Took delivery of a Prometheus ARIA16 sound card.

Not sure if it works. Will have to give it a good cleaning and inspection before testing it.

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-08-09, 17:03:

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-08-09, 16:57:

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-08-09, 16:40:

???

It's a beast=monster=large cooler so the card may overclock quite high with it.

Ah, I see. I was confused about you mention the 9600, the card the cooler came with and already above 400/400.
The cooler goes onto a Radeon 9800 Pro. A card already infamous for its unreliability so I wouldn't dare overclock it. If I need more power I have a X800XT to do the job.

Yah I was probably thinking of R200 speeds for some reason 350 being high and 400 being insane.

Oh my.
A Baby-AT case for 30e. Not bad. Includes PSU, nees a bit of TLC. PSU condition unknown
Three optical PS2-mice (lightly used), one USB (almost new), black DVD-burner (IDE) and an Antec Phantom 500W for 40e. Not so shabby either. These have warranty 😮

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2023-08-09, 15:24:

Just received this EpoX 8RGA+

Nice. The integrated GF4 MX makes it easy to troubleshoot video problems. I wonder if there is a MCP-T under that heatsink on the south.(SoundStorm)

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2023-08-09, 15:24:

Just received this EpoX 8RGA+ with IO shield, 2x256MB Kingston HyperX CL2 RAM and Athlon 1900+ (it is T-bred, but haven't checke […]
Show full quote

Just received this EpoX 8RGA+ with IO shield, 2x256MB Kingston HyperX CL2 RAM and Athlon 1900+ (it is T-bred, but haven't checked whether A or B):

8RGA.JPEG

Those three caps below the NB don't exactly look like in top notch condition 👀

CAPS.JPEG

Well, I was sort of expecting that and was going to recap the board in any case, so I wouldn't call this a shocker. I'm actually surprised that those are the only caps that show signs of actually being bad.

All in all for 25€+shipping I find this very nice haul and good basis for my sA project when recapped.

I love Epox motherboards - my last Socket A motherboard was an 8RDA3+ purchased in late summer 2004 because I saw that some of the caps on my 8K3A+ were bulging. My top performing Socket A computer has a Epox 8KRA2+ which is fine, but it isn't quite the top performer that the Nforce 2 motherboards were.

PD2JK wrote on 2023-08-09, 17:36:

Nice. The integrated GF4 MX makes it easy to troubleshoot video problems. I wonder if there is a MCP-T under that heatsink on the south.(SoundStorm)

Yes, it should have MCP-T, AFAIK it was the first MB from EpoX to have one. Yet I think it wasn’t marketed as having SS. Either it couldn’t pass the certification for some reason or EpoX didn’t bother to get certification perhaps because it costed money.

Reviews I’ve seen have still praised the sound quality, like this one from Hexus:
https://hexus.net/tech/reviews/mainboard/530- … ep-8rga/?page=6

And I agree, IG is nice to have and makes testing the board a breeze: slap in memory and processor and you are good to go to find out if system posts.

I have an 8RDA+ with an overclocked T'bred B 1700+ to 2200MHz. Also with the MCP-T. Cheers!

Repo Man11 wrote on 2023-08-09, 17:52:

]
I love Epox motherboards - my last Socket A motherboard was an 8RDA3+ purchased in late summer 2004 because I saw that some of the caps on my 8K3A+ were bulging. My top performing Socket A computer has a Epox 8KRA2+ which is fine, but it isn't quite the top performer that the Nforce 2 motherboards were.

Agree, they were stunning boards! I had 8k5a2 and also 8rda3+. I had six different sA boards between autumn 2001-autumn 2004. Both epox boards were indeed great. I fiddled a lot with sA systems: had custom loop, bought cheap T-breds and Bartons just for the giggles and checked out how fast they go, decided if I want to keep them or sold them away after couple of weeks, I had at least 10 CPUs during that same time, starting from T-bird 1400 to last Bartons.

I broke my 8rda3+ during one of these ”tests”. I don’t exactly remember what replaced it, it was either Abit AN7 or NF7-S v2.0. Either way, I remember I bought AN7 pretty much the day it was available and it turned out to be a complete turd. It was a buggy mess and couldn’t get it stable with two sticks of memory even stock and I RMAed it. My last sA board nonethless that NF7. It is probably my all time favourite MB ever.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-08-09, 16:24:

I licked the picture, tastes like a B... ... okay, my general sense is it is a B due to combo of green substrate, bridges that are blown and "look", given the stepping wasn't readable.

I love your method 🤣

Yeah, it most likely is B in any case (still haven’t checked the stepping), because A was manufactured for so short period of time.

Today I got those parts:
-ASUS K8U-X motherboard with a AMD Sempron 3000+ 1.8GHz Palermo (E6 stepping, with 64bit and SSE3, SDA3000AIO2BX P/N) + cooler and with I/O Shield, also with a installed stick of 512MB RAM TwinMos PC3200 DDR400 CL3
-LITE-ON SOHC-5236V CD-RW/DVD-ROM COMBO IDE optical drive
-SAMSUNG SP1654N 160GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache SpinPoint P80M ATA/100 IDE HDD
-NO-NAME ATI Radeon 9250 128MB 64bit AGP 8X video card
-80-conductor ASUS ATA-66/100/133 IDE cable
-2x USB connector from a PC case front panel
-LPE2 400W ATX PSU (no-name)

Any opinions?

Some more recent sound card acquisitions:

Ensoniq Soundscape S-2000
Primax SoundStorm (GUS Clone)
Sound Blaster 16 (CT2290)
Sound Blaster AWE32 (CT3900)
Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold (CT4390)
Yamaha Audician 32 Plus (YMF718-S)
Yamaha Audician 32 Plus (YMF719E-S)
Yamaha SW60XG

I could not resist und purchased the first part of my propsed athlon system already. I got an MSI K7T266 Pro 2 mainboard and a Athlon 1400 cpu. It was a impulse buy due to the low price. 🤣. I am fully aware that it might be tricky to get a proper power supply for a Slot System buy mind was weak. Now I will deal with the task to find a proper power supply to get that system running. It will arive in 10 to 14 days then I will start looking for the other components.

gamefan_851 wrote on 2023-08-11, 07:44:

I could not resist und purchased the first part of my propsed athlon system already. I got an MSI K7T266 Pro 2 mainboard and a Athlon 1400 cpu. It was a impulse buy due to the low price. 🤣. I am fully aware that it might be tricky to get a proper power supply for a Slot System buy mind was weak. Now I will deal with the task to find a proper power supply to get that system running. It will arive in 10 to 14 days then I will start looking for the other components.

I had K7T266 Pro 2 + 1400MHz T-bird back in the day, got it in 2001. It was a terrific board, although far from the overclocking beast that many good later sA boards were. But it was more than enough for T-birds and for the era it was released.

Yeah, PSUs can be a bit challenge with these, especially with earlier boards without P4/12V power. Fast T-birds are also perhaps the worst when it comes to power usage.

I'm currently working on sA project too, based on the EpoX 8RGA+ (I posted about it here couple of days ago). I decided to go the vintage PSU route, but I will recap the secondary side. I need to recap the board also, it has bunch of crappy GSC and TEAPO caps. Especially the first ones are rubbish and few are bloated, but even those that aren't are most likely bad. You should check your caps also and consider recapping the board as all sA boards were made during the peak of the capacitor plague era. And those ultra low ESR electrolytics that were used at time were generally very unrealiable and had short life spans even from reputable brands. Reading badcaps forum, it wasn't uncommon to get bloated caps within 1-2 years from the purchase with these boards. It is no wonder that few years later manufacturers started to migrate to polymers when prices of those went down...

gamefan_851 wrote on 2023-08-11, 07:44:

I could not resist und purchased the first part of my propsed athlon system already. I got an MSI K7T266 Pro 2 mainboard and a Athlon 1400 cpu. It was a impulse buy due to the low price. 🤣. I am fully aware that it might be tricky to get a proper power supply for a Slot System buy mind was weak. Now I will deal with the task to find a proper power supply to get that system running. It will arive in 10 to 14 days then I will start looking for the other components.

PSU recommendation: Antec Earthwatts 380 from 2007. They are already 80 Plus certified so very efficient, but still have enough power on the 5V and 3.3V rails (130W combined) which is rare. And also has the 12V connector for newer boards. I use this with an Athlon 1400 and a Barton 3200+.

asdf53 wrote on 2023-08-11, 11:54:

gamefan_851 wrote on 2023-08-11, 07:44:

I could not resist und purchased the first part of my propsed athlon system already. I got an MSI K7T266 Pro 2 mainboard and a Athlon 1400 cpu. It was a impulse buy due to the low price. 🤣. I am fully aware that it might be tricky to get a proper power supply for a Slot System buy mind was weak. Now I will deal with the task to find a proper power supply to get that system running. It will arive in 10 to 14 days then I will start looking for the other components.

PSU recommendation: Antec Earthwatts 380 from 2007. They are already 80 Plus certified so very efficient, but still have enough power on the 5V and 3.3V rails (130W combined) which is rare. And also has the 12V connector for newer boards. I use this with an Athlon 1400 and a Barton 3200+.

I have a Topower 600Watt PSU with 57 Amps on the +5v Rail, 28 Amps on the 3.3 rail, 260watts combined ...its a Pentium4 PSU IIRC but has -5v and the AUX +12v cable, really nice PSU. Put it through testing recently and surprisingly it handled the tests wonderfully, was expecting some droop on the +12v rail but none at all.

Currently its being used in a Barton 3200+ build !

asdf53 wrote on 2023-08-11, 11:54:

gamefan_851 wrote on 2023-08-11, 07:44:

I could not resist und purchased the first part of my propsed athlon system already. I got an MSI K7T266 Pro 2 mainboard and a Athlon 1400 cpu. It was a impulse buy due to the low price. 🤣. I am fully aware that it might be tricky to get a proper power supply for a Slot System buy mind was weak. Now I will deal with the task to find a proper power supply to get that system running. It will arive in 10 to 14 days then I will start looking for the other components.

PSU recommendation: Antec Earthwatts 380 from 2007. They are already 80 Plus certified so very efficient, but still have enough power on the 5V and 3.3V rails (130W combined) which is rare. And also has the 12V connector for newer boards. I use this with an Athlon 1400 and a Barton 3200+.

Thanks a lot for the psu recommendation.

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-08-11, 12:15:

asdf53 wrote on 2023-08-11, 11:54:

gamefan_851 wrote on 2023-08-11, 07:44:

I could not resist und purchased the first part of my propsed athlon system already. I got an MSI K7T266 Pro 2 mainboard and a Athlon 1400 cpu. It was a impulse buy due to the low price. 🤣. I am fully aware that it might be tricky to get a proper power supply for a Slot System buy mind was weak. Now I will deal with the task to find a proper power supply to get that system running. It will arive in 10 to 14 days then I will start looking for the other components.

PSU recommendation: Antec Earthwatts 380 from 2007. They are already 80 Plus certified so very efficient, but still have enough power on the 5V and 3.3V rails (130W combined) which is rare. And also has the 12V connector for newer boards. I use this with an Athlon 1400 and a Barton 3200+.

I have a Topower 600Watt PSU with 57 Amps on the +5v Rail, 28 Amps on the 3.3 rail, 260watts combined ...its a Pentium4 PSU IIRC but has -5v and the AUX +12v cable, really nice PSU. Put it through testing recently and surprisingly it handled the tests wonderfully, was expecting some droop on the +12v rail but none at all.

Currently its being used in a Barton 3200+ build !

Thanks for your input as well. Any advice on that topic is more than welcome because getting the right psu can be a bit tricky.

gamefan_851 wrote on 2023-08-11, 12:45:

Thanks a lot for the psu recommendation. […]
Show full quote

asdf53 wrote on 2023-08-11, 11:54:

gamefan_851 wrote on 2023-08-11, 07:44:

I could not resist und purchased the first part of my propsed athlon system already. I got an MSI K7T266 Pro 2 mainboard and a Athlon 1400 cpu. It was a impulse buy due to the low price. 🤣. I am fully aware that it might be tricky to get a proper power supply for a Slot System buy mind was weak. Now I will deal with the task to find a proper power supply to get that system running. It will arive in 10 to 14 days then I will start looking for the other components.

PSU recommendation: Antec Earthwatts 380 from 2007. They are already 80 Plus certified so very efficient, but still have enough power on the 5V and 3.3V rails (130W combined) which is rare. And also has the 12V connector for newer boards. I use this with an Athlon 1400 and a Barton 3200+.

Thanks a lot for the psu recommendation.

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-08-11, 12:15:

asdf53 wrote on 2023-08-11, 11:54:

PSU recommendation: Antec Earthwatts 380 from 2007. They are already 80 Plus certified so very efficient, but still have enough power on the 5V and 3.3V rails (130W combined) which is rare. And also has the 12V connector for newer boards. I use this with an Athlon 1400 and a Barton 3200+.

I have a Topower 600Watt PSU with 57 Amps on the +5v Rail, 28 Amps on the 3.3 rail, 260watts combined ...its a Pentium4 PSU IIRC but has -5v and the AUX +12v cable, really nice PSU. Put it through testing recently and surprisingly it handled the tests wonderfully, was expecting some droop on the +12v rail but none at all.

Currently its being used in a Barton 3200+ build !

Thanks for your input as well. Any advice on that topic is more than welcome because getting the right psu can be a bit tricky.

Something to keep in mind should your MSI board ever kick the bucket.

There are a number of late Athlon XP boards that have the 4 pin +12v connector and its worth seeking one of these boards out as the +12v connector makes getting a PSU for Athlon setups as easy as grabbing any ATX PSU . .even modern ones will work as long as they have that 4 pin 12v plug.

As an example the Abit NF7-S 2.0 has the 4 pin socket, you can see it in the link below as the little 4pin socket next to the ATX connector, these boards seem to be fairly easy to obtain on Evilbay at reasonable prices.

http://hw-museum.cz/mb/12/abit-nf7-v2-0

This is also the board I use as its a rock solid Barton board, some here might not agree as its got a Nforce chipset and has a few issues with DOS compatibility due to that, but for a Win98se/WinXP box its pretty much perfect. (Not sure why people would use a Barton CPU for DOS .. its overkill)

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-08-11, 14:54:

Something to keep in mind should your MSI board ever kick the bucket. […]
Show full quote

Something to keep in mind should your MSI board ever kick the bucket.

There are a number of late Athlon XP boards that have the 4 pin +12v connector and its worth seeking one of these boards out as the +12v connector makes getting a PSU for Athlon setups as easy as grabbing any ATX PSU . .even modern ones will work as long as they have that 4 pin 12v plug.

As an example the Abit NF7-S 2.0 has the 4 pin socket, you can see it in the link below as the little 4pin socket next to the ATX connector, these boards seem to be fairly easy to obtain on Evilbay at reasonable prices.

http://hw-museum.cz/mb/12/abit-nf7-v2-0

This is also the board I use as its a rock solid Barton board, some here might not agree as its got a Nforce chipset and has a few issues with DOS compatibility due to that, but for a Win98se/WinXP box its pretty much perfect. (Not sure why people would use a Barton CPU for DOS .. its overkill)

It is not that straight forward, unfortunately. What I’ve read about the subject recently, most sA boards with P4 are still very 5V heavy including most nForce2 boards.

What I’ve gathered, the known boards which actually can rely on 12V rail are ABIT NF7, Gigabyte 7NNXP and the MSI KT880 Delta. This is also the reason I decided to go the refurb route: my Epox has P4, but most likely still relies heavily to 5V and I can later choose and test freely the boards I like to use in the system.

Thanks, now I want to know the power draw on such a P4 connector. 😉

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2023-08-11, 16:23:

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-08-11, 14:54:

Something to keep in mind should your MSI board ever kick the bucket. […]
Show full quote

Something to keep in mind should your MSI board ever kick the bucket.

There are a number of late Athlon XP boards that have the 4 pin +12v connector and its worth seeking one of these boards out as the +12v connector makes getting a PSU for Athlon setups as easy as grabbing any ATX PSU . .even modern ones will work as long as they have that 4 pin 12v plug.

As an example the Abit NF7-S 2.0 has the 4 pin socket, you can see it in the link below as the little 4pin socket next to the ATX connector, these boards seem to be fairly easy to obtain on Evilbay at reasonable prices.

http://hw-museum.cz/mb/12/abit-nf7-v2-0

This is also the board I use as its a rock solid Barton board, some here might not agree as its got a Nforce chipset and has a few issues with DOS compatibility due to that, but for a Win98se/WinXP box its pretty much perfect. (Not sure why people would use a Barton CPU for DOS .. its overkill)

It is not that straight forward, unfortunately. What I’ve read about the subject recently, most sA boards with P4 are still very 5V heavy including most nForce2 boards.

What I’ve gathered, the known boards which actually can rely on 12V rail are ABIT NF7, Gigabyte 7NNXP and the MSI KT880 Delta. This is also the reason I decided to go the refurb route: my Epox has P4, but most likely still relies heavily to 5V and I can later choose and test freely the boards I like to use in the system.

Sure but with the +12v the draw for +5v is less than a board without, likely low enough that you could use any decent 80 plus modern PSU with 15+ amps on +5v, especially if it has separate rails for sata devices and AGP GPU. If the board doesn't have +12v then this suggestion doesn't apply and using a refurb PSU with 20+ amps on the 5v rail is the better option.

-You can buy modern ATX PSUs with 20+ amps on the +5v rail, the ATX 3.0 one I bought recently has 22 amps which is more than you actually need even for a board without the +12v plug, not all modern PSUs are garbage with their wattages. (The EVGA one I have which is ATX 2 has 20 AMPs which again is more than enough for an Athlon board)

IIRC there was a previous thread here on Vogons about this very subject and many found that Athlon isn't as heavy on +5v as people thought and you can get away with less AMPs on the +5v rail if you are not loading the rig up with a dozen HDDs and 6 million peripherals all running off that one 5v rail. +15 is more than enough for a normal Athlon build that isn't being overclocked and using sata devices, or being used as a file server, if you want to do some over clocking with a high end AGP GPU and run multiple spinning rust drives then you may need 20 amps or more.