K6-III+ $54 :-)

[stockjock]

Anyone know where we can get a good cheap MB for this chips...I purchased a MSI MB at overstock.com for like $30..but decided to get some more of these chips and now overstock.com is out of the cheap MB's...anyone else have any ideas...

 

[Souka]

WOW! 200 replies to this post....sheesh!!!!

Now what was the HOTDEAL again? *just kiddin*

 

[Teasy]

EngineNr9

Just because pcliquidator sell something As-Is it doesn't mean they are then not subject to the laws that regulate them and every other store in the U.S.

What you seem to be saying is pcliquidator or indeed anyone else can sell broken products and then refuse a refund or replacement just because it was sold As-Is, this is complete rubbish.

superhero

Give trading standards a call and see how smug pcliquidator are then.
The only problem you might have is that your using the chip on a desktop system which it is not made for, but since pcliquidator say on there site that they themselves tried the cpu on a desktop system and got a really fast pc then you can say that you only bought the chip because pc liquidator advertised that the chip could work on desktop systems, so they can't use you running it on a desktop system as a deffence for not fefunding you.

Pcliquidator

Do you really want to cause all this bad feeling towards your store for the sake of one bad chip?, think about how much great pulicity you've had up till now and how many people you will get coming back to your store because of that pulicity, do you really want that publicity to turn bad?.

 

[pcliquidator]

In response to the post

• We listed the Items "As-Is"
• We clearly state that we did not know if it would work on all motherboards and that we had less than perfect results, but none the less did get full speed in OURTests
• We have had literally thousands of these chips go out with VERY Happy people (Based on the forum reports)
• We clearly state that we will not take the chip back because we expect people to fry the chips

[br]
I am sorry that some people will not be able to get them to work on thier systems, but we were very clear on our policies and terms.
[br]
We are a liquidator, not a retail store like CompUSA. At the prices we sell things for we can not afford to have return policies.
[br]
Thanks

 

[superhero]

Teasy

Thanks for the support on this one.

"AS-IS" means nothing in a court of law. At least this is what the state attorney general says. Retailers are still subject to the laws governing them. PC Liquidators has realized this and the bad publicity they are getting, and have offered a return minus 20% restocking fee. I have taken them up on this and have an RMA # to return the cpu. It will end up costing me about $25 to have had this experience. Not too expensive, but still too much when you consider I end up with nothing. Unless of course there is someone out there that thinks I just don't know what I am doing with this chip and would like to give it a go for themselves.

A hot deal at $54.99 + shipping...Brand new, "AS-IS"

Post here if interested.

 

[Bob/NYC]

Considering the low price and the "as-is" reasoning and gamble posted clearly, I'd have to side with Pcliquidator. The price would be much higher if they warranteed it.

It was worth the gamble to me-at that price.

 

[pcliquidator]

I feel I need to respond to two issues stated in the latest "complaint" by superhero.

- He is mistaken on the fact that he says we have bad publicity...we have even recently been listed as a shopping spot on some publications due to our pricing and satisfied customers. Thats pretty cool when you consider that they are talking about our retail store and they are not a virtual worl like this! People all over the states are goming back for more HOURLY!!! OUCH!!! the packing tape is giving me blisters! Damn...I wish I was mking a good margin on these things!

-he also states that we "HAVE TO" offer refunds on these....not so. I have already addressed whay we won't do this is prior conversation. The fact is that we do state this in the item description and also when you purchase, you state you agree to the terms and conditions. When you do this, you enter into a legally binding contract and must be responsible for your decision.

With that being said....We gave him a refund! HOW IS THAT FOR BEING AN HONEST COMPANY???

Thanks Again for my speeches (I will now get off my soapbox)

Jim

 

[Teasy]

Pcliquidator

The reason the chip is not working ( according to superhero ) is because the chip is actually broken and not because it does not work with his board.

If you are trying to suggest that he could have broken the L2 cache by having the voltage to high then your mistaken, how unlikely is it that putting the voltage to high would leave the cpu bootable but damage the L2 cache?, not likely at all.

You have every right to refuse a refund or replacment if he actually broke the chip by putting the voltage to high because you specified this very senario on your site and sold it as-is, but you have no right to tell someone that you will not give a refund if the chip was broken from the start.

I wrote most of this before superhero got a refund ( PEOPLE POWER!!!!!!!!! ), 20% restock though so not perfect but I hear that sort of thing is common in the U.S and since there offering such good deals I won't complain about Pcliquidator anymore, you've done the right thing boys and let the good publicity rain once more, I hope if my k6-3+ doesn't work then you'll do the same for me.

 

[vailr]

One reason for possible chip failure is the type of foam the chip is packaged in. Mine came packed in common foam rubber, not anti-static black foam, which SHOULD have been used. Haven't modded my IOpener yet, so chip test not performed. My 2 cents...

 

[568overclocked]

...how unlikely is it that putting the voltage to high would leave the cpu bootable but damage the L2 cache?, not likely at all.


I'm not in any way saying that he set the voltage to high. But
it's possible for the cpu to boot even with a damaged cache...I know someone who had the k6-3 400 and set it to high that it killed the L2 cache, yet if i remember correctly still booted although slow. A somewhat similar situation happened to my Intel Celeron 400. The voltage was set above the suggested voltage that my cache on the chip was fried. The computer would randomly boot, but when I disabled the cache, the celeron would boot all the time but would be slow...well just my 2 cents

 

[PistachioByAzul]

Oh well, I bet that K6-3+ is fine. Rare is it that CPUs only work "halfway". It couldn't be the L2 cache because as I said before, if it were it would performing at the same level as a K6-2 450. Sounds like it was fried.

 

[Teasy]

I'm not really sure about that, if all the internal caches aren't working then that means both the L2 cache and the L1 cache would be disabled, and I believe the k6-2 has an on-chip L1 cache doesn't it?, not sure though, if that was true though then since the motherboard recognises the chip as a k6-3 it would try to use the L1 and L2 cache even though there broken, leaving only the motherboards L3 cache to hold all the data, this could make the chip allot slower then a working k6-2 chip, just speculation though.

568overclocked

Yes possibly setting the CPU speed too high could brake the cache and leave the CPU in tact, because obviously upping the CPU speed ups the cache speed which could burn out. but not on a k6-3+ unless you went to 700mhz or something stupid like that, but what I was saying was that upping the voltage couldn't brake the cache and leave the CPU intact, because if the voltage went to high it would burn out the whole chip not just the cache.

 

[PistachioByAzul]

You're right, if it's super slow it was probably both the L1 and the L2 cache. But again, it's more likely it was fried, not defective.

 

[Teasy]

I have absolutely no experience with frying chips ( silicon ones anyway cos I'm not bad at frying the sort of chips that are made out of potatoes ) but I was under the impression that when a chip fries it was more likely not to work at all then run slow, and since there are always a certian amount of any one product that are deffective I'd say its more likely that its deffective, especially if superhero was telling the truth because he said it was slow straight away and he didn't even try any crazy speeds or voltages, all IMO of course and it doesn't really matter now anyway.

 

[superhero]

Ok you guys, I have to put an end to this speculation.

The chip came packaged in pink foam, not the black antistatic type.

I removed a k6-2 450 running at 2.2V from my pc.

Installed the k6-III, changed the voltage to 2.0. The pc would not boot because of hardware erros generated by the bios, would not recognise the chip.
Replaced the k6-2 and upgraded the bios to 1011beta002 from the ASUS site.
Put the K6-III back in and rebooted, bios recognised the K6-III but not as a +. Too unstable to run so I upped the Vcore to 2.1 and tried again. This chip has NEVER seen over 2.1 volts.
Ran some benches, cpumark99, sandra, wintune, etc. Tried several bios settings with cache, without cache, with or with out write back, etc. Nothing got the chip above the ratings of a P233.
If the chip was fried it was so before I got my hands on it.

Sure, there is the possibility that the board is not compatible, but others are running on this same board,(P5A) so I don't believe that. I also tried it on an older P55T2P4 and got the same results. The only other possibility is that there is a problem on the chip. Unless you have some other explanation....

 

[superhero]

PS.

Why is it so hard to admit that 1 chip out of 1000 could have some problems? I know AMD does great products, but they are not 100% flawless.

 

[mrre]

I have to disagree with the statements made that a cpu will either work or not work. I do support for register and PC servicing for a living, and I definitely see defective AMD CPU's, some of them acting very strangely. We had one that would boot up into NT and then hang. Of course we blamed NT, and we went crazy trying to isolate it until we figured it was the CPU. The problem would go with the chip when we moved it to other identical machines. Up until this order (yeah, I took a chance and ordered one). I have always purchased AMD chips with year warranties just in case. I love AMD chips (and their prices), but from my experience they do have a higher defect rate than Intel chips (though my house is still an Intel free zone), so running into a defective one is definitely a possibility, though agreed a small one.

 

[samiam]

Damn that 0.02 burning a hole in my pocket - but what bothers me is that it seems the first thing superhero did was to start railing against the reseller - a real superhero I think would have been asking for help or ideas. Every overclocker knows, or should accept, the fact that he's taking a gamble - that's part of the fun, isn't it. In my limited experience, I usually find the problem is mine. What is the tolerance on the mobo voltage setting? I don't know - could be the chip voltage tolerance is to allow for the mobo mfr tolerances, and you could have a board/chip combo on the bad side of the tolerances - this chip is apparently more sensitive to voltage than say a celeron. When I run a program such as MotherBoardMonitor, it always reads at least a half volt higher than my setting - I don't know which is correct - part of the gamble - and could the mobo voltage regulator change over time - and we're talking older mobos here.

As most of you know, some resellers, will RMA, and then charge you a big, but probably realistic, fee if the part tests okay.
Now if they took the chip back for testing and it tested okay, I think you probably wouldn't believe them anyway. If they then send you another new chip, then they're stuck with a used one. So, if you were the reseller, would you have just given a refund and taken the loss, when you're selling at bargain prices? Superhero??

 

[superhero]

So, if you were the reseller, would you have just given a refund and taken the loss, when you're selling at bargain prices? Superhero??

I talked with the reseller, He told me they are making $6 on each chip sold. Multiply that times the 600 he said he has already sold, with more going out the door all the time, and you get $3600 profit. I don't see how taking back one chip @ $55 will cause him to take a loss.

I hate to be such a bore with this but I just thought I'd give you the
scores so you can see for yourself. The only difference between the two
scores is the voltage settings. k6-III @ 2.1V, k6-2 @ 2.2V. I ran one
set of tests, shutdown, replaced chip, adjusted voltage, and rebooted.
That is all!!!!

These are a direct cut and paste from Wintune for 95,98,2000.
BIOS settings are at the most agressive possible.

K6-III
Summary
AMD 13
(1) 551 MHz
Windows 2000 5.0.2195 Service Pack 1
193 MIPS (Integer operations)
338 MFLOPS (Floating point operations)
15 (Integer application simulation)
23 (Floating point application simulation)
20 (MMX application simulation)
490 RAM MB/s

K6-2
Summary
AMD K6-2 with MultiMedia Extensions
(1) 551 MHz
Windows 2000 5.0.2195 Service Pack 1
1147 MIPS (Integer operations)
660 MFLOPS (Floating point operations)
106 (Integer application simulation)
58 (Floating point application simulation)
105 (MMX application simulation)
817 RAM MB/s

 

[Rawdog]

If I can just jump in here for a second to post my results. Just got my cpu today. I have two P5A-B's and one P5A. I'm just working on one of the P5A-B's right now, and it's working like a charm. Upgraded the BIOS to 1011bn02 beta, set the jumpers for 2.0v and 4.5x and that baby booted up at 450Mhz. Of course it hung with that dumb Windows Protection Error booting into Windows 95 (don't ask). So I changed the multipler to 2.5 an it then booted up at 200Mhz for some reason but it let me get into Windows95 so I didn't complain. I installed the patch, then I got greedy. Set them jumpers to 600Mhz and 2.1v, fired it up and guess what, Windows Protection Error again. Well, screw this, I'm installing Windows 2000 as I speak. Going along quite well to I might add. 32x cdrom's kinda slow, but this is my little girl's pc so it's ok for now.

Well, let me complete this install. If it blows, I'll let you all know.

Rawdog

Update: Well, it was running a little hot (48C) so I cut back on the voltage. To my surprise, it's running at 600Mhz @ default voltage. No cooler though. Guess I'll try these retail Duron fans I replaced. They kept the Duron pretty cool (at default settings).

 

[Kaiser__Sose]

pcliquidator:

have you finished shipping the orders from the weekend yet? i ordered on sunday through borderfree and was just eager to find out an ETA.
thanx.

 

[Lalakai]

this might help with the questions on which cpu you may have received, plus give some assistance on oc'g this particular cpu.

AcesHardware

I have the K3-400 oc'd but kind'a doing it 1/2-a$$ed so I won't offer any advice except to say that my cpu must have at least 9 lives and I've used up at least 4 of 'em.

my motherboard is more friendly for changing the voltage in small increments along with have some excellent multipliers so that helps, but SOYO doesn't have a good updated BIOS for this particular set-up.

K3-400
SOYO 5EH mb
128 megs 133 ram
V3-2K
13.6 gig IBM ATA66 w/promise control card
Vortex 2500
KDS AV 19"
cd-rom and dvd

edits = trying to fix link

 

[Bob/NYC]

This is a K6-III+ 450 2.0v notebook CPU, which runs just fine in my Soyo 5EMA+ v1.0 @550Mhz 2.1v as did the discontinued K6-III 400 @450 2.4v

 

[sojin]

PCLiquidator,

I got a shipping question regarding order#006335 which I placed last Friday. it was scheduled to deliver to OH this Friday, as shown on UPS tracking info page. But I was quite shocked when I checked it 10pm this thursday - it's delivered to some 'WISCON' funk in CA!!! I learnt this had happened to another guy who posted in this thread. So do you have an explanation for what happened? And are you going to have some way to remedy this???

Thanks in advance for your co-operation,

sojin

 

[Mule]

Good Lord :Q

Somebody kill this thread, it's so long, and who the hell wants a 5 page thread regarding a AMD K6? It's lunacy I tell ya!