VOGONS


Reply 20 of 34, by m1919

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sliderider wrote:
m1919 wrote:

How hard would it be to add the microcode for my processors to the bios?

Try searching around a bit first. Someone may have already created a hacked BIOS that does what you want it to.

I've been searching a while for a modded MS440GX bios, and there's pretty much nothing out there, unfortunately.

Last edited by m1919 on 2012-05-17, 15:33. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 21 of 34, by luckybob

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yea, running xeons on a home setup didn't become financially possible until the P4's. Remember these p3 xeons costs upwards of $3500 EACH. when they were new.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 22 of 34, by m1919

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Since the chipset should support Xeons up to 900mhz, would it be possible to remove the microcode for my processors from another 440GX based board and inject it into the latest bios I was able to find from Intel?

I'm not experienced in this kind of operation though, so I'm not sure how hard this would be to accomplish.

...and I just realized a repeated essentially the same question twice.

Reply 23 of 34, by luckybob

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this "might" help. the asus p2b-ds, is the slot 1 version of the xg-dls. more or less.

http://tipperlinne.com/p2bmod.html

if nothing else, its a nice read.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 24 of 34, by m1919

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luckybob wrote:

this "might" help. the asus p2b-ds, is the slot 1 version of the xg-dls. more or less.

http://tipperlinne.com/p2bmod.html

if nothing else, its a nice read.

The concepts of it seem pretty straightforward, now I just have to figure out what tools I need to do this with a Phoenix bios. I'm tempted to see if the cmos update method would work before I try the more extensive bios mod.

Reply 25 of 34, by feipoa

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Luckybob, thank you for that website. I love this guy's work. I might try a combination of his ideas (http://tipperlinne.com/p2b-ds.htm & http://tipperlinne.com/p2b-dsvtt.htm) to get a 1 GHz Slot 1 Coppermine working in my Tyan S1832DL board. I have rev. C, which apparently only supports up to 600 MHz Katmai CPUs. I tried running my dual 1 GHz PIII slot 1's, but the system did not turn on. I had no idea that if the motherboard didn't supply the correct voltage that the CPU was requesting, it would shutdown. From the link you sent, it looks like there is a very easy way to trick the motherboard into thinking that a supported voltage is being requested. I hope that the case is so simple with this Tyan board. I am using the latest BIOS which supports Coppermines on later rev boards.

While I don't have any interest in running dual Tualatins in a Slot 1, I am interested in getting dual 1 GHz Slot 1's working, and if my existing dual 850 MHz slot 1 board dies, I'll begin testing out this guy's ideas. As there are dual socket 370 boards w/AGP, PCI-X, and 4 GB RAM support, I find the Tualatins PIII-S CPUs are best left to those motherboards.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 26 of 34, by m1919

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Apparently, the IBM Intellistation Z Pro 6865 used an MS440GX motherboard. I believe it had provisions for dual power supplies, but it appears to be essentially the same as the stock Intel board. I've been able to find a bios update on the IBM site that dates back to February or August 2000, so I'm hoping the cpu support in this bios is more extensive than the others.

Edit: Or not. This update is IBM proprietary, doesn't look like there's a way around it.

Edit: I'm finding that it's pretty much impossible to find any tools that can be used to modify the old phoenix bios that the MS440GX board has, so I'm going to jump on the XG-DLS on ebay and fabricate my own set of retention brackets for it.

Reply 27 of 34, by whatsdos

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Hi. I have had some experience the tiger100 board. I ran one as my router with 2x700MHz coppermines. The bios did not recognize the processor, but it booted up and ran at speed. I was using Linux, not sure if windows works differently? Ended up pulling the board after a power supply failure and changing to a Nighshade intel board. That runs the coppermines as well, though the spec says it can not.

Reply 28 of 34, by luckybob

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if you are having issues flashing a bios, there is a program called flashrom. I actually have a 486 with 2 3com cards. one with a dip socket and a newer revision with the square chip that I can use to flash the occasional bios. I have saved at least one from death this way. You can get it from flashrom.org

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 29 of 34, by m1919

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Not an SMP board, but has anyone ever come across an Atrend ATC-6400 or Freeway FW-6400GX/150 motherboard? They're single slot boards, but they support both slot-1 and slot-2. Just an interesting beast I came across while scrounging for info.

Update: I took the plunge and purchased the XG-DLS that's been on ebay for the last year or so.

Reply 30 of 34, by m1919

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Should be getting that board today or tomorrow-ish.

After looking at the pair of Poweredge retention brackets I have, I think I may be able to use them. I've removed the locking tabs and ground down the pins on the bottom in preparation for new mounting pads that I'm going JB Weld to the existing structure. Additional brackets can be added if the result needs some beefing up.

I'm hoping I can come across a pair of proper retention brackets for this board, but as has been mentioned before, they're pretty much impossible to find by themselves.

Reply 31 of 34, by luckybob

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Ok, I got finished de-commissioning my router. current specs:

XG-DLS most recent bios
2gb pc133 ram. running at 100mhz cas2
2x gigabit nics
2x 1/100 nics
ati rage

I took some pictures: http://imgur.com/a/AFqHC#0
And some benchmarks:

@900mhz : http://i.imgur.com/OyBtv.jpg
@1000mhz : http://i.imgur.com/0LsP1.jpg

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 32 of 34, by m1919

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luckybob wrote:
Ok, I got finished de-commissioning my router. current specs: […]
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Ok, I got finished de-commissioning my router. current specs:

XG-DLS most recent bios
2gb pc133 ram. running at 100mhz cas2
2x gigabit nics
2x 1/100 nics
ati rage

I took some pictures: http://imgur.com/a/AFqHC#0
And some benchmarks:

@900mhz : http://i.imgur.com/OyBtv.jpg
@1000mhz : http://i.imgur.com/0LsP1.jpg

Very cool. What do you plan on using it for now?

Reply 33 of 34, by luckybob

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No idea. The power requirements for my new router are probably 1/10th of what this thing drew. 😜 Its probably going to sit for a while.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 34 of 34, by m1919

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It's unfortunate Intel's reference 440GX board wasn't setup similarly to the Asus board. Looks like cooling would be a bit better with the extra space between each Xeon.

My current dual 550s on the Intel board run quite hot, but then again, they haven't seen fresh thermal paste in probably a decade.

An admin on bios-mods might be able to add support for 600-900mhz Xeons for the MS440GX; if it works out, I don't expect the 700s to perform much better, even with fresh thermal paste on them.