Ok........here is the deal.

I got my hands on a PIII 733.

It does not behave as expected.

Pop it in the mobo and boot. BIOS does what you would expect...it generates an erro stating the CPU has changed and you need to enter setup and....blah, blah.

Do that, get everything set works fine.

Then reboot, get to bootloader (currently I'm running DRDos, 95, 98, XP, Mandrake 8.1, Slackware 9.1 and have space set up for a couple of others). It will not boot into any OS except DOS.

They all generate some kind of error.

If I go into SafeMode, insteadof it being the standard lo-color setup it is RED and lo-color, XP generates "ntloader can't open the partition (give the load line from boot.ini)", The *Nix generate Kernel Panic (several different errors).

The mobo is: Soyo 7VCA2-B 2AA2 (Should handle upto a 933 PIII......).

The chip in question is:
SL4CG sSpec
733.00 MHz Speed
370 pin PPGA Package
1.700V Core
133 MHz FSB
cC0 Stepping
5.5 Ratio

RAM is 384MB of PC-133 (doesn't matter if all is used, same errors; doesn't matter if run at 100 or 133....)

Max temp it hits is 40 C.

Things I've tried.........

Probably easier to just say I haven't burnt any Macs in offereing to it....

You know when you install an Operating System, the Setup.exe program detects all the hardware and sets up the O/S to work with it?
Since you've altered the hardware, wouldn't you need to run the setup program for each O/S to "Repair" the installation?
I wasn't clear from your explanation whether you were referring to the BIOS Setup or the O/S Setup when you said "Do that, get everything set works fine".

I've tried to do an equivalent thing .... plugging in a hard drive with the o/s installed into different mobo/cpu system.

First time it was ME (don't laugh). After a frenzy of driver resetting the system worked fine. I was somewhat amazed I must say.

Second time was XP - well put it this way...I've see more life on a fishmonger's slab.

The computer gods are angry, I see the sacrificial propane torch in your future...

I wasn't clear from your explanation whether you were referring to the BIOS Setup

I'd almost bet BIOS. Reinstalling 6 OS's is not fun, that's what he's trying to avoid.

If this is what I think, the only hardware change was CPU, which shouldn't act this way. This is acting more like flaky video card. Drivers would be questionable, but not when every OS is affected.

what I would try- Swap back to old CPU, reseat the video card (half dozen times) and reseat RAM, light three cinnamon scented candles for the computer gods and repeat the mantra "Drive not ready, Abort, Retry, Fail?" 32 times.

Originally posted by Paleo Pete
Reinstalling 6 OS's is not fun

I picture him repairing the 6 installations rather than re-installing.
Am I right or wrong in thinking there's a difference?

Yep. big difference, you're correct. If this is the machine I think it is though, the only thing changed was CPU, which shouldn't cause this kind of problem. The machine has been running for a good while. MJC and I have discussed this computer on IRC a few times, it's been running pretty well, but he has been looking for a different CPU, the board only handles up to 800/850 I think. Your suggestion to repair OS's would probably be the way to go, if reseating hardware doesn't do it.

Main drawback there is DrDOS and win95/98 probably don't have repair options available, complete reinstall would be necessary for all three, which would rewrite the bootloader...that in turn would force reinstalling all the rest. No bootloader, no boot menu, no way to access any other OS.

A little more....

Swap CPU back to original, reset BIOS for old CPU and reboot, everything is perfect.

Can scratch the video card...same deal two different cards (one AGP, the other PCI) haven't tried an ISA video card........yet.

I am begining to think that there is something screwy with the L2 cache on this thing....


And as to reinstall or repair........tried that on one of the open partitions. It crapped out and gave some exotic error.

I thought I'd read the details of the Windows installation process.
In the "Hardware Detection Phase" section I found:
During the hardware detection phase, Windows 95 Setup analyzes installed computer components, and detects installed hardware devices and connected peripherals. Windows 95 Setup also identifies the hardware resources that are available (for example, IRQs, I/O addresses, and DMAs), identifies the configuration of installed hardware components (for example, IRQs in use), and builds the hardware tree in the Registry.

In my "Detlog.txt" file I found:
Checking for: Numeric Data Processor
QueryIOMem: Caller=DETECTNDP, rcQuery=2
IO=f0-ff

In the section on "Safe Detection, Safe Recovery, and Verification->Safe Detection in Windows 95 Setup" I found:
Windows 95 supports detection for base computer components such as communications ports and processor type.

I love to know the sorts of arrangements that were made during setup to cater for the installed hardware, but I suppose it is very complicated.
I wonder what arrangements would be needed [if any] for a CPU?

Is there a way to test or at least view whether the L2 cache is flaky or not? I'm suspecting something similar below:

I have an old AMD 200 (in an IBM pc) that is about five times slower than a P150 (on an AOpen mobo) both socket 7. I was wondering if something in BIOS is set wrong but I don't have the pc here to try. RAM being equal, though the AOpen uses DIMM and the IBM uses pc66, I'm confused as to why such a huge difference. Maybe I should try another processor in the IBM machine?

It's not quite clear whether the Safe Mode results are the same for all the Windows Versions.

However if you can boot into Win95 and Win98 in Safe Mode, coupled with the fact that you can boot into DOS OK would seem to point the finger at the new setup not being able to cope with Protected Mode Drivers. If you could disable these in, say Win98, and then boot to Win98 OK it would tend to support this hypothesis.

I don't know enough about Linux to comment on that side of things and is the same boot loader booting all the OSes on your multi-boot setup.

Memory management, whether complicated by the L2 cache or not, would seem to be another area to specifically troubleshoot - and how is DOS configured in this regard.

Interesting - none-the-less.

Ok........some more things to play with :D

But as it stands right now, I seem to have a partially working CPU.

95 and 98 behave the same...XP can't get into in any mode.

Have you taken a close look to see if that CPU has any bent pins, or thermal compound bleeding over into the circuitry around the central core?

How about therma...no scratch that, I seriously doubt if you let any get into the socket itself...Had to stop and remember who I'm dealing with... :D

EDIT: Wait a minute, have you done any previous tweaking in BIOS that may be affecting it? Maybe resetting BIOS defaults would be worth a try.

A few things...

FTT - Socket7 CPUs had L2 cache on the mobo. If you want to test whether or not your L2 cache is bad, simply remove the modules (the PC will still work fine, just slower). Also, DIMM and PC66 are both types of SDRAM. SIMMs were the ones used by EDO and FPM.

In the case of mjc's PIII, the L2 cache is built into the CPU core. If this type of L2 cache is broken, the PC probably would not boot, and certainly would not run any OS at all. This is not likely the problem.

As has been said, simply upgrading the CPU should not have caused OS problems. Since the CPU is supported by the mobo (looked it up myself! :D) you should make sure any jumpers/BIOS settings are correct, but beyond that I can't imagine what happened. You have the latest BIOS, so the only thing I can recommend is to get the latest Hyperion chipset drivers (www.viaarena.com/) from VIA (that mobo uses the VIA 694X / 686B chipset). You can also get drivers for VIA's onboard audio, ethernet, ect.

Also, what was the old CPU? Just out of curiosity...

Last but not least, are you sure you didn't fry anything? If the old CPU works fine, but not the new one, that suggests the new PIII 733 doesn't work. Entirely possible, but rare for an older used CPU.

The HDD is so elaborately configured that it does somewhat complicate troubleshooting. It could be interesting to see if one of the problem OSes could be clean installed onto a clean HDD - even if it might feel a bit lonely there all on its own. ;)

OK....going to try a clean install on a single drive....going to start with 98se.

As for the VIA drivers, there are 2 98 installs each is running a different version of the drivers, both don't work.

Pete........I reset the defaults before I started with this CPU, it was easier to pull the jumper than undo all the tweaks by hand. ;)

Pins...all straight and accounted for.

Thermal paste......all old removed and cleaned, fresh used.