^ well it has real cache on it (128kb), umb blocks get activated with URAM, it's stable as far as I can tell - but yes, the pcb is too thin 🤣 🤣 🤣
Maybe the AWARD BIOS works with large HDDs as well? need to test this.

My old 486 supported hard drives up to 7.8GB, which was weird, yet awesome. In fact, my Packard Bell desktop supported up to 3.2GB surprisingly, yet, my 10GB HDD won't get detected at all for some reason after upgrading the BIOS from the OEM Phoenix BIOS 4.03 to Micro Firmware 4.05.10 (maybe it's a bad cable) on the primary channel, but, it gets detected on the secondary channel without issues. Good luck, man. Also, having a math co-processor in that machine is the icing on the cake.

^ yeah I will test it and report back on the hdd situation. I have a good feeling about this 🤣 🤣 🤣

keropi wrote:

^ well it has real cache on it (128kb), umb blocks get activated with URAM, it's stable as far as I can tell - but yes, the pcb is too thin 🤣 🤣 🤣
Maybe the AWARD BIOS works with large HDDs as well? need to test this.

If only they made it thin enough to fold for shipping... 😎

keropi wrote:

^ well it has real cache on it (128kb), umb blocks get activated with URAM, it's stable as far as I can tell - but yes, the pcb is too thin 🤣 🤣 🤣
Maybe the AWARD BIOS works with large HDDs as well? need to test this.

Lba released just in the middle of 94 in the bioses. I have a very early asus sis471 board (v1.3), which comes with 3.3v cpu support, but the award bios detected the dx4 as p24t, and no lba support. They sold this board at the end of 94.

Neco wrote:

I bought a Gefen VGA to DVI scaler Plus off ebay and it arrived much sooner than expected.

How much did it cost and are you happy with the quality? I bought an Aten like 10 years ago because it was only like a fourth of the price of the Gefen: https://www.aten.com/us/en/products/professio … nverters/vc160/

dionb wrote:

The pic should have been obvious... […]
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The pic should have been obvious...

It's a board with Intel's i820 Camino chipset that supports SDRAM using an MTH (Memory Translator Hub). Those things were awful by design, combining SDRAM's relatively low bandwidth with the Rambus interface's excessively high latencies. But the reality was worse: Intel was unable to get them running stable at anything near the required speeds. At first they promised fixes in new BIOS releases, but when they failed to materialise Intel eventually recalled all boards with an MTH, offering a Rambus - only i820 board in exchange, with the same amount of RDRAM as on the recalled board (which at 2000 prices was an extraordinarily expensive exercise).

This was the second recall in 'Caminogate' - earlier Intel had already had to recall all i820 boards with three RIMM slots due to unrelated stability problems. To call this chipset a train wreck would be too kind.

Xbitlabs reviewed this specific board and concluded that their test example was only stable below 120 MHz, which - given the only argument to buy an i820 board with SDRAM was to run a 133MHz FSB Pentium 3 in-spec - was pretty disastrous. I look forward to seeing how this one does...

This was a big failure for Intel for sure back then.

I had forgotten about this variant of the 820 chipset.
I have had the pleasure of experimenting with 2 VC820 boards, one with 2 RDRAM slots and 1 with 3. Both boards had virtually identical layout, but some soldered individual components did differ.
The 3 slotted VC820 had a hard time even getting Windows installed as I went from BSoD to BSoD and at some point I had had enough and switched boards to the VC820 with 2 RDRAM slots and it had been smooth sailing ever since 😁

The 3 slotted board remained unstable no regardless of how I tried to arrange the memory modules, even using just 1 module and a couple CRIMM in all sorts of combinations.

But it was an interesting experiment for sure. Obviously the build built around the 3 slotted board was a failure, but imo the experiment itself was a success 😀

Here's something I ordered ages ago but finally showed up in my mailbox while I was away for a couple weeks. A mighty Phenom II X3 720 Black Editition:

For some reason I find the concept of a triple-core hilarious, although this "should" be unlockable to a quad-core, and being the "black edition", it has an unlocked multiplier. Will be fun to mess around with. It cost me literally $13 shipped, while the X4 & X6 variants are still going for $25-50+, so can't complain. This was intended to go in red, green, beige & blue, but since that build failed, it'll be a much-needed upgrade for my VGA capture PC instead.

Incidentally it came in this adorable seemingly brand-new folding CPU box. I have no idea if this is what these boxes were intended for, but it's goddamn perfect. Where can I get some of these?

xjas wrote:

... Incidentally it came in this adorable seemingly brand-new folding CPU box. I have no idea if this is what these boxes were intended for, but it's goddamn perfect. Where can I get some of these?

You ordered that CPU from China, right? :p
In the past I've bought some Intel s775 and similar AMD CPUs from those sellers, and individually they each arrived in those exact same boxes. I imagine some cardboard packaging factory there commissions them or something.

SW-SSG wrote:

You ordered that CPU from China, right? :p
In the past I've bought some Intel s775 and similar AMD CPUs from those sellers, and individually they each arrived in those exact same boxes. I imagine some cardboard packaging factory there commissions them or something.

Came from a Korean seller... I think he's just a dude who parts out old PCs rather than some high-volume industrial operation, judging by the labelling & his other auctions, so he must have bought them somewhere. Incidentally the CPU box was gently bubble-wrapped and shipped in a padded outer envelope. Can't complain.

Not much lately:

Now they can be friends:

Still looking for the non-value black box which seems to be a PITA to find.

xjas wrote:

Incidentally it came in this adorable seemingly brand-new folding CPU box. I have no idea if this is what these boxes were intended for, but it's goddamn perfect. Where can I get some of these?

Conrad - they come in different sizes:
https://www.conrad.com/ce/en/product/172324/E … ef=searchDetail

My pretty compact november report on old hardware that i've got:
ATi Radeon HD3850

Probably one of the most powerful AGP card. 😀

S3 Savage/IX

Kinda weird thing (and yes, i know that this particular IX chip is for notebooks), but since i like this Savage family of graphics cards, this is a great addition to my collection. Also, i like this turquoise color of PCB.

ESS Audiodrive ES688F

Very useful thing for 486/P1 builds.

And couple of Intel-ish stuff:

Intel Advanced/EV (Endeavour)

I know that Intel mobos have tons of quirks, but... damn, it's huge. It's like two standard Socket 7 mobos in size. 😀
Also, interesting what this power connector near PCI bus means...

Intel D815EEA2

Well, classic socket 370 mobo, made by Intel.

The power connector on the intel socket 7 motherboard is 3.3V power connector for pci based on the manual. I have never connected anything in it in mine and everything has worked fine.

Baoran wrote:

The power connector on the intel socket 7 motherboard is 3.3V power connector for pci based on the manual. I have never connected anything in it in mine and everything has worked fine.

Thanks for explaining. I've seen (and have) a lot of S7 mobos, but this is first one with such a thing. 😀

Benetton93 wrote:

My pretty compact november report on old hardware that i've got: [...] […]
Show full quote

My pretty compact november report on old hardware that i've got:
[...]

Intel D815EEA2

Well, classic socket 370 mobo, made by Intel.

What's that odd little connector next to the GMCH? Somewhere to add dedicated framebuffer RAM for the IGP?

I think I might have hit the jackpot. Tomorrow afternoon I'm clearing out someone's attic. No idea exactly what I'm getting, but on the typically fuzzy, dark pictures I count at least 14 LPX or AT cases, a couple of boxes with "386SX-25" and "386DX-40" on them, piles of PCBs of every description, more large boxes without label bulging with something, and some CRTs including an absolutely titanic one by the look of it (no, not an FW900, but not that much smaller). I seriously expect my car is going to be the limiting factor.

I know that Intel mobos have tons of quirks

They're mostly boring, but at least, in my experience, ATX Socket 7 Intel boards are quite common(lots of OEM), which might be useful for a Pentium MMX build.

dionb wrote:

What's that odd little connector next to the GMCH? Somewhere to add dedicated framebuffer RAM for the IGP?

Do you talking about SCSI-ish looking one? I was confused too when i saw it first time, it's called DVO. Digital Video Output if i got it right.

Benetton93 wrote:

S3 Savage/IX http://i.imgur.com/0Pz4qeLm.jpg Kinda weird thing (and yes, i know that this particular IX chip is for notebooks), […]
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S3 Savage/IX

Kinda weird thing (and yes, i know that this particular IX chip is for notebooks), but since i like this Savage family of graphics cards, this is a great addition to my collection. Also, i like this turquoise color of PCB.

The memory is located directly on the graphics chip, so I guess you can call this the early version of AMD's HBM 🤣

Lot of ISA Sound cards.
Yamaha ISA OPL
Turtle Beach Monte Carlo
Sound Blaster 16 Value
Ess audio drive ES1688F