asus p2l97 + pIII katmai: microcode failure

xenthar Unfortunately ALL p!!! processors with ANY BIOS on LX-based motherboard DON'T WORK under W2K/XP. NT4/W9x/*NIX work fine. I run Linux, W98, and NT4 sp6 on ASUS P2L97s and P!!! 600 (katmai) downto 400, also on celeron 566 and celeron 733, but i can't install W2K and XP. AFAIK it's impossible.
About microcodes. First way - try find 2Mbit EEPROM and 2MBit BIOS version for youre motherboard. Patcher insert ALL microcodes in this case. Enother way - free space in original 1MBit BIOS manualy, then try patch it again.

rgt It's good to know that Win2K/XP won't work, but that's not much of a problem to me. I know there are 2mbit Bioses for the P2L97-S and P2L97-DS versions of the mainbord.

Can I just go to an electronics store, buy a 2mbit EEPROM chip, and try one of these 2mbit bioses...I would have to find some alternative way to flash it? I'm pretty noob in this area. :?

The alternative seems more to my liking, but I'm new to bios editing...this would take a lot of time for me. How have you done it? I'd rather ask around for some pre-made bios before I go hack it myself

Yo rgt, thanx for the link.
I've got good news and bad. The 1010 beta bios worked! I patched it and to my surprise it now contains the p3 microcode! There's no "bios update data incorrect (CPUID=00000673)" anymore, for the p3 at least.

However,

I still get crashes! The microcodes were not the (only) problem :x.
The system crashes whenever I
- open someones webcam in MSN
- play a video file in winamp (but the same file plays ok in mplayer2)
- run 3d mark 99 max
Beside these crashes, window (re)drawing becomes crippled. I wasn't able to post this reply while using the pIII because both Opera and Mozilla would fuck up the windows and I couldn't find the submit button...

The weird thing is, nothing like this happens with the Celeron inserted, even with the new bios. Would it have to do with SSE instructions? Perhaps the pIII is faulty. I've never tried it in another system so I don't know yet. I'll check that some day. And yet, Prime95 runs fine. All crashes are video related. Turning "video acceleration" off in Display Properties/Advanced/Performance doesn't change a thing. Perhaps the VGA (Asus V3000 nVidia riva 128, newest drivers, bios is quite old) doesn't like the pIII.

Whatever the case, there's little I can do now. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Anyway, I enjoyed your warmth.

grz, xenthar

update: the weird window (re)drawing behaviour was not due to the pIII being used; it also happened with the Celeron right after I posted above message. Already things are starting to get messy again...ugh, it might be the BIOS, might be the day of the year, might be time to get out and see some friends...

xenthar Earlee version of P2L series has problem with many AGP Video. Intel AGP specification assumed only 2A (~7W) for AGP power supply. If Video required more power, system may be damaged.
Solution: Use ATI rage pro based video or modyfy AGP power. Diskonnect onboard AGP power and connect it directly to 3.3V from PS. More detail (model names and revision) and moterboard modification instruction you can find on asus web site. Try find by keywords P2L series and Tnt/Tnt2 problem

Hey that does seem like a possible solution!
Hmm...but I do have a p2l97 rev. 2.05 which should work ok, according to this page and furthermore, the VGA is not Riva 128 TNT or ZX but just Riva 128.

However, it might even work. I'm just not gonna try it until I have a solder iron or some silver solution to connect the wires. It'll probably cost me more than the pIII, which cost me 8 euro...