDE cable for the install. Now the sandra benchmarks always show a UDMA 66 speed. This perhaps has some affect on the whole setup. When I did the setup with a 40 wire cable, then switched to an 80 wire cable....the Sandra benchmarks were not consistant, sometimes reading very low. Go figure. Another thing....if you're having heat troubles, try assembling the computer with the top cover for the metal inner cage removed. This opens up the interior, allowing more room for heat to escape. If you worry about RFI, try lining the plastic cover with aluminum foil. Mine running without any foil lining doesn't seem to bother any radios or tvs in the room. This may allow a passive cooling setup....although K62 cpus run pretty warm. 12-10-2001 19:24:50

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile I toyed with this idea before trying it. I'm running one of my new EasyNows with a laptop hard drive. I did this to enlarge the area between the drive and the cpu heat sink. With the larger clearance I was able to mount a small 486 fan on that side of the cpu blowing up/out of the case. I think this is the best setup if you're concerned about heat and noise. This new setup has two 486 fans on the bottom blowing up and the one 486 fan on the cpu. The location of this fan lessens the noise quite a bit. This new setup is the coolest yet...... Idle temp....cpu 32c......Mboard 32c.....outside top 27c Hi-usage.....cpu 37c......Mboard 36c.....outside top 30c This is with a K6III-333 at 400mhz..I tried uping the voltage to 2.7v but this chip won't boot at 4.5x100, nor will it boot with the FSB set at 112. I hesitate to go higher than 2.7v. Pentbob said his 333 booted at 2.8v....anybody else tried this? I am unable to find a really small USB keyboard....so here's what I did: I got a Targus port replicator working(PA070). It has two ps2 ports, so I got a small Dauphin keyboard working. Win 98 doesn't even complain about a missing keyboard wnen you boot.... 12-12-2001 18:32:39

My 3 Cents. (modified 0 times) StrangeDog Profile I also have been playing with an EasyNow. My specs: AMD K-II 550 @ 550mhz Basic Socket 7 Heatsink/Fan 256 Meg PC-133 Maxtor 40gig drive (at ATA-66 with a new cable) My windows XP-erience. At first I had problems with the system shuting down as I booted from the CD. I would shut down at certain points. I reduced the problem to the BIOS shadowing in the firmware. Once this option was turned off I loaded up. I never experience the video problem described elsewhere, perhaps because I also turned off the Video shadowing as well as setting the AGP Frame to 64 and the AGP memory to 8mb. The sound/modem is another story. Needless to say, after trying numerous drivers for both the 7018 Audio and the SmartLink AMR(MDC) modem I still failed. Another anoyance was the network card which functioned with a quirk. The connection would failed on bootup and could be restored by going into setup for the network card and changing the media type. My switch does not care and it made XP happy. I tried the latest driver to no effect. The "Show hidden drivers" setting gave me a "serial?" that I deleted and could not restore. I wonder if that was the modem. The microsoft knowlegde base basicly says that you are on your own (or at the manufacturers mercy) regarding any non-pnp hardware (such as the audio and modem for this thing) As I have a Christmas deadline for my easynow I am downgrading to 98. Hopefully someone gains from my efforts SD 12-16-2001 21:22:49

This, That, and the Other (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile A few things in no particular order. >If you miss hearing your Easy Now beep at you, a internal speaker can be added at JP6. A small speaker/transducer from an old motherboard works great. Mount it in the bottom, facing down. >To add a hardware reset button connect a momentary push button switch to JP23.(JP23 is hidden behind the battery) Mount the switch on the back panel. No more unplugging the power supply if the comp locks up. >The place on the board by the fan where the 24 pin connector is missing? It is a LPC Port. (LPC = low pin count; an Intel Specification) Designed to replace the isa bus, it gives a place to hook a Super I/O chip. Also supported by some Flash roms and Memory card interface chips. >Look behind the ide connectors on the motherboard. See the white sticker with the serial number on it? Hidden underneath is a place to add an ATX power supply connector. Good to know for people who are tired of the stock 60 watt supply. (Yes 60 watt, not 100) >The Sis960 supports PS-2 (no, not the Play Station 2) keyboard and mouse connectors. The keyboard PS-2 just requires wire and a connector. The mouse PS-2 also requires a small bios modification. To add the keyboard PS-2 connector: First find some wire and a PS-2 jack. Locate the spot on the board marked R75. (1/2 inch to the rear of SiS960). The resistor is not installed on the board. Run a wire from the pad of R75 which is closest to the front of the comp, to pin 1 on the PS-2 jack. Locate the spot on the board marked R79. (Right next to R75). This resister is also not installed. Run a wire from the pad of R79 which is closest to the front of the comp, to pin 5 and 6 of the PS-2 jack. Run a wire from pin 1 of the LPC connector( Pin 1 is marked on the board, bottom row towards the back) to pin 3 of the PS-2 jack. Locate fuse F3(green surface mount part marked 075.Is located at front bottom corner of board by drive/USB plugs). Run a wire from the front pad of F3 to pin 4 of the PS-2 jack. Mount the PS-2 jack and you are ready to go. >And why is the heatsink on the SiS530 installed with hot glue? AACCCKKK! Definately needs some Artic Silver epoxy. 12-16-2001 23:47:39

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Hey Rev....Where are you finding all this info on the board? Very helpful stuff....the PS2 hack would be very useful....do you think it would support a keyboard and mouse by the use of a splitter...like an I-Opener? For all you really daring hackers, the EasyNow is now available in purple, back to $78. http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=EASYPURPLE 12-19-2001 05:16:10

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile >Hey Rev....Where are you finding all this info on the board? From the Easynow manual, the chipset datasheets, and examining the hardware. What I listed for the PS2 keyboard is for the keyboard only. I am using a PS2 keyboard with a USB mouse. The SiS960 does support a PS2 mouse, but it is disabled in the bios. The following information SHOULD give you a working PS2 mouse port, but I have not yet verified it.Proceed with caution, slippery when wet, etc. Use Award flash to save a copy of your present bios. Put an extra copy aside for safe keeping. Open your bios copy with modbin.Go to "chipset setup default". Then "Integrated Peripherals". Scroll down till you get to the line starting with "PS/2 mouse function". Change "item-status", "Bios default", and "Setup default" to enabled. Update the bios file and quit. Use Award Flash to flash the modified bios. Find a PS/2 jack and some wire. (again) Locate the spot on the board marked R465. (1/4 inch to the rear of SiS960). The resistor is not installed on the board.Run a wire from the pad closest to the top of the comp to pins 5 and 6 of the PS/2 jack. Locate the spot on the board marked R464. (right next to R465). The resistor is not installed on the board. Run a wire from the pad closest to the top of the comp to pins 1 and 2 on the PS/2 jack. Run a wire from pin 1 of the LPC connector( Pin 1 is marked on the board, bottom row towards the back) to pin 3 of the PS-2 jack. Locate fuse F3(green surface mount part marked 075.It is located at the front bottom corner of board by the drive/USB plugs). Run a wire from the front pad of F3 to pin 4 of the PS-2 jack. Once again, this is untested. With the keyboard and mouse on separate jacks the splitter will not be needed. 12-19-2001 22:38:40

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Till this point, I was under the impression that the mobile K62+ chips ran cooler than a K6III chip. This has not proven to be true for me.....quite the contrary. My K63-333, running at 400mhz, 2.4v, runs 6/7c cooler than a K62+450 @450mhz, 2.0 volts. The case mods are the same, and I'm even using a more powerful fan on the K62+ chip. Hard to figure...what kind of temps are the regular K62 chips running at? The aluminum heatsink of the video chip needs some help. Mine had some globs of hot glue(?) holding it on, like the Rev said. One side wasn't even attached properly...besides that the fins were not properly aligned to the air-flow. It pulled off easily....I reatached it, rotated it 90 degrees, using Artic Silver paste, then glued it to the board using clear silicone rubber on the edges. I put a small weight on it while it dried over-night....this should work much better. 12-24-2001 14:52:30

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Easystreet Profile Is anyone else having problems with the cd-drive? My cd-drive kinda works,but mostly...not. I can hear it "rev" up and down, up and down. It did work good enough to install Win98SE but now it wont even load a driver. Sometimes it will read files on the cd and sometimes it wont. I plugged in another cd-drive and it works fine. I tried an external power supply on the stock cd-drive but that had no effect. Anyone know whether I can strip down a "regular" cd-drive and replace the stock cd-drive? 12-27-2001 22:26:08

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Too bad about your cdrom...I'd try a reinstall of the OS before any drastic measures. This is a variable speed cdrom....that's why you hear speed-ups. I've reduced the noise factor by case insulation and some strips of duct tape. The noise is caused by the front cover vibrating against the case. If you can't get the cdrom fixed or replaced, you could turn the front into a large speaker/speakers. External USB cdroms are getting cheaper all the time...I've seen them for under $100. FWIW...I wonder if there is a software prog that could limit the speed of the cdrom? As long as it doesn't try to run at 24x, it's quiet. 12-28-2001 05:06:04

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Hooray.......I finally got sound working in XP. I'm using Philips USB SS350 speakers. These refused to work until I installed the new SIS XP USB Registry patch available here: http://www.sis.com/support/driver/utility.htm I've got a serial modem working by means of a port replicator (USB/serial). So far so good....I installed the string neon light I mentioned earlier....it runs around the edges of the translucent front cover (no other lights). This actually lights up the whole front pretty well. It's not very bright in daylight....but at night it looks cool. 12-30-2001 12:48:08

re: wish to slow down cdrom (modified 0 times) drdoc Profile | Email nero burning rom cd software has the utility you want "Nero Drive Speed Nero Drive Speed is a utility to change the read speed of CD-ROM drives and recorders. High speed drives can be very noisy when running at full speed. This can be irritating when playing multimedia files such as MP3 or video files. Reducing the speed not only reduces the noise but also decreases the spinup and spindown times. This can greatly improve playability of games who need to access the CD-ROM drive." Its in the nero toolkit. You can download a trial at www.ahead.de 01-04-2002 01:58:14

Patched BIOS (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile I have patched the Bios for K6+ support so it will boot at full speed. I also upgraded the vga bios to version 1.08. If anyone is interested in a copy let me know. Reverend Jones 01-16-2002 22:21:58

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile R-Jones, I am interested in your BIOS patch. Can you please email patch to me...thanks... 01-17-2002 05:49:59

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile <PeteC> Sure. What is your e-mail address? 01-17-2002 08:55:15

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Wow....pretty neat. I'd like a copy of the new BIOS also. Rev, I think you have my home address. I've been having trouble with attachments. Could you just send me a copy please? Also....could you describe the exact procedure for flashing the BIOS on this computer. It's not a procedure I feel comfortable with, so any help will be appreciated. Over-all, I've been pleased with this computer. XP is still not working 100%. My USB Philips speakers sometimes get "lost" upon a reboot. But the one running Win98 works perfect. Been involved building a new #1 computer lately, but I'll be back to hacking on my EasyNows shortly. 01-17-2002 17:26:12

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile <ckbone> I will put you a copy (with instructions) in the mail tomorrow. Reverend Jones 01-17-2002 18:38:24

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile <R-Jones> It is pcalleros@hotmail.com Thanks again. 01-17-2002 18:45:26

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile HELP! I have two BIOSTARs EasySilver's and cannot find my drivers disk. Both of them have been misplaced and have wiped out audio/modem combo drivers on initial setup. Can anyone help?? Can anyone provide a description of what the CD looks like....I know it's just been misplaced... 01-19-2002 12:21:17

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile The cdrom is sort-of blue and white. If you can't find it I can send you a copy...mine's around here somewhere, plus I've got one in an unopened box. FWIW...My k62+450 would occasionally reboot on it's own (XP). I raised the voltage to 2.1v ....that seems to have cured the problem. Temps are about the same. 01-19-2002 16:36:09

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile <ckbone> Found the CD. Thank-you for your offer. <Reverend_Jones> Installed your new Bios. Working well. Will it let me jumper speed/multiplier on MB for my KIII 450Mhz Plus to 600 Mhz intead of using application multiplier? 01-19-2002 19:58:48

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile If the K6-III+ will work at 600Mhz, yes. Another option is 616Mhz; 5.5 mult. & 112 buss. 01-19-2002 21:24:46

I'm haveing problems waking the system up, anyone else? (modified 1 times) matt832 Profile I've been playing with this system for a few months now but somewhere along the line something happened and it won't "wake up" any more. Does anyone else have this problem or a solution? I haven't updated the BIOS, and I'm running W98SE. Everything else is working fine. As to updating the BIOS, any tricks here? Is everyone doing it from the C: drive, I don't have a USB floppy. Any help is appreciated........ 01-21-2002 22:39:45

Computer won't wake up. Advice? (modified 0 times) kenwilfy Profile | Email I am a lurker on this BBS, have been for a while. Just got my Easy Silver from Comp Geeks yesterday. Set it up with an AMD K6-2 475 mhz processor, heatsink/fan, and 128 megs of memory from the Geeks. I added a 10 gig hard drive that I have been using for a while in an older machine. Set up Win 98 on the machine, and after a reinstall of Win 98 and using the driver's disk that came with the machine, everything seemed to work properly. I left the machine on over night last night and came into my office this morning to find that the screen was blank. Pushing the power button didn't produce any results. Unhooking the power supply, and hooking it back in, didn't either. I took the thing back apart and removed and reinstalled the memory and then attempted a reboot. This time the Easy Now Screen came up, but after it ran through it's little thing again I got a blank screen. I tried reseating the memory again, and nothing. I tried a known good 32 meg stick of memory that I just took out of another machine a couple of days ago. Nothing. The fans come on, the CD rom spins and the CD rom light flahes a couple of times, the hard drive spins, but it is like the machine is asleep. Any ideas or help would be appreciated. kenwilfy John 3:16 01-22-2002 09:49:54

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) hwhack Profile Could be waiting for you to press a key... I have seen problems with machines that have on a USB keyboard because the system goes to sleep and expects a keystroke to wake it up. However, the USB is one of the things that gets put to sleep, so that won't work. Are there PS/2 ports on this thingy (I don't recall). If there is, plug in a keyboard and see if you can type and wake it up. If not, then next time you get Windows setup, go in and disable sleep (lest you be back where you are now)... 01-22-2002 16:38:42

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Hey Rev...got the packsge today. Thanks a lot. I'll let you know how it goes. Seems easy enough. FWIW....This bios upgrade from the Rev does not require a floppy. You can do it all from Windows98 and it's abitity to boot to a command prompt. You are given the option to save the old bios, so you could go back if necessary. And since this is a bios upgrade, any OS will benefit from it. 01-22-2002 17:50:02

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile <kenwilfy> Check to see how hot your processor is getting. Intially before installing a large heatsink & fan mine would do the same thing. 01-23-2002 22:47:27

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile >matt832 & kenwilfy Have you tried clearing the cmos data? With the EasyNow! off and power unplugged, remove the case. Locate JP17 (next to battery). Move jumper from pins 2 & 3 to pins 1 & 2. Let sit for a few minutes then move jumper back to 2 & 3. Reassemble, power up, and see what happens. Reverend Jones 01-24-2002 07:35:28

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile The Rev's new BIOS works.....After flashing, I set the jumpers on my K62+-450 EasyNow to boot at 100x4.5. Success. This eliminates having to use software to get to 450 with this "+" chip. Also boots much faster....quite noticeable. Thanks Rev. That's quite a trick you pulled off. What was the vga upgrade in this new BIOS supposed to do? FWIW....When you run this chip at 550mhz, it benchmarks better than a PIII-500. And it also feels like it's faster in normal operation. Wish I could get the sound and modem working in XP....Also I haven't found a temperature monitoring program to work in XP, but using an external probe on top, I find 550mhz to run at a safe temp...about 31c. 01-24-2002 18:57:32

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile The original vga bios was 1.06, the upgraded bios has version 1.08 . Version 1.08 is suppose to work better with the newer drivers. 01-24-2002 20:12:05

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Easystreet Profile Rev...can you send me the new bios? imeasystreet@yahoo.com thanks 01-24-2002 20:26:01

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) tcbordp Profile I have one of these in a box that I haven't set up yet. I would really like a copy of the 1.08 BIOS. You can send it to me at pwborders @ home . com. Thanks. PeteB 01-25-2002 17:58:14

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) matt832 Profile Rev, haven't cleared the CMOS yet but investigating the problem more I find the that system isn't sleeping, it's just not activating the monitor. I can hit the Windows key and the up arrow and then click to reboot and all is fine. I've been using it with an LCD monitor, I'll have to try another one and see if it works any better. BTW how can I get a copy of this great Bios??? 01-27-2002 00:56:48

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile <matt832> If you give me your email address, I will send you a copy. 01-27-2002 07:45:25

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile Fellow hackers: I have been instructed to get rid of some of my computers. I have two Easy-Silver units. One unopened. 2 AMD processors. Opened one has been set up with new BIOS. Running with a KIII Plus 450Mhz @ 600Mhz. Write me at pcalleros@netscape.net if interested. I apologize if I am not suppose to post this. 01-29-2002 06:26:52

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile If any one is going to try the ps/2 mod, I have found a better power source. Change all references to "the front of F3" to "the back of F4". F4 is at the end of the bios chip by the fan. Less line noise from ide. 01-29-2002 23:35:24

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) jimbo Profile Rev, Please send me a copy of your Bios. jimbo (jginglis@hotmail.com) 02-06-2002 10:53:53

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) pentbob Profile Reverend_Jones Kudos on the Bios Hack. Could I please get a copy? pentbob@netzero.net 02-08-2002 12:00:15

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) orange Profile Rev, will the BIOS still work with the regular K6-2 CPUs? I would also like a copy - orange473@hotmail.com. TNX! 02-13-2002 09:44:16

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile A note on changing the power LED: The power LED in the power switch is paralleled by a red chip LED mounted on the motherboard. The red chip LED must be removed to get a blue LED to work in the power switch. (red LED=2 volts, blue LED=3-4 volts) Also another update on the bios; write allocation is now enabled for K6+ CPUs. (M5SAFb.bin) 02-15-2002 22:33:55

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile <Reverend_Jones>Thanks for the BIOS. It is working well. Decided to turn one Box into an upgraded HomeSeer home control system. Nice and small with a lot of HP. Still not really needing 2nd box if you know who might be interested. 02-16-2002 13:46:32

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) JhonR Profile Rotten Luck: My mother-in-law in a fit of spring (winter) cleaning tossed out her Easy Now CD with all the drivers -- and her system's HD crashed. Time to re-install. I've managed to track down usable drivers for everything except the modem. If someone can zip them and email them to me, my MIL would be happy. Also, anyone who's willing, could you copy and burn the original CD for me? I'd be happy to pay for postage (even send a self-addressed package to send the CD to me -- AND a replacement blank CD) compensation for your time/effort. Or ZIP the entire CD and post it somewhere for me to DL? Thanks much, -jhon j-ryan (at) pacbell dot net 02-20-2002 18:16:19

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Lost cd? Put your address somewhere and I'll send you a copy..... I'm trying out a new BIOS (Rev's)......enables write-allocation for k62+ chips. Works ok...but I was doing the same thing using CPUCool. Wonder if there's any benefit/difference doing it through the BIOS. Hey Rev....Have you tried tweaking the default BIOS settings? What I've tried doesn't seem to make any difference using the Sandra Benchmarks. You would think there is tweaking potential here...... I've been having new problems with W98 shutdown. I've applied the MS W98 shutdown patch, and the OS is up-to-date. I haven't had any other problems crop up, but this shut-down thing is bothersome. After a manual power-off, scandisk sometimes runs on a restart, sometimes doesn't. Very strange.... 02-24-2002 07:11:45

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) pingb Profile Hello all, got one for my girls 2mo ago. Been working fine, just started giving me a prob. Can't get into the bios now. When I key the ctrl+alt it shuts OFF! Does not do it in Windows,"win98". Does not give me time to press the Esc key before power off. Any ideas? Thanks for any input. BTW, Thank you all for a "GREAT" BBS! 02-24-2002 23:35:03

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile <pingb> Try clearing the cmos memory. With the EasyNow! off and power unplugged, remove the case. Locate JP17 (next to battery). Move jumper from pins 2 & 3 to pins 1 & 2. Let sit for a few minutes then move jumper back to 2 & 3. Reassemble, power up, and see what happens. <ckbone> The bios settings seem to be pretty well optimized for a AMD K6-2/K6+. As AMD was the only CPU type meant to be used in these, maybe the factory actually got all the settings correct. 02-25-2002 09:34:53

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) pingb Profile Grrrreaaaat !! Thanks for the tip. That cleared it up Reverend_Jones. Would it be to much to ask for a copy of the the 1.08 bios, or a link were i could get it. Thanks again for a SUPERIOR board to help us "me" little people out! 02-25-2002 17:07:36

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile <pingb> Give me your email address and I will mail you a copy of the new bios. 02-26-2002 10:50:17

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) pingb Profile Thank you for your help Reverend_Jones. e-mail address is briant1233@aol.com 02-26-2002 22:03:41

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) matt832 Profile Haven't checked back here in awhile, stopped by to see what's new. My systems been OK for the most part but for some reason the network connection seems a bit weird. If I hit Network Neighborhood after booting up I get "Network Unavailable" the first few times, then after a few minutes all is well. Anyone else have this problem? Rev. can you send the updated BIOS to matt832@msn.com ? Thanks....... 03-26-2002 00:21:19

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) ym88 Profile Hi Rev, I would like a copy of the bios as well. Pls send to "ym_wong @ pacbell . net" (no spaces) TIA. ym88 03-26-2002 01:37:07

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) geekgranny Profile Baber.com supposidly has these for $99US barebones. At least his page indicates so. http://www.baber.com/barebone-computers/easynow-blue.htm "Ah crapola....sorry for the multiple posts..." (Greenspark) THEGeekGranny-epodsgranny@hotmail.com 05-20-2002 07:37:27

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile Rev, Resurrecting (PUN) this thread for a couple of questions. Currently using my EasySilver for my home control system. With your BIOS upgrades its been working very well now for over 3 months. I have upgraded the PC to an AMD 450Plus running it at 600Mhz with Homeseer. For my serial connections (weather, X-10 and MR-26)using a USB to 4 port serial box. I've also added some AMD tweaking prgms to keep it running cooler. I am using CPU-Idle for that and it works well. I am using MAXMEM for keep memory leaks clean. I am looking to add a watchdog which will use one of the four serial ports and will connect internally to reset jumper. Can you please tell me where that is at? Also is there a way to always make the PC boot up when getting powered on? Is this part of the BIOS? I want to make sure that if I have a power outage that when the power returns the Easysilver comes back up. Thanks for any suggestions or help you may offer! 06-21-2002 07:23:53

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile Answering my own question found your reference to reset switch. "To add a hardware reset button connect a momentary push button switch to JP23.(JP23 is hidden behind the battery) Mount the switch on the back panel. No more unplugging the power supply if the comp locks up." Now just need to find out how to alway make the PC boot up on AC power on... 06-21-2002 07:29:16

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile <PeteC> If I remember correctly, in the Power Management section of the bios there is an option for having the unit reboot after a power failure. 06-21-2002 09:56:37

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile <REV>Don't see that option regarding restoral after power failure. Have tried all options in PM section of BIOS ...still no go when pulling power to unit...any suggestions? 06-21-2002 10:52:51

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile <REV> Found the "MODBIN" application your wrote about. When I load up your latest revision of Biostart BIOS into this application see the option. Would it work to save after using Modbin and re-flash bios? 06-23-2002 11:49:45

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Reverend_Jones Profile Enable the option with Modbin and reflash. It should work with no problem. 06-23-2002 12:19:39

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile Thanks Rev! 06-23-2002 16:20:19

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile Rev - Tried all versions (that I could find) of MODBIN and when loading the MOD'd BIOS option does not appear. Any suggestions? 06-23-2002 21:19:55

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) MisterC Profile Hi Rev Could you e-mail me your bios updates? Thanks. --MrC scoil@columbus.rr.com 07-10-2002 16:49:58

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) MisterC Profile Hello, I am still playing with this system. Rev, or someone, could you e-mail me the 1.08 bios (e-mail address is in the above message)? My system has crashed, and I don't have the old e-mail from Rev anymore. Also, I'm installing XP on it. The video works, but the networking doesn't. What drivers do I need? Did anyone get the on-board audio working? Is there another forum that discusses this thing? Any one have a K6-III+ they want to part with? TIA --MrC 12-21-2003 23:51:20

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) PeteC Profile <MisterC> Still have mine set up. I was using Windows 98SE on it. Upgraded BIOS, Memory was at 256 Megs and have an AMDIII plus running at 600Mhz. This machine was used as a (over a year) Homeseer server. It ran well considering it was on 24/7. I have the upgraded BIOS created by Rev. If you would like it send an email to me and will reply with attachment. I don't believe anyone every got XP to load all of the drivers on it. The mini-PCI card is a combo NIC, Modem and homeline network card (?) was ok but the onboard audio was more difficult. It was an ugly computer but interesting in that if you removed the main computer out of it's plastic shell it had a very small form factor (like maybe for an in-automobile type setup). 12-22-2003 07:17:26

RE:Unusual BareBones System $78 (modified 0 times) Bimbo72 Profile | Email Hi to all, I'm new to this forum. I found it because i'm trying to find out some information on the M5SAF motherboard. I've just bought from ebay. I had no power supply for it and i used a micro atx power supply with the power on green cable shorted to GND, and the yellow 12V plugged to the power supply connector. It works fine but the "power on" button plugged to its connector on the motherboard doesn't work. The reset button works fine. The strange thing is that the power on led doesn't work. The first question is How can i plug a micro ATX power supply to this motherboard ? the second question is... i tryied to connect a PS2 keyboard with a home made USB adapter... the scheme is: PS2 1 pin data to USB pin 2 Data - PS2 3 pin gnd to USB pin 4 Gnd PS2 4 pin +5v to USB pin 1 +5v PS2 5 pin clock to USB pin 3 Data + the keyboard turns on... the three leds blink one time, but the motherboard firs check doesn't recognize it... I know i can buy a USB keyboard (they doesn't cost so much) but you know... it's a challenge How can i solve this problem ? I want to use this mb in dos or linux to play MAME... i'm still in a decisional stage... but first i need to solve the hardware problems. Thank you all... 12-09-2005 04:01:52

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