What does "BIOS tag incorrect" mean?

[schultzz]

Hello...

I'm working on a PCChips (oh, no...) M729 mobo - at least I think that's the right company. The system currently has a 300MHz Pentium II and the board was originally set at bus speed 66 MHz with a 4.5 multiplier. The board supports PC100 and the user has bought and installed a 64MB module in this unit. I've set the bus speed at 100MHz and the multiplier to 3 through jumpers, but the BIOS now says it is running at 450MHz.

Is the BIOS in error? Is the CPU really running at 450MHz (yes, it runs)? Or, at 300MHz?

I thought a BIOS update might fix the problem, so I downloaded the bin file and AMI flasher from www.pcchips.com for the M729, but when I run it, I get an error message:

Error 9 - The BIOS tag is incorrect.

What on earth does that mean? Is it still OK to flash the chip?

TIA for any help.

Mark

[stevet]

I could be wrong, but its always been my understanding that P-II CPUs below 350Mhz are not designed to run on a 100MHz bus. Pentium II's up to 333MHz are only supposed to work on a 66MHz bus - just like you had it set up originally. To run a 100MHz bus you need at least a 350MHz CPU.

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Steve Taylor - Service Manager
Altoplanos Information Systems, Inc.
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho USA
www.altoplanos.net

[schultzz]

Thanks for the info. I just figured out that that was probably the problem. This is actually, believe it or not, the first Pentium II I've worked on. Guess I better bump the bus speed down, eh? The amazing thing is that it's actually running...

Mark