Ariakos wrote:

I got this HP Brio BA D75xx unit for 10€. Apparently it has some 486 CPU (DX2/66? It's under a heatsink), and SiS motherboard with 3 PCI & 1 ISA slot. It has integrated graphics and a sound chip (Crystal CS4280-CM) on board. Unit also came with couple of PCI cards (probably a modem by Telewell and some weird Lite-On card with only LINE output). Too bad about only one ISA slot, I was hoping for at least two. Oh well, the mini sized AT-case will make for a decent project...

That looks like a Socket-7 system, the motherboard has a SiS 5595 southbridge.

Skyscraper wrote:

That looks like a Socket-7 system, the motherboard has a SiS 5595 southbridge.

Well I took out the CPU just to be sure. Turns out it was only wishful thinking and I've been "had". This is no 486 system at all... but a Socket 370 motherboard with an early Intel Celeron CPU! Damn. Although I really don't want to blame the seller. That old guy probably didn't remember the specs correctly when I fetched the desktop from his house. But still... it baffles me how someone can accidentally mistake a late 90s Celeron desktop for an early 90s 486 desktop. He couldn't have even mixed the desktop with another because it was the only one and his local net ad specifically claimed "Brio 486".

Oh well, it was only 10€. The case itself and the rest of hardware is in very good condition at least. Maybe I'll make something out of it yet.

edit: The CPU seems to be a Mendocino Celeron. Yay!

Skyscraper wrote:

Ariakos wrote:

I got this HP Brio BA D75xx unit for 10€. Apparently it has some 486 CPU (DX2/66? It's under a heatsink), and SiS motherboard with 3 PCI & 1 ISA slot. It has integrated graphics and a sound chip (Crystal CS4280-CM) on board. Unit also came with couple of PCI cards (probably a modem by Telewell and some weird Lite-On card with only LINE output). Too bad about only one ISA slot, I was hoping for at least two. Oh well, the mini sized AT-case will make for a decent project...

That looks like a Socket-7 system, the motherboard has a SiS 5595 southbridge.

Not to mention, the case itself as an Intel Celeron badge on it. 😜

IMHO you should not let the lack of expansion slots discourage you from using that board. Realistically all you would want in such a system is:
- Some sort of Voodoo1/2 and use a passthrough from the onboard video
OR
- A PCI Banshee/Voodoo3

- An ISA sound card that covers your needs (OPL3? onboard GM?)
- An ethernet NIC

And you still have an extra slot for whatever you might want to experiment with.

C2D E7400 (2.8GHz / 3MB L2) + random G31 board. Nothing special, but it could serve as a base of mATX winXP gaming rig.

Radeon X700 Pro 256MB

Radeon 9600 TX

Sutekh94 wrote:

Not to mention, the case itself as an Intel Celeron badge on it. 😜

Yeah, so it does... In my excitement (and hurry) I didn't even notice that badge while collecting. Then again that NT/98 Windows logo should've raised some alarms, too. 🙄

RacoonRider wrote:

Yes, I think it has 640K DIPP memory. I've got another 286 with 1Mb DIPP memory and a faulty 386 to steal SIMM slots from.
But I don't really know what to do with extra memory on a 286. Actually, I have no idea what a 286 can do that XT and 386 can't 😀

With the right chipset & drivers, EMS, but I only recall that being an option on the NEAT chipset.

Otherwise, the extra RAM is just extended / XMS - can't remember if there were ever any games that used it.
Only things for certain - SMARTDRV or Windows 3.x in standard mode

As for 286 vs 386 - I think the 286 was faster clock for clock in pure DOS than a 386sx, not sure if it held the advantage versus a full fat 386.

havli wrote:

C2D E7400 (2.8GHz / 3MB L2) + random G31 board. Nothing special, but it could serve as a base of mATX winXP gaming rig. http:// […]
Show full quote

C2D E7400 (2.8GHz / 3MB L2) + random G31 board. Nothing special, but it could serve as a base of mATX winXP gaming rig.

What's the card with the wraparound heatsink?

That's Asus GeForce 7600 GS Silent 512MB DDR2
https://www.asus.com/Graphics-Cards/EN7600GS_ … eries/overview/
http://hw-museum.cz/view-vga.php?vgaID=210

I wanted one of these in my collection: Sound Blaster 16 CT2230. I did not have a SB16 without the hanging note bug. The CT2230 has the CT1747 IC that seems to be the common denominator for bug-free MIDI. I tested with hexen -warp 02 with a Waveblaster II. The digital audio is very clean, and I think this is my best-sounding SB16 yet. Great to have a line out jack for recording a range of DBs. Always nice to have a full-height card with sensible placement of the DB header.

Ariakos wrote:

Sutekh94 wrote:

Not to mention, the case itself as an Intel Celeron badge on it. 😜

Yeah, so it does... In my excitement (and hurry) I didn't even notice that badge while collecting. Then again that NT/98 Windows logo should've raised some alarms, too. 🙄

I also noticed the case design which would indicate it's a mid- to late 90's system or newer. I think even HP P90 used a much "older" looking case, but hey, it's still a vintage computer for a very little money so not too bad.

sf78 wrote:

Ariakos wrote:

Sutekh94 wrote:

Not to mention, the case itself as an Intel Celeron badge on it. 😜

Yeah, so it does... In my excitement (and hurry) I didn't even notice that badge while collecting. Then again that NT/98 Windows logo should've raised some alarms, too. 🙄

I also noticed the case design which would indicate it's a mid- to late 90's system or newer. I think even HP P90 used a much "older" looking case, but hey, it's still a vintage computer for a very little money so not too bad.

Not to mention that the PSU says ATX on it in the model name, and you wouldn't expect that on a 486. Ah well, it's still a really nice looking system, seems to be in very good shape and for €10, it's pretty reasonably priced as well.

My lot of saved-from-recycling retro goodies came in yesterday evening and as soon as I got home today I stared inspecting, researching and testing. Of highest interest to me is the dual-socket 370 cpu board - an MSI 694D PRO2:

No damage whatsoever to this board - only one blown 2700uf capacitor witch I replaced with a 3300uf for lack of an exact replacement part. I'll order a couple 2700uf and recap it properly this week.

So far I was able to test it with two 1GHz PIII-S CPUs (at least I tough so until I noticed the post screen displayed 1000/933 😁 ) - interesting that this board can run two different speed CPUs as long as they run at the same FSB frequency.

I'm really curious to see if the second CPU adds anything to games and benchmarks.

kanecvr wrote:

So far I was able to test it with two 1GHz PIII-S CPUs (at least I tough so until I noticed the post screen displayed 1000/933 😁 ) - interesting that this board can run two different speed CPUs as long as they run at the same FSB frequency.

Are you sure those are Tualatin chips?
The 933 makes me suspect it's a Coppermine-T and according to the wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppermin ... processor) a Coppermine-T at 933MHz was made, but not a Tualatin.

The top side of Coppermine-T chips and Tualatin chips looks identical, but the Coppermine-T's look just like ordinary Coppermines when looking at the chip from the underside. This way you can easily distinguish between Coppermine-T and Tualatin chips 😀

Btw, funny how it can boot with 2 different chips that way, never knew that 🤣

Tetrium wrote:

kanecvr wrote:

Btw, funny how it can boot with 2 different chips that way, never knew that 🤣

It will be even funnier when it turns out that only one of them is actually a Tualatin 🤣

RacoonRider wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

kanecvr wrote:

Btw, funny how it can boot with 2 different chips that way, never knew that 🤣

It will be even funnier when it turns out that only one of them is actually a Tualatin 🤣

RIP kanecvr, may he rest in pieces but his Coppermine-T/Tualatin frankenhybride still be in working condition 🙁

Lol no, guys none of them are tualatin CPUs - both are coppermines, the model w/o IHS. For some reason the motherboard reports "Pentium III-S 1000Mhz" but they are coppermine CPUs. As soon as I found out I mixed up the CPUs I installed two identical 1000MHz PIII chips.

I installed both win98 and XP on the thing. Nice results in Aida64 under winXP. but besides aida, the only other thing to take advantage of the second CPU seems to be Quake III witch gets a nice FPS boost under windows XP vs 98.

P.S. I only have one tualatin CPU and it's pin modded for fcpga1. I run it in my ECS P6VXA since it's the only board I have that lets me set CPU voltage manually.

Tetrium wrote:

Btw, funny how it can boot with 2 different chips that way, never knew that 🤣

Me neither. Seems to run different voltages for the two CPUs in the pic as well - the 1GHz runs at 1.65v while the 933 runs at 1.7v. It lets me select independent voltage and multiplier for each CPU in BIOS. You can see the speed of the CPUs installed in the POST table in the second picture.

Quite nice board. I got hold of a MSI 694D Pro-AR recently and only today have I been messing with it. I have it with 2xP-III 1GHz Coppermines. Makes a quite nice Win2k pro SMP system. Just make sure you have the latest BIOS and whichever "retro" version of the VIA 4in1 chipset driver thing works best for you, some versions can cause all sorts of incompatibility troubles and stability issues. I coupled this m/b with a Radeon 9600Pro and a Creative Voodoo 2.

While trying to dual boot Win98 together with 2000, I came across this weird error where the Voodoo2 drivers caused video glitches, black squares instead of mouse pointers etc, to which I haven't found a solution yet under 98; it appears to be something between to the ATI Catalysts 6.2+the latest reference V2 drivers. Under 2000, I managed to solve this by using the latest Koolsmoky Driver Kit.

Tested some of the Voodoo 2 cards in the lot and I've experienced no such issues. Then again I used an older version of catalyst (5.8?) off a Sapphire driver CD + FastVoodoo 4.6

Cool, I'll have a go at combos like this tomorrow.