The Unofficial VA-503+ FAQ

This FAQ attempts to address the questions that I see raised and answered most frequently on the FIC Newsgroup. In this sense, the Unofficial VA-503+ FAQ is really the work of all those who contribute to the FIC Newsgroup.

It goes without saying that this this FAQ is only a supplement to the Official FIC VA-503+ Faq, which you can find here

FIC America also has a very informative FAQ here

  1. Do I need to set the SDRAM jumpers if I am using EDO Simms?

    Yes. Although the VA-503+ Owner's Manual makes it sound as though the SDRAM jumpers apply only to SDRAM DIMM's, these jumpers are also used to configure EDO ram.

  2. Can I safely mix EDO Simms and SDRAM dimms?

    Although it is apparently possible to mix 5 volt EDO simms and 3.3 volt SDRAM dimms, the VA-503+ Owner's manual warns against it. Mixing 5 volt EDO memory and 3.3 volt SDRAM forces the SDRAM to run at 5 volts. This "overvolting" will almost certainly shorten the life span of your pricey SDRAM dimms.

  3. Can I really run the VA-503+ front side bus at 100mhz and still use my old EDO simms?

    Yes, you can. The VIA MVP3 chipset allows you to run the memory asynchronously. That is to say, you can run your front side bus (l2 cache) at 100 mhz while running the memory at AGP speed (i.e. 66 mhz). I have put together such a system myself and it does, indeed, work - and with only the most minimal performance penalty. Furthermore, some posts to the FIC newsgroup suggest that it is even possible to run very high quality EDO simms at the full 100mhz bus speed. It might be worth a try if you have very high quality simms.

    I do, however, want to add one caveat here. The first VA-503+ I got had some sort of glitch in one or the other of the bank one simm sockets. The system ran fine if I used only bank two but would give me GPF's and corrupted registry errors if I put simms in bank one. I RMA'd the board and was sent a replacement that worked properly with simms in both banks. A subsequent search of Deja-News suggested to me that this is not an unheard of problem. If you experience problems using simms in the VA-503+, I would first try to isolate the problem by removing any memory from bank one.

  4. I've heard that some FIC Super Seven boards have trouble with the newer 3d accelarators (Voodoo 3 2000/3000 and TNT2 Ultra). Can I safely use the Voodoo 3 2000/3000, TNT2 Ultra, Nvidia GeForce, etc. in the VA-503+ or what?

    UPDATE
    First things first. FIC has acknowledged that the PA-2013 (the "big sister" board to the VA-503+, so to speak) cannot handle the voltage requirements of the AGP V3 3000. The PA-2013 will literally burn out under the stress. There is even a warning to this effect in the PA-2013 faq. Thankfully, there is no such warning in the VA-503+ faq. Moreover, the general verdict of FIC newsgroup posters is that recent VA-503+'s (i.e., made within the last 6-9 months) are NOT subject to being fried by Voodoo 3 3000 video cards. Apparently there is no problem whatsoever with v3 2000 AGP cards.

    Now, as far as 32MB TNT2 Ultra cards and the upcoming Nvidia GeForce based cards are concerned, the following cryptic blurb recently appeared in the Official FIC FAQ:

    "Q: What kinds of AGP I can use for PA-2013, or VA-503+ board?(10/19/99)
    A: There are more and more high-end AGP device rolled out to market now, except our previous warning of VooDoo3 3000/3500 with PA-2013 PCB 2.0, here we suggest in general that do not implement AGP device with on board memory more than 16MB, and do not waste 4X mode AGP devices on it."

    Since this suggestion comes directly from FIC I guess the answer is that TNT2 Ultras and the like are out. :(

    Still, a number of people seem to be using these cards successfully. I'm not sure what's going on.

  5. My FIC 503+ recognizes my PCI-video card, but it won't recognize my other pci cards. It does recognize all ISA cards though. Does anybody know why this is?

    This is a Windows 9x problem. The solution is to install the "IRQ Routing Miniport Driver" from here.

  6. I have a VA-503+ ECN xxxx. Will it work with a K6-III 400/450?

    Officially, only VA-503+ boards with an ECN of 4503 or EO037 support the K6-III line of processors. You can find a very technical discussion of why FIC has not certified the earlier boards for use with the K6-III and how the earlier boards might be modified to eliminate potential instability with the K6-III here. Still, numerous posters to the FIC Newsgroup have been running these processors without modification not only on earlier 1.2A revision boards but also on very early 1.1A revision boards. I cannot speak from experience here but it seems as though almost any 503+ will run at least a K6-III 400. Just make sure that your bios is at least JK1531 for 1.1A boards or JE1533 for 1.2A boards. If you have an earlier bios you might as well go ahead and upgrade to the latest bios. For general info on how to flash your bios, go here. For the latest VA-503+ bios update for your board version go here

    One last tidbit: Recent reports indicate that AMD is starting to ship K6-III's that run at 2.2 volts rather than 2.4 volts. These "AFX" chips draw less current and are, thus, more likely to run successfully on older VA-503+'s. Once again, this site seems to have the most solid information. At present there are still a lot of "AHX" (2.4 volt) chips in the distribution pipeline (I got one :( ) so you might want to specify an "AFX" on your next purchase just to be sure.

  7. I can't find, or do not wish to pay for, a FIC USB riser card. Can I use a regular USB cable on my VA-503+?

    The Belkin F3U001 USB cable (for instance) works fine in the VA-503+. As one poster to the FIC Newsgroup noted, just make sure that you plug the connector in so that the red wires go to pin 1 of the motherboard connector (i.e., to the rear of the motherboard).

    There have been some concerns voiced about the implementation of USB on VIA chipsets. And, apparently there is a problem with the combination of Windows 98 SE, AMD K6-x processors running at more than 350 mhz, and the VIA USB controller. Microsoft has released this patch to correct the problem.

    Thanks go to Rod Thompson at the VA-503+ Modification Page for this link.

    How stable is the VIA implementation of USB, generally speaking? I have had no trouble using my USB devices (a mouse and a Microtek scanner). Moreover, I have now received several replies from VA-503+ owners who have been using USB devices (a joystick, a scanner,an Intel Create & Share USB camera, and a USB ethernet adaptor) on their VA-503+ based systems with no trouble. I have received a few reports of trouble with the use of USB devices on the VA-503+, principally USB cameras. Tim Stinnett has observed that some VA-503+ owners have reported that disabling "write cache pipeline" in the bios has proven very effective in remedying problems with USB cameras on the VA-503+. However, Tim was also careful to point out that disabling "write cache pipeline" on systems with 64MB of Ram or less may result in a significant performance drop off. Systems with 128 MB or more of Ram should be fine.

  8. I am using a Maxtor Hard Drive with my 503+. When I try to run the Maxdiag diagnostic program I receive an "E03" error code. Is my Hard Drive about ready to die or what?

    Several versions of the Maxdiag program are known to generate the "E03" error for drives installed on motherboards that use the VIA chipset. This can be rather nerve rattling if you are not prepared for it. Indeed, when I set up my VA-503+, this was one of my first big scares. I had downloaded the new Maxdiag program from the Maxtor site and ran it just for the heck of it. And then this error . . . I spent about an hour on the phone with a Maxtor tech (well, five minutes with the tech, 55 minutes of holding). During the holding period, I managed to round up the Maxtor utility disk that had come with my drive. This disk had a different version of Maxdiag and, guess what? No "E03" error and the drive checked out fine.

    I'm not sure whether Maxtor has acknowledged and/or fixed this particular bug in the latest version of Maxdiag. Perhaps someone will let me know? (My own brief search of the Maxtor site did not turn up anything). In any case, if you have one of the offending versions of Maxdiag and absolutely must use it in order to check a suspect drive, you can, it seems, work around the Maxdiag bug by hooking the Maxtor drive up to the secondary IDE connector. Thanks go out to John Bartley for sending me a long thread on this subject.

  9. I am hearing a great deal of crackling when using my sound card. How do I fix this?

    Two fixes have been suggested for the problem of sound crackling on the VA-503+. First, disable "write cache pipeline" in the bios (this seems to be becoming a kind of "chicken soup cure all" for problems on the VA-503+ :) ). A second, even more drastic solution is to disable dma in Windows Device Manager. I would try disabling "write cache pipeline" first.

  10. I have a VA-503+ with the 1.15JE37 bios. How do I enable AGP 2X support?

    This is pretty old news but just in case you haven't already heard this, in order to enable AGP 2X support in the 1.15JE37 bios setup, highlight "spread spectrum modulated." As soon as you highlight it, it will change to "AGP 2X support."

  11. What's the deal with the VIA busmaster drivers? Are they better than the dma drivers included with Windows 95/98 or what?

    There are really two issues connected with the decision of whether or not to install the VIA busmaster drivers. The first issue is whether the VIA drivers are faster than the dma drivers that come with Windows. The second issue is whether they will tank your system. Let's begin with the first issue. The Official FIC VA-503+ contains the following relevant Q & A:

    "Q: What is necessary drivers must load for Win95 & Win98 user?

    • To Win98 user , you must load VIA miniport driver 1.3 to prevent IRQ routing issue, and VIA VxD29 if AGP device present.
    • To win95 user , VIA 586B power management program, VIA IDE bus master driver 2.1.26 or 2.1.31 & VIA VxD29 for AGP device."


    From this we can conclude that, according to FIC, there is really no reason to install the VIA busmaster drivers if you're running Windows 98. In addition, my own tests indicate that the Busmaster drivers that come with Windows 98 perform just as well as the latest VIA drivers so, for Windows 98, the answer is, no, there is definitely no reason to install the VIA drivers.

    The question is a little more complicated with respect to Windows 95. My tests didn't indicate any substantial performance difference between the Windows 95 OSR2 dma drivers and the VIA busmaster drivers. So, if you're running Windows 95 OSR2 I would, once again, recommend sticking with the Windows drivers. If you are still running Windows 95 retail, which does not come with dma support, the VIA busmaster drivers are pretty much your only choice. Mind you, I don't have any copies of Windows 95 retail up and running at this point, so I cannot speak with authority on this point. If anyone decides to install the VIA drivers on a W95 retail system please let me know how it turns out.

    It is the stability issue associated with the VIA busmaster drivers which makes me hesitate to recommend installing them even to W95 retail users (along with the fact that I have not tried it myself). The FIC newsgroup is full of people who have had bad experiences with various versions of these drivers. To quote the account of one VA-503+ owner:

    " I have tried the VIA DMA drivers and they are a complete disaster. They limited my transfer rate to 5 mb/s and they caused the system to wait sometimes for several seconds. I have tried several versions including the latest one. They have even caused a couple off blue screens so my only advise is stay away from them the stink on the 503+ "

    This correspondent did allow that his system was loaded with ide devices (4) but, still, this should be taken as a cautionary tale. To summarize, as to the stability of the VIA busmaster drivers, I myself did not experience any instability when I was running them but others certainly have.

  12. When I try to boot my new K6-x 350 (or greater) running windows 95 osr2 I get either a windows protection error, some weird error indicating that the "Device IOS failed to intialize" or a message telling me that I must reboot my computer. What's up?

    This is, of course, not a VA-503+ error strickly speaking but the famous Windows timing bug. Windows 95 OSR2 uses a timing loop that is executed too quickly by >=350 mhz K6-x processors - this causes windows to fail at boot. The problem does not affect windows 98, NT, or 2000. I've never gotten a straight answer as to whether Windows 95a will work with K6-x processors over 350 mhz or not. In any case, Here is the fix at the AMD site (again, this only for OSR2 or OSR2.5). Basically, you have to clock your processor down to, say, 300 mhz, apply the patch, and then clock back up.


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