VOGONS


Seed to new socket 8 powerhouse

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First post, by Amigaz

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Been using my socket 8 rig for quite some time lately since it packs alot of power for it's age to run quite heavy windows games and DOS games...and it's nice to know you use hardware that cost a fortune back in the day, hehe

I decided a while back that I want a dual socket 8 motherboard so I can also run Win2000 or NT4 to have some more juice by taking advantage of two cpu's.

I just aquired this mobo:

52ebe330399301.gif

It's an MSI MS6107, has support for CPU speeds up to 233mhz...and the nice thing is that it's brand new...new old stock 😀
I have already bought two 1mb L2 cache Pentium pro's that will go in it which will be overclocked to 233mhz with better cooling.
Ram will be maxed to 768 meg's (EDO RAM), and I will use UW SCSI for the storage devices.
Haven't decided yet if I should use dual Voodoo 2's or a Voodoo 3000.
Will dual boot between Win98SE and Win2000 or NT4

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 1 of 51, by swaaye

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Oh boy 😀

I had a Micronics W6Li Socket 8 dualie a couple of years ago. It was huge and it was an interesting thing to mess around with. It came with EDO DIMMs, which was the first and only time I've ever seen those. Dual socket 8 systems suck down the electricity though and dump out some decent heat.

img50384.jpg

I ran Win2k on it. That was ok I suppose, but PPro isn't really that fast for Win2k. NT4 would probably be a much faster experience. And of course 9x will turn one of the CPUs into a 35W heater basically.

Reply 2 of 51, by Amigaz

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swaaye wrote:
Oh boy :) […]
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Oh boy 😀

I had a Micronics W6Li Socket 8 dualie a couple of years ago. It was huge and it was an interesting thing to mess around with. It came with EDO DIMMs, which was the first and only time I've ever seen those. Dual socket 8 systems suck down the electricity though and dump out some decent heat.

img50384.jpg

I ran Win2k on it. That was ok I suppose, but PPro isn't really that fast for Win2k. NT4 would probably be a much faster experience. And of course 9x will turn one of the CPUs into a 35W heater basically.

That mobo almost looks too...."modern" 😉

I don't expect Win2000 to run at any peak speeds...I might boot into it if intend to do any browsing and download anything useful...doing that in Win98 often results in "iexplore.exe has performed an illegal action" 😜

Maybe I'll settle with some lightweight Linux distro instead of any NT based windows for the "workhorse" OS 😉

Was first aiming to get a similar Intel socket 8 mobo as have you have which Gateway had in the P6-200 boxes since I currently own two P5-166 boxes so it would fit like a glove but the 2nd prices on the mobo's are ridiculous 😜
These gateway midi towers have a nob removable I/O shield so I cannot fot this MSI mobo in it without some serious metal work

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 3 of 51, by prophase_j

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I have a dual PPro setup that is really similar to Swaaye's. It turns out I was only using 256k cache chips, but even then I didn't think Windows 2000 ran bad at all. I would recommend that over NT4, and I tried both. The 512 of ram and 10k Ultrawides I was using absolutely helped a ton. It really took off after I switched to PII Overdrives @ 333mhz. I would compare NT4 vs 2K driver support for the voodoo's as the might be key. Uless you already have a functioning SLI setup, I think a V3 2000 would be okay as the 3000 PCI varients seem to be rare. And at only 233 and w/o MMX I doubt either will be pushed very hard anyway. so unless your worried about glide compatibility the single card solution is pretty nice.

It's too bad Amigaz's board takes SIMMs as I still have a bunch of DIMMs laying around. I actually started with a HP Vectra 6/200 but it couls only use FPM DIMMs not EDO. Now those things are RARE. So much infact I bought another motherboard supporting EDO and moved everything into a whitebox case. With Amigaz's board he'll have to install the SIMMs in pairs, in order to have a memory bus 64 bits wide for the Pentium. His board is also interesting because of the VRM for the second processor is apparently built in.

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Athlon XP-M 2200+ // Epox 8KTA3
Radeon 9800xt // Voodoo2 SLI
Diamond MX300 // SB AWE64 Gold

Reply 4 of 51, by swaaye

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Amigaz wrote:

Was first aiming to get a similar Intel socket 8 mobo as have you have which Gateway had in the P6-200 boxes....

My board is an Intel VS440FX "Venus". It's a more "normal" sized mobo than these dual socket 8 monstrosities. The IO shield it needs is a standard layout from those days and most cases ship with one that works fine.

Oh and those Gateway 2000 models were the G6-200.

Reply 5 of 51, by Amigaz

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prophase_j wrote:

I have a dual PPro setup that is really similar to Swaaye's. It turns out I was only using 256k cache chips, but even then I didn't think Windows 2000 ran bad at all. I would recommend that over NT4, and I tried both. The 512 of ram and 10k Ultrawides I was using absolutely helped a ton. It really took off after I switched to PII Overdrives @ 333mhz. I would compare NT4 vs 2K driver support for the voodoo's as the might be key. Uless you already have a functioning SLI setup, I think a V3 2000 would be okay as the 3000 PCI varients seem to be rare. And at only 233 and w/o MMX I doubt either will be pushed very hard anyway. so unless your worried about glide compatibility the single card solution is pretty nice.

It's too bad Amigaz's board takes SIMMs as I still have a bunch of DIMMs laying around. I actually started with a HP Vectra 6/200 but it couls only use FPM DIMMs not EDO. Now those things are RARE. So much infact I bought another motherboard supporting EDO and moved everything into a whitebox case. With Amigaz's board he'll have to install the SIMMs in pairs, in order to have a memory bus 64 bits wide for the Pentium. His board is also interesting because of the VRM for the second processor is apparently built in.

As an Amiga user also I'm loaded with simm's and Voodoo 3000 PCI cards...so I think I'll be ok 😁

Found the press release info for my board
http://web.archive.org/web/19970329200220/www … PRESS/11_18.htm

Would be interesting to find the price tag on it from back then..

btw. I might triple boot between Win98, NT4 and Win2000 pro, hehe

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 6 of 51, by Amigaz

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swaaye wrote:
Amigaz wrote:

Was first aiming to get a similar Intel socket 8 mobo as have you have which Gateway had in the P6-200 boxes....

My board is an Intel VS440FX "Venus". It's a more "normal" sized mobo than these dual socket 8 monstrosities. The IO shield it needs is a standard layout from those days and most cases ship with one that works fine.

Oh and those Gateway 2000 models were the G6-200.

Yeah, it sucks they didn't use a standard ATX layout of the I/O connectors
Same story on a TMC dual socket 8 mobo I have
But I managed to sniff out a suitable I/O shield on Ebay 😀

btw. I really like the Gateway 2000 stuff 😀 too bad they disapeared over here so we had to switch to awful Dell pc's at work 😜
But we still use Gateway 2000 P5-166 boxes at the warehouse, and a PIII Gateway box which was their last cry on the swedish market

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 7 of 51, by WolverineDK

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What about putting two overdrive CPU´s in the sucker too ? if it is possible. Then you could really have a bloody fast PC. or am I babbling complete bullshit ?

Reply 8 of 51, by Amigaz

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WolverineDK wrote:

What about putting two overdrive CPU´s in the sucker too ? if it is possible. Then you could really have a bloody fast PC. or am I babbling complete bullshit ?

Yep, I've considered this option and am very close to grabbing two 😀

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 9 of 51, by swaaye

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Amigaz wrote:

Yeah, it sucks they didn't use a standard ATX layout of the I/O connectors

VS440FX does use a standard layout. Like I said, you can use just about any 'ol backplate for it.
img5255a.th.jpgimg5257x.th.jpg
Some of them do have 2 USB ports in the usual spot below the PS2 ports, but mine does not. Some even have audio.

Last edited by swaaye on 2009-03-22, 17:54. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 10 of 51, by Amigaz

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swaaye wrote:
VS440FX does use a standard layout. Like I said, you can use just about any 'ol backplate for it. http://img24.imageshack.us/img […]
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Amigaz wrote:

Yeah, it sucks they didn't use a standard ATX layout of the I/O connectors

VS440FX does use a standard layout. Like I said, you can use just about any 'ol backplate for it.
img5255a.th.jpg
Some of them do have 2 USB ports in the usual spot below the PS2 ports, but mine does not.

Cool 😀

Must say I'm tempted in getting one of these boards for one of the P5-166 boxes...to turn it into a mega-super-hyper P6-200 which was Gateway's top of the line model in 1997 before they started using slot 1 PII mobo's

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 12 of 51, by Amigaz

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swaaye wrote:

whoa you are hanging out realtime. 😀 i added another shot, with a backplate from my backplate grab baggie.

yep, hehe

thx for the 2nd pic

but in a couple of min's I'll be glued to the tv set 😀

I wonder why they didn't follow the ATX standard I/O stuff on quite alot of boards

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 13 of 51, by swaaye

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These Intel mobos did. I also had a Intel "Mailman" mobo from a Gateway (430VX ATX) and it was standard ATX as well. That one has a ATI Rage II onboard. Was in the Pentium MMX systems Gateway put out.

Reply 15 of 51, by Amigaz

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2Mourty wrote:

What is a pentium pro good for as far as vintage gaming goes? Just curious.

The only advantage I can think of is heft FPS increase in Windows games that doesn't take advantage of MMX instructions
Also FPU demanding DOS games get a speed bost.

I'm only building a new socket 8 system for the coolnes factor of having hardware that was mega expensive in 1996-97.
imho you'd be better off with a P1 socket 7 200-230mhz MMX system for most of the part but imho that's "boring" hardware 😁 ...too widespread

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 16 of 51, by 2Mourty

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Actually that makes perfect sense. It is the same reason that I have 2 12mb of ram voodoo 2 cards in sli in my Penitum 3 rig instead of a more sensical voodoo 3.

Reply 17 of 51, by Amigaz

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Look what the mailman brought today 😀

dfc21732798119.gif

*out goes my socket 7 mobo in the gateway G5-166* 😁

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 19 of 51, by Amigaz

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swaaye wrote:

That looks a lot like the dual PPro mobo I had. Micronics Lightning W6Li. Looks exactly like it in fact 🤣.

Nothing wrong with your sight, that's for sure, hehe

Those lousy 256k cache 200mhz cpu's will be replaced later
It has 4x128mb ECC EDO SDRAM fitted....takes forever to get past the memory count during post 😜

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327