Nice system. I've often eyed the complicated quad socket 8 boards for an absolutely unreasonable NT3/4 build that will be useful for literally nothing. 🤣

The issue with early dual CPU builds is the lack of software support. Of course you will be able to set affinity and run multiple tasks on different CPUs. That's fine, but good luck finding games or programs with multitask support outside of modern or server software.

In the respect, Windows 2000 would be the best idea. Software support will be the best here, sourceports for games like ZDoom may or may not use multithreading. You're target for the best performance will probably be sourceports and modern recreations of old games that will still work on older systems.

You might also have luck with Half Life 2 with a beefy enough card. That could be new enough to support multithreading. The caveat is that if it does not, it won't run in any playable form as even Half-Life 1 will struggle on a Pentium 2.

But even still the cool factor of having not just one crazy cartridge based CPU, but TWO, is enough for at least me in this case.

I have a cool 2003 system, IBM EServer 235, and this thing was so crazy in 2003, it still holds up today.

It's two 32-bit hyperthreaded Xeons with PAE support up to 12GB. It can have a whole 1.8TB on the Ultra320/SCA80 backplane, and supports PCI-X so I can throw more TBs of drives on a SATA controller. It's essentially a
32-bit i3 with less than great underlying architecture. It's fine for basic servers, but will only run linux (After ages of configuring, and even then not well) or Windows Server 2000/2003.

But in general I love multi CPU systems. Not mutli core, but multi CPU. Some machines can get completely stupid with the CPU count reaching 8-32 CPUs especially on DEC Alpha systems

luckybob wrote:

is it me, or do 333mhz chips just not exist?

I suppose back in the day you'd only get one if you were stuck with a 66mt/s FSB board? The 350mhz one that came out a few months later was a $100 cheaper.

jade_angel wrote:

Also - while it's not remotely period-correct, that 64-bit PCI slot could let you have gigabit ethernet or Firewire 800 at full speed. Firewire's fun for a lark, and kinda useful.

What about one of these? 😜
To your point, a gigabit NIC would be useful, as I transfer all my files to this PC over the network. I would have thought they'd have had PCI-X gigabit NICs in 98/99? Kind of like how most of our servers today have 10/25gbit NICs.

Ampera wrote:

But even still the cool factor of having not just one crazy cartridge based CPU, but TWO, is enough for at least me in this case.

This is honestly my main motivation for the build. I think multiprocessor computers are cool, even though in many cases they're completely impractical for general use (barring specific application requirements of course). It'd be like building a desktop PC today with two Xeon E7-8890 processors. Outside of hypervisors, or massively hyperthreaded server applications, why would you need 96 logical cores? I dunno, but what an awesome computer that would be.

You should totally build that quad socket 8 machine, and post thread here with pictures so I can gawk at it. 😀

phosgene wrote:

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jade_angel wrote:

Also - while it's not remotely period-correct, that 64-bit PCI slot could let you have gigabit ethernet or Firewire 800 at full speed. Firewire's fun for a lark, and kinda useful.

What about one of these? 😜
To your point, a gigabit NIC would be useful, as I transfer all my files to this PC over the network. I would have thought they'd have had PCI-X gigabit NICs in 98/99? Kind of like how most of our servers today have 10/25gbit NICs.
<snip>

PCI-X, no, but 64-bit PCI, probably. PCI-X technically only refers to the 64-bit, 100/133MHz implementations; 64-bit 33/66MHz implementations are just PCI, which matters sometimes though they should be cross-compatible. There was technically a PCI-X 266MHz and 533MHz standard, but AFAIK the 266 version was only implemented on a handful of server boards and 533 was never actually seen in the wild. For a period-correct gigabit card it'd likely be 1000BaseSX or 1000BaseLX fiber, though, while a 1000BaseT copper model would be a lot more useful, which is why I was saying it'd be more modern. Though not much - 64-bit copper cards from Intel, 3Com or Broadcom were certainly old news by the time I first bought one in 2005 - we had some shipping in Dell and Sun servers that we'd been using for a few years.

As for the video card, that's pretty cool! The Parhelia wasn't exactly the toast of the town, but it was no bad card, for sure. It was the fastest 3D chipset Matrox ever made, IIRC - definitely faster than the G400 Max, which is no slouch in period-correct games. If that slot on your board is 64/33, it's about as fast as AGP 1x, and if it's 64/66, then it about matches AGP 2x, so, you can get fairly good performance out of a Parhelia in there. That card wants 64/133, but it'll still work fine in a slower slot.

Lol I'd love to build a Quad 8 machine. Maybe it will be my next build when I get the money to do so.

And two Xeon E7s have applications. For me, video rendering and realtime encoding would be the two things I would most use it for. It would also make a killer BOINC machine.

Hah, PCI-X. It's surprisingly fast, given what it is. 133,000,000 x 64 bits = 8512Mbps. That is insane for the 1998 it came out.

phosgene wrote:

jade_angel wrote:

Also - while it's not remotely period-correct, that 64-bit PCI slot could let you have gigabit ethernet or Firewire 800 at full speed. Firewire's fun for a lark, and kinda useful.

What about one of these? 😜
To your point, a gigabit NIC would be useful, as I transfer all my files to this PC over the network. I would have thought they'd have had PCI-X gigabit NICs in 98/99? Kind of like how most of our servers today have 10/25gbit NICs.

That is a RAIDport and is only for RAID. Probably RAIDport II or possibly RAIDport III.

luckybob wrote:

is it me, or do 333mhz chips just not exist?

I'm not sure how common they are, but I bought one with a late stepping. They supposedly clock to 500 MHz and are stable. The wiki article I read mentioned that Intel was planning on releasing PII-500, but decided against it, so the late stepping ones were marked for 66 Mhz systems, thus 333 MHz. If you overclock the 440BX bus to 133 Mhz or 140 MHz, you can have yourself a 700 MHz PII. That is a bit much for my taste, but a 600 MHz PII might be realistic. It was my plan to add a PII-500 and PII-600 to the Ultimate 686 Benchmark comparison, along with, of course, the 333, 450, and to fill in varous other gaps.

Hello all, it's been a while! Life intervened, and this project had to take a back seat. Originally I was going to put this machine in a modern case, but I couldn't justify the cost; so I found an old beige ATX case at the recycling centre and snagged it for this build.

The front bezel was a bit scratched up, and I'm currently in the process of sanding back the silver trim and respraying it flat grey (personal taste, not fan of metallic colours on plastics). Here's the "before" photo:

I'm also waiting on some new 80mm case fans and a small molex fan controller; as there's not enough fan headers on the motherboard, and I'd also like some way of controlling the fan speed. This the fan controller that I've got on order:

feipoa wrote:

That is a RAIDport and is only for RAID. Probably RAIDport II or possibly RAIDport III.

Good observation! I wasn't even aware that RAIDport was a thing, and I had just assumed that it was PCI-X given the similarities in the form factor. I'm glad I didn't spring for a gigabit NIC.

I do have a D-Link Fast Ethernet NIC on hand, so I may use that instead of the 10Base-T one.

So it's more of less complete for the moment. Here's all the bits laid out:

I've been playing around with some different bits and pieces, but settled on these...

CPU: 2x Pentium II 450MHz Processors
RAM: 4x 256MB PC133 DIMMs
PSU: Corsair RM650x
NIC: Realtek RTL8029AS
3D: 2x Diamond Monster 3D II 12MB
VGA: Matrox G400
HDD: Fujitsu 36GB 10K Ultra320 SCSI
Sound: Sound Blaster 16 Value PNP CT2980

Here's it all assembled. The speed control on the fan hub doesn't actually work, but not too big of an issue...

I'm not super happy with the case. The bracket for the expansion slots seems to be set back a bit too far, so it makes screwing the expansion card brackets in really difficult. The airflow through the fan at the front of the case is also pretty bad, so I'm keeping my eyes peeled for something better.

I think I'll also replace the sound card at some point, as I ran into the hanging note bug while trying to listen to the General MIDI music in Raptor.

Other plans include a 5.25" IDE drive caddy to put an SD card adaptor in it, to aid in transferring files.

Nice job. What would be even more delicious would be to have that RAIDport slot filled with a working piece of hardware!

Looking awesome.

Are the P2-450 in SECC2 rare? When I run into them it seems they are always SECC 😒 I like the look of those new Noctuas, are the couple of 120mm fans on the side panel? I can't see them in the pictures.

feipoa wrote:

Nice job. What would be even more delicious would be to have that RAIDport slot filled with a working piece of hardware!

Thanks! I did leave the RAIDPort open just in case. There are some more Ultra320 HDDs kicking around at work, so if I do decide to go with a RAID the option is there. 😀

slivercr wrote:

Are the P2-450 in SECC2 rare? When I run into them it seems they are always SECC 😒 I like the look of those new Noctuas, are the couple of 120mm fans on the side panel? I can't see them in the pictures.

The P2-450 processors i have are SL358, which seem to be reasonably common (there's two on ebay now with no heatsink). There's also the SL37H which is also SECC2, but they seem to be less common. The SL2U7 and SL2WB are both SECC.

The fans are 2x 90mm for the rear exhaust & side panel intake, with an 80mm intake in front of the HDD bay. Here's a pic of the side panel:

I agree, there are better options for the case, but it is still nice.

luckybob wrote:

I agree, there are better options for the case, but it is still nice.

Thanks! I've been looking around, but so far I'm unable to find anything for a reasonable price. Who would have thought that beige ATX computer cases would become a rarity? Something like an early Dell Dimension XPS case would be nice. The current case is more of a stop-gap measure, so I can play with the computer while I wait.

New upgrade:

The stock fans that came with the P2 processors were very offensive to the ears, and had to be replaced. Unfortunately Noctua doesn't make 50mm fans, so I ended up getting some Gelid Silent 5 fans. They're barely audible, and seem to be quite high quality. The only thing I can hear now is the SCSI drive.

So the RAIDport added RAID functionality to integrated SCSI non-RAID adaptors? Was this an Adaptec thing only? What are the differences between the RAIDport versions?

Errius wrote:

So the RAIDport added RAID functionality to integrated SCSI non-RAID adaptors? Was this an Adaptec thing only? What are the differences between the RAIDport versions?

1- yes.
2- also, yes. Adaptec had like 95% market share in the prosumer market.
3- The pci bus wasn't fast enough to get the job done initially. So the extra connector did the raid communication. Later, with pci-x it wasn't as much of an issue so it was just a specially marked slot on the motherboard. Past that, SAS took over and there was no longer a need for it on p-scsi. All ther serious users were using high powered cached dedicated cards anyway. The raidport cards are kinda like "baby's first scsi raid" in a way.

More information in this post.

http://download.adaptec.com/pdfs/arrayguide.pdf

Available exclusively from selected Adaptec OEM customers, the ARO-1130 PCI RAIDport card is a cost-effective, high-performance array solution that delivers the same features and benefits as the AAA-130 array adapter series, but in a different implementation. The ARO-1130 card upgrades embedded Adaptec SCSI channels and connectors on a motherboard to SCSI RAID channels. OEMs can easily install a RAIDport connector to make a motherboard with embedded Adaptec ASICs RAID-ready. Then, by plugging in the ARO-1130 RAIDport card, the motherboard is automatically upgraded from standard SCSI to SCSI RAID. Using on-board SCSI controllers as RAID channels reduces the cost of the card, while leveraging and preserving the investment in motherboard SCSI. Once in place, the ARO-1130 RAIDport card provides benefits that are similar to those delivered by the AAA-130 series array adapters — making it an ultra-affordable, high-performance RAID solution for entry-level servers

Certainly a lust-worthy paragraph you've pasted there. Unfortunately, I have bought two such ARO-1130 cards and neither of them worked in my Dell OEM system. The first one didn't even show a boot ROM, while the second one did. The second one allowed me to enter the card's configuration utility, but no matter what, it would not find the drives I had attached to the SCSI port. My Dell OEM system was from Q4 1998, and so was the ARO-1130 card. Now I think there was an ARO card more geared towards the PII Xeon Workstation (Dell Precision Workstation 420?) and one for the PII Pentium Workstation (Dell Preision Workstation 410). I'm pretty sure I found the right ARO card, so I was wondering if these ARO cards only work with HDDs up to a certain size or of particular part numbers? I don't think I have any original Ultra2LVD SCSI drives remaining. They were so damn loud. My system came with a 9 GB Ultra2LVD drive and I have upgraded my system so many times now that 9 GB is way too small. I think Ultra2LVD may have gone up to 18 GB? But all my Ultra SCSI drives are now U160 or 320. Maybe this is the issue....

You apparently have to get the appropriate card for your motherboard. From what I gather there were 4 models:

RAIDport (I) - ARO-1130
RAIDport II - ARO-1130SA or ARO-1130CA
RAIDport II/III - ARO-1130U2

These are the two cards I have in possession:

ARO-1130xA-C/16MB
1747400 R2
9947
34311 (Dell part number?)
My notes: Dell Precision Workstation 410 would not recognise this card.

ARO-1130xA-C/16MB DELL
1747400 A
9825
34311
My notes: Dell Precision Workstation 410 detects card fine, but I cannot create any arrays from within the ArrayConfigCA

My original Dell Precision Workstation 410 Manual says almost nothing about the RaidPORT, but from my personal research in the past, I have penciled into my manual:

PAIDport III connector to be used with Adaptec ARO-1130CA. ARO-1130CA is designed for use with Adaptec AIC-7890 or AIC-7896. The ARO card's BIOS is set for either the 7890 or the 7896, not both. ARO-1130CA is the Dell OEM version of the retail ARO-1130U2.

From this research, you can see why I bought a second 1130CA card after the first one failed to be recognised. The 7890 is the Dell OEM version of the Adaptec Ultra2LVD controller, which is integrated onto the Dell Precision Workstation 410 motherboard. The 7896 was the Dell OEM version of the Adpatec ? , which was integrated onto some other Dell Workstation board, I think the 420 or 620, but don't recall.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? I don't really want to keep buying 1130CA cards until I find one which works, so I gave up until more information surfaces.

Ampera wrote:

Nice system. I've often eyed the complicated quad socket 8 boards for an absolutely unreasonable NT3/4 build that will be useful […]
Show full quote

Nice system. I've often eyed the complicated quad socket 8 boards for an absolutely unreasonable NT3/4 build that will be useful for literally nothing. 🤣

The issue with early dual CPU builds is the lack of software support. Of course you will be able to set affinity and run multiple tasks on different CPUs. That's fine, but good luck finding games or programs with multitask support outside of modern or server software.

In the respect, Windows 2000 would be the best idea. Software support will be the best here, sourceports for games like ZDoom may or may not use multithreading. You're target for the best performance will probably be sourceports and modern recreations of old games that will still work on older systems.

You might also have luck with Half Life 2 with a beefy enough card. That could be new enough to support multithreading. The caveat is that if it does not, it won't run in any playable form as even Half-Life 1 will struggle on a Pentium 2.

But even still the cool factor of having not just one crazy cartridge based CPU, but TWO, is enough for at least me in this case.

I have a cool 2003 system, IBM EServer 235, and this thing was so crazy in 2003, it still holds up today.

It's two 32-bit hyperthreaded Xeons with PAE support up to 12GB. It can have a whole 1.8TB on the Ultra320/SCA80 backplane, and supports PCI-X so I can throw more TBs of drives on a SATA controller. It's essentially a
32-bit i3 with less than great underlying architecture. It's fine for basic servers, but will only run linux (After ages of configuring, and even then not well) or Windows Server 2000/2003.

But in general I love multi CPU systems. Not mutli core, but multi CPU. Some machines can get completely stupid with the CPU count reaching 8-32 CPUs especially on DEC Alpha systems

What prevents consumer Windows versions from running on it?