Re: Best Motherboard for Athlon XP-2500+ (Barton)

Posted on 2023-10-18, 11:04

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

An anecdote: back in the day, my flatmate (who had rich parents and didn't spend as much on travel and drinks) bought a shiny new A7N8X-Deluxe, This is not a anecdote, this is Asus as is. Motherboard based on nForce 3 and A64 s754. Memory from QVL. But there is no boot from USB flash drive. 2006 …

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Re: Best Motherboard for Athlon XP-2500+ (Barton)

Posted on 2023-10-18, 08:57

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That dual channel memory controller is completely useless on these, unless you use the GF4MX integrated graphics available on some boards. The whole idea of the solution was to reserve the other channel for IGP. Dual channel makes sense for any parallel process that accesses memory past the CPU, …

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Re: Best Motherboard for Athlon XP-2500+ (Barton)

Posted on 2023-10-18, 04:21

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think I will stay with my Asus board as the speed differences are not that big ;-) The difference is dramatic. 1. Motherboards on nForce 2 have a standard frequency of FSB 200. Barton/Thoroughbred B on the 200th bus is a slightly different performance. 1.1 nForce can dual channel for memory 1.2. …

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Re: Best Motherboard for Athlon XP-2500+ (Barton)

Posted on 2023-10-17, 19:17

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

leon22 wrote on 2023-10-17, 18:47: Thank you. I think I will stay with my Asus board as the speed differences are not that big 😉 Should I recap the mainboard? Thx! I wouldn’t bother recapping if there are no bulging or leaking caps and it is stable.

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Re: Best Motherboard for Athlon XP-2500+ (Barton)

Posted on 2023-10-17, 19:16

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not all nForce2 boards have 5.1 sound and many doesn’t have optical output. My 8rga+ does have MCP-T, but optical output was through optional bracket, which I don’t have. I had a Denon amp at the time that took a copper spdif input and I didn't want to buy the expensive cable so I hacked together a …

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Re: Best Motherboard for Athlon XP-2500+ (Barton)

Posted on 2023-10-17, 18:17

by

by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I used to appreciate 5.1 surround sound on a copper SPDIF out too. Not all nForce2 boards have 5.1 sound and many doesn’t have optical output. My 8rga+ does have MCP-T, but optical output was through optional bracket, which I don’t have. Fortunately the sound quality is still good and pretty …

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Re: Best Motherboard for Athlon XP-2500+ (Barton)

Posted on 2023-10-17, 14:43

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thx. It is very sad that on my Asus A7A266 Rev. 1.04 the Bios update is not enough :-( KT266A were that much earlier and didn’t support 166FSB officially. Many earlier boards didn’t even make that high if you OCd the FSB. To be honest, performance difference with 256kB cache (Thoroughbred-B) and …

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Re: Best Motherboard for Athlon XP-2500+ (Barton)

Posted on 2023-10-17, 13:48

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

@CharlieFoxtrot Thank you, but for DOS gaming I have a 486 setup (AMD 133MHz). I will have a look on these different boards suggested by you. Thank you. I wouldn’t count out VIA chipsets either. I think pretty much most KT400 and KT600 boards had support or got a bios update for Barton core. This …

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Re: Best Motherboard for Athlon XP-2500+ (Barton)

Posted on 2023-10-17, 12:38

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There are many good options, but you need to take into account what your possible other requirements. For example, if you want any kind of PCI sound in DOS, you can count out every nForce2 board and look for something based on VIA chipsets. If you want nForce2, NF7-S V2.0 is a terrific option, but …

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Re: My first Socket A build

Posted on 2023-10-16, 17:14

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The reason I went with the 333mts SK Hynix RAM is because it's CL2, the fastest CAS latency the motherboard supports. The other DDR sticks I have are 266mts Kingston Value with CAS2.5. It is surely a good choice. What I meant is that if you are running your CPU stock @133 FSB, you should run your …

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Re: My first Socket A build

Posted on 2023-10-16, 09:45

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I bet your CPU is not 700MHz T-bird, but indeed XP. The 1999 marking is just the copyright year for Athlon, the manufacturing code has the week and year of manufacturing. If it is indeed a 700MHz Athlon (A0700AxxxB), I’d change it to a faster one and it has only 100MHz FSB and it is on the low end …

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Re: Jetway J-663as pro KT133 upgrade CPU?

Posted on 2023-10-16, 08:33

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What I’ve looked the manual, I don’t think there is a good chance getting newer Athlons running on this at least like they should, even Palominos with 133MHz FSB. It seems to have a locked 100MHz FSB (Ultra has 100/133 jumper). So even if some Athlon XP boots on this system (which isn’t granted), it …

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Re: IBM PS/2 Graphics Issues

Posted on 2023-10-16, 07:43

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes, it's one of the slowest 286 computers out there, I consider it as an XT on steroids. My other 286 (16MHz, 0ws) is over twice as fast. Even so, this ps/2 is still fun to play with. It is highly compatible with more modern hardware (VGA, ps/2 keyboard and mouse, ISA). If you want speed for dos …

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Re: Is there any reason to install more than 1 MB RAM on a 286 PC?

Posted on 2023-10-16, 07:32

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So there was a moment in time in the mid-80s, when RAM was cheaper than in the following years. It's being described in detail in this article : https://tedium.co/2016/11/24/1988-ram-shortage-history/ (^thanks to the3dfxdude for the link) This was very interesting read, thanks! I personally never …

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Re: Could you help me set up: Floppy, Zip, Ethernet on a 386?

Posted on 2023-10-16, 06:36

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Before running guest type lastdrive=Z This should give guest its pick of drive letter. If this works check your config.sys file for the lastdrive= line and give it a letter 1 or 2 higher then what's needed. For networking you have a few different options. DOS networking is really basic and bit of a …

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Re: Could you help me set up: Floppy, Zip, Ethernet on a 386?

Posted on 2023-10-16, 06:15

by

by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Before running guest type lastdrive=Z This should give guest its pick of drive letter. If this works check your config.sys file for the lastdrive= line and give it a letter 1 or 2 higher then what's needed. For networking you have a few different options. DOS networking is really basic and bit of a …

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Re: Could you help me set up: Floppy, Zip, Ethernet on a 386?

Posted on 2023-10-16, 05:03

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have Ethernet cards on every DOS system I have, including a 386SX, and can’t live without one. It simply makes life so much easier and it takes away 90% of the floppy/CD hassle after the initial installation. If you have already configured the card, you only need the packet driver for it from the …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-10-10, 06:47

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

But I agree. These 440 and 460 are very decent cards. And generally (relatively) cheap too. Exactly. Compared to GF2 ti or Ultra cards, these are very affordable. I paid 14€+shipping of this and nowadays it is difficult to find any GF2 except MX200/400 cards for similar price. And you literally get …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-10-09, 12:03

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

i should have the same (or similar lower spec) card from a medion pc. the yellow connector on the end is for the frontpanel. if i remember correctly its s-video input or something. i can take a picture of the frontpanel if you want. I was wondering what that connector is as there is no description …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-10-09, 10:49

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by CharlieFoxtrot

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just got this little bit more uncommon GeForce card, Medion GF4 MX460. I quite like these 440s and 460s as if you are not aiming for something specifically period correct, these are a great alternative for top-end GF2 cards: they offer similar performance as they are just tweaked NV15 (with even …

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