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Found an HP Pavilion 7110Z

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First post, by Great Hierophant

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I found this surprising system in my mother-in-law's garage. It was sitting under the stairs for 10 years and had suffered from neglect. I finally got around to testing it, and surprisingly, most everything seemed to work after a hard drive reformat.

Here are some of the specs:

16MB FPM DRAM (128MB Max FPM or EDO)
6x CD-ROM
Crystal 4232 ISA 16-bit CODEC
Yamaha YMF-289B OPL3-L
Western Digital Caviar 2100 1.2GB
Intel Pentium 120MHz (Socket 5)
S3 Trio 64V+ w/1MB RAM integrated, upgradeable to 2MB
0 Cache (256KB max)
PS/2 Keyboard & Floppy, 2 x Serial, 1 x Parallel
1.44MB Floppy
100MB IDE ZIP drive
Rockwell 28.8K Fax/Modem
2 PCI & 5 ISA Backplane (no sharing)
AT Power Supply

This is not a bad late-DOS, early Win 9x system. It has a very good DOS graphics card, namely the S3 Trio 64V+. The Crystal chip supports Windows Sound System for 16-bit support, Sound Blaster Pro for 8-bit support, Gameport and MPU-401 UART. Unfortunately, there is no BIOS option to disable these chips. However, a usenet post indicates that the graphics chip will be disabled when another is inserted into an expansion slot. The sound card can also be disabled according to HP.

I put Windows 95 OSR2.5 on it and it works fine. (Small issue : CD-ROM audio does not work through the CD header on the motherboard, but does on the Fax Audio header.

The biggest issues I have with it are obtaining 8 cache chips (and tag ram chip) for the motherboard, 2 ram chips for the S3, and jumper information. It is possible to select 50. 60 or 66 FSB through dipswitches but I have yet to discover how to change the multiplier. The S3 chip may be faster with 2MB and will certainly support higher resolutions, and the cachelessness really slows stuff down.

The RAM chips may be 256Kx16 @ 60ns, according to HP. Video RAM and Cache upgrades use SOJ sockets. The cache should be a 32Kx8 or 64Kx8 @ 15ns for 256K or 512K cache, 3.3V. These sockets have 32 pins. The tag socket requires a 32Kx8 @ 15ns 5.0V s-ram chip. This socket is 28-pin.

What about the video RAM? 256Kx16-70ns SOJ FPM DRAM seem to be the way to go. The existing chips are HY514260Bs.

Last edited by Great Hierophant on 2010-06-11, 07:06. Edited 2 times in total.

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/ - Nerdly Pleasures - My Retro Gaming, Computing & Tech Blog

Reply 2 of 5, by Tetrium

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Pics would be very helpful. Could you take some detailed shots of the cache chip sockets? Theres a slight chance I may have such chips laying around.

About the memory chips, those should be relatively easy to come by. Many graphics cards from that era had sockets filled with memory chips that can be removed. I have no idea about compatibility though

Reply 3 of 5, by Old Thrashbarg

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I'm pretty sure the Trio64 used EDO... so you're probably not going to want to put regular 70ns FPM in there, if it even works at all.

I'd have to see pictures to make sure they're the same type, but I' think I have all the chips you need, except for the tag ram. I salvaged 'em from an IBM board with almost identical specs, and I have no use for 'em, if you want 'em.

Reply 4 of 5, by Great Hierophant

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Old Thrashbarg wrote:

I'm pretty sure the Trio64 used EDO... so you're probably not going to want to put regular 70ns FPM in there, if it even works at all.

I'd have to see pictures to make sure they're the same type, but I' think I have all the chips you need, except for the tag ram. I salvaged 'em from an IBM board with almost identical specs, and I have no use for 'em, if you want 'em.

I appreciate the offer.

I should probably try to find the same part ## as the chips already on board. I read that doubling the RAM for the S3 Trio 64V+ also improves its performance in addition to unlocking new screen modes.

As this is a socket 5 board, it should be able to support Pentiums between 75MHz and 133MHz. In between those processors are 90MHz, 100Mhz and 120MHz. That means there are only two valid multipliers, 1.5x and 2.0x. I know it does support 50Mhz, 60Mhz & 66MHz FSB speeds. I will figure out how to change the multiplier.

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/ - Nerdly Pleasures - My Retro Gaming, Computing & Tech Blog

Reply 5 of 5, by Great Hierophant

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I am not sure whether I figured out the multiplier or not, but I am able to change the processor speeds!

The system has two dipswitches to select the FSB, and 50, 60 and 66 MHz are silkscreened as valid choices. There is another dipswitch called Bus. Freq. with 1/2 and 2/3 options.

2/3 Divider
With a 50MHz bus, the CPU speed is 75MHz
With a 60MHz bus, the CPU speed is 90MHz
With a 66MHz bus, the CPU speed is probably 100MHz, but the RAM is rated for 60Mhz, and this was so unstable I could not boot to Windows or get to the Setup screen.

1/2 Divider
With a 50MHz bus, the CPU speed is 100MHz
With a 60MHz bus, the CPU speed is 120MHz
With a 66MHz bus, the CPU speed is probably 133MHz. My CPU is only rated for 120MHz and the RAM 60Mhz, and this was so unstable I could not boot to Windows or get to the Setup screen.

I understand now, the divider is how the frequency of the processor is divided down to the FSB frequency! That is the opposite way of identifying the multiplier. Originally I thought it had to do with the PCI bus frequency being divided from the FSB frequency.

Obviously, to get to 133MHz, I will need a processor and RAM rated for 133/66MHz operation, respectively.

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/ - Nerdly Pleasures - My Retro Gaming, Computing & Tech Blog

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