How about rounding HDD and FDD cables? Would help the airflow a lot in such a small case.

I'm already using a self-made round FDD cable:

But it's too long for this case. I should find a shorter and less stiff one. And perhaps some short round IDE cables.

Or a less tight chassis with more space inside to work.

Do the ISA cards work in DOS? I've heard that they often won't on P4 systems. If they do, I imagine that must be a killer rig for playing stuff like Blood and Carmageddon in high res.

bristlehog wrote:

But it's too long for this case. I should find a shorter and less stiff one. And perhaps some short round IDE cables.

Or a less tight chassis with more space inside to work.

It's easy to shorten them. I like to shorten them manually for each specific build so that everything looks nice and clean.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

Do the ISA cards work in DOS? I've heard that they often won't on P4 systems.

They work on MB800H. Some of late industrial motherboards don't support DMA transfers which are vital for most ISA soundcards. This one does support DMA and thus works with any soundcard.

For those motherboards without DMA support, ISA soundcards usage would be limited to music-only cards (Adlib, Roland etc.), and (probably) to soundcards that use shared memory instead of DMA (Turtle Beach Multisound series).

very nice build, I wish my p4/w98se setup had isa slots...

RacoonRider wrote:

It's easy to shorten them. I like to shorten them manually for each specific build so that everything looks nice and clean.

Really? How do you cut them?

I'm wondering how slow you can get this system to be. What is the lowest multiplier? Can you disable caches? I guess you're not worried about this since this is a late DOS\Win98 build...

carlostex wrote:

I'm wondering how slow you can get this system to be. What is the lowest multiplier? Can you disable caches? I guess you're not worried about this since this is a late DOS\Win98 build...

This is an industrial motherboard and it allows no overclocking or downclocking. The only manageable things about speed are DRAM parameters.

carlostex wrote:

What is the lowest multiplier? Can you disable caches?

All P4 have locked multiplier. Pentium4 2.4C (Northwood, 800 MHz FSB, 12x multiplier) have the lowest one, it can be down-clocked to 1.2 GHz if you force 400 MHz FSB.
And IIRC industrial MBs can't change the FSB speed...
About cache disabling - theoretically there is bit 30 (disable all caching) in the CR0 CPU register... Practically - I don't know any software than can do this.

At work we use some isa cards for peripherals control, thus we have industrial isa mobos.

Some of them have Pentium 4, but some have core 2 duo.
Today a new batch arrived, core i3 s1150 with optional uefi support aaand isa slots!
They are expensive though, about €700 each one...
There is no chance that they could support dma, or not?

GeorgeMan wrote:

core i3 s1150 with optional uefi support aaand isa slots!
They are expensive though, about €700 each one...
There is no chance that they could support dma, or not?

If you mention the exact motherboard model, it would be easier to judge.

I have seen contradictory opinions; but most people who investigated the subject say that ICH5 southbridge is the last to support DMA. Your Core i3 mobos should have later southbridge.

Does anyone know how ISA support was implemented in these later boards (And especially in some very rare 775 boards, and someone here mentioned a 1150 board)?

I've got a SY-P4I845PEISA, but I don't see a bridge chip anywhere (like those used on very new boards to support PCI). Did the 845 have native ISA?

"Native ISA" (and MS-DOS compatibility, by the way) is supported up to ICH5/5R (Intel 865/875). They have the legacy mode with two 8259 (IRQ) and two 8237 (DMA).

bristlehog wrote:

1) reduce the memory size to 512 Mb to avoid Windows 98 memory bugs. No XP installation is planned anyway.

You can save yourself some trouble by using HIMEMX in your config.sys instead. (You'll still need to edit io.sys to use Safe Mode, though.)

bristlehog wrote:

GeorgeMan wrote:

core i3 s1150 with optional uefi support aaand isa slots!
They are expensive though, about €700 each one...
There is no chance that they could support dma, or not?

If you mention the exact motherboard model, it would be easier to judge.

I have seen contradictory opinions; but most people who investigated the subject say that ICH5 southbridge is the last to support DMA. Your Core i3 mobos should have later southbridge.

Yeap, they should.
I'll try to get more info, as they are specially ordered for the company.

bristlehog wrote:

This is my main retro rig. It is running Windows 98 SE. […]
Show full quote

This is my main retro rig. It is running Windows 98 SE.

Cable management is a mess.

Specs:

Silverstone Grandia GD07 chassis
Corsair CX430V2 PSU
iBASE MB800H motherboard (its photo)
Pentium 4 Northwood 3,06 Ghz with a Zalman CNPS9900 cooler
2 Gb DDR-333
Geforce FX5700
60 Gb Seagate IDE HDD
Epson SD-800 dual floppy drive
Plextor PX-230A IDE CD-ROM

Currently it has an Innovation SSI-2001 replica ver. 2.7 and Turtle Beach Pinnacle rev. D installed, along with Media Vision external SCSI bracket which is not connected to anything for now.

My development plans for the rig:

1) reduce the memory size to 512 Mb to avoid Windows 98 memory bugs. No XP installation is planned anyway.
2) replace the CD-ROM with an appropriate DVD-ROM
3) replace the PSU with a modular one to reduce the cable mess
4) find a better chassis. This one's build quality is poor against the money they want for it.

Nice build, some cool parts there - the dual floppy is pretty awesome. Any plans for the vacant ISA slot? 😀

I have the same case for my main desktop C2D rig, it's fiddly to work with (but spacious - it's got a huge footprint), and the front flap gets in the way if you need access to optical drives, but also want a clean look; it's more of a build and forget HTPC case.

JidaiGeki wrote:

Any plans for the vacant ISA slot?

It's my main retro rig, so ISA soundcards come and go depending on what I am working with. I have no intention to stuff in some three soundcards and leave it be.

I've taken out the memory, leaving 512 Mb. Now I don't have to use BURNMEM.SYS.

After playing with TB Pinnacle, I've only managed to run it in legacy mode with Geforce FX5700 taken out, using built-in Intel Extreme Graphics in VGA mode.

It seems I need another video card to peacify the Pinnacle (it fights with Geforce for memory ranges). Any suggestions of non-Geforce 3D capable video cards suitable for this machine?