VOGONS


First post, by gerwin

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Came across this Pentium II 440BX board some weeks ago. I eventually decided it may be nice to have, Mainly because it does 50MHz to 133MHz FSB and there arent many BX mainboards with that feature. The 50MHz that is.

Here is my earlier 50 to 133MHz FSB project:
50 to 133MHz FSB on a BX Mainboard

This board is more obscure and troublesome. Fortunately the support site is still available if one searches very well:
Shuttle archive
I did clean up the board layout from the manual quite a bit. It is attached at the bottom of this post.

Shuttle HOT-661 v1.1
(very similar to v2.0, but v3.1 has several differences)

PRO:
- 440BX
- 3x ISA Slot
- 50MHz FSB setting
- Both jumpered and BIOS FSB and Multiplier configuration.
- Allows 66MHz FSB CPU's to run on 100MHz or more (JP45).

CON:
- The v1.1 board VRM does not go below 1,8 Volt. Coppermine core Pentium III CPUs request 1,75/1,65 Volt.
- Counts/Checks the RAM at boot, can be skipped, but not disabled entirely.
- Does not allow a 100MHz FSB CPU to run below 100MHz FSB.
- Where is the AGP divider setting?
- No hardware monitor chip mounted

A coppermine could run on this board when modded to request 1,8V. So there was no BIOS limitation. I wanted to try and upgrade the VRM so it supports the normal coppermine core voltages. So I needed to replace the hip6004ACB chip with a pin compatible hip6004BCB. The legs seemed large enough to consider (de)soldering this chip. Unfortunately I could not find this chip anywhere, or any compatible one for that matter. And I did not want to buy an entire mainboard just to scavenge a VRM. Later I came across a picture of a mislabeled XEON CPU with VRM module, and it occured to me that such modules may hold what I need. And they do.

The board now runs with coppermines. the voltages are spot on. But the combintation of a coppermine with 133MHz FSB is not reliable:
Coppermine 4x50MHz = OK
Coppermine 4x112MHz = OK
Coppermine 4x133MHz = Crashes within a minute
Deschutes 2x50MHz = OK
Deschutes 2x133MHz = OK
The smoothing capacitors for the core voltage do look small compared to later boards. They are 6,3V 1000microF, 8 pieces.
Anyway this is not too big a deal. I am already happy my soldering action did not destroy anything. 😉

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  • _DSC08155_hip6004BCB_replaced.jpg
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    _DSC08155_hip6004BCB_replaced.jpg
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    File comment
    VRM upgrade complete
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    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • _DSC08153_hip6004ACB_removed.jpg
    Filename
    _DSC08153_hip6004ACB_removed.jpg
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    2132 views
    File comment
    VRM upgrade
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • _DSC08150_hip6004ACB_orig.jpg
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    _DSC08150_hip6004ACB_orig.jpg
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    VRM original
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    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • _661v11.jpg
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    _661v11.jpg
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    2132 views
    File comment
    Shuttle HOT-661 v1.1 BX mainboard
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • Filename
    HOT661_v1+2_Layout.pdf
    File size
    258.82 KiB
    Downloads
    127 downloads
    File comment
    Shuttle HOT-661 v1.1 Layout
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 1 of 11, by gerwin

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Speedsys results with Deschutes at slowest setting.

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    Speedsys results with Deschutes at slowest setting.
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 2 of 11, by Jed118

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Hey, I just received this board. 6 years later, the Shuttle site is still up. Nice work on the VRM soldering, I don't think I'll be tweaking it that far, but I am getting conflicting results about the type of RAM it uses. I replaced the PC100 with PC133 and it seems to have made little (if any) difference. What's the real scoop on that? I did also read that updating the BIOS will add support for 133, but that it is rather unstable. What did (are?) you running this at?

Youtube channel- The Kombinator
What's for sale? my eBay!

Reply 3 of 11, by gerwin

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Sorry for the delay for this reply.

Jed118 wrote:

Hey, I just received this board. 6 years later, the Shuttle site is still up. Nice work on the VRM soldering, I don't think I'll be tweaking it that far, but I am getting conflicting results about the type of RAM it uses. I replaced the PC100 with PC133 and it seems to have made little (if any) difference. What's the real scoop on that?

Not sure what is going on here. Are you having problems running it with some sticks of RAM? I don't remember any such problems, and I use PC133 RAM by default, only taking PC100 in case I want a very small stick of 16 or 32MB.

Jed118 wrote:

I did also read that updating the BIOS will add support for 133, but that it is rather unstable. What did (are?) you running this at?

That 133MHz FSB instabilty was my obervation as well. This board is in storage now. Last time I ran it was for compatibilty testing with VIA C3 processors: It runs with C3 Samuel 2 but not with Ezra-T or Nehemiah.
I also noticed a speedsys screenshot of me running a Tualeron Pentium III on this motherboard, using an UpgradeWare Slot-T adapter.

HOT-661 is a nice board anyways, but the GA-6BXC does the same without the limitations mentioned. When messing with the C3 CPU's I was wondering if it was a BIOS limitation, and at some point decided to flash the 6BXC BIOS to the HOT-661: It seemed to work fine. That is one way to get rid of the RAM counter at boot. 😀 Late model C3 CPUs still did not run though.

C3 Samuel 2 at 6.0x133=800MHz, using MS6905 adapter.

speedsys_HOT661_Samuel2.gif
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speedsys_HOT661_Samuel2.gif
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1490 views
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--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 4 of 11, by gerwin

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Tualeron QEL8ES at 4.0x50=200MHz, using UpgradeWare Slot-T adapter.

speedsys_HOT661_Tualeron_4x.gif
Filename
speedsys_HOT661_Tualeron_4x.gif
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11.77 KiB
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1490 views
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 5 of 11, by Jed118

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Thanks for replying, so many years later!

Oh you got it to run at 800 MHz? Nice. This one is running at 350.

About the RAM - I CAN put 133 in it, but I am wondering if it will make the slightest difference (with regards to CAS latency) performance-wise. If the FSB is running at 100MHz, is there really a point in running 133MHz DIMMS?

Youtube channel- The Kombinator
What's for sale? my eBay!

Reply 6 of 11, by W.x.

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Hello... does this board have setting FSB through jumpers or in BIOS? Are all option available (so for 66 mhz processor full range 66-133) or only higher ones (75,83).
Can you downclock 100 mhz FSB processor to 66 mhz in BIOS?

Reply 7 of 11, by W.x.

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Jed118 wrote on 2018-01-29, 03:42:

About the RAM - I CAN put 133 in it, but I am wondering if it will make the slightest difference (with regards to CAS latency) performance-wise. If the FSB is running at 100MHz, is there really a point in running 133MHz DIMMS?

No, because they are connected through FSB, so they will be running at 100 Mhz, if FSB is 100 mhz. Only Socket A motherboards have this feature, they could run memory higher (so with 133 mhz FSB, they could use 266 and 333 Mhz DDR1 memories), but performance gain was really very small, I would say tiny, and in some cases none.
However, if you use PC-133 memory , you can usually tighten timings at 100 mhz. I have CL3 133 memory, and it is working on CL2 setting in BX motherboard at 100 Mhz. Speed gain is really very very tiny, would say even less than 1%.

Reply 8 of 11, by gerwin

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W.x. wrote on 2021-07-14, 18:13:

Hello... does this board have setting FSB through jumpers or in BIOS? Are all option available (so for 66 mhz processor full range 66-133) or only higher ones (75,83).
Can you downclock 100 mhz FSB processor to 66 mhz in BIOS?

I think that most of your questions are answered in the topmost posting already. There is also SoftFSB for windows and RayeR's SMB tool for DOS, both of which work with this mainboard in rev 1.1 and 2.0. Still no direct AGP divider control though.

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 9 of 11, by Deksor

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W.x. wrote on 2021-07-14, 19:14:

No, because they are connected through FSB, so they will be running at 100 Mhz, if FSB is 100 mhz. Only Socket A motherboards have this feature, they could run memory higher (so with 133 mhz FSB, they could use 266 and 333 Mhz DDR1 memories), but performance gain was really very small, I would say tiny, and in some cases none.

Actually not just socket A. I managed to do this on a slot 1, but it was using a VIA chipset. I guess the actual answer is in fact : VIA did it, intel didn't.

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 10 of 11, by W.x.

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Deksor wrote on 2021-07-16, 08:28:

Actually not just socket A. I managed to do this on a slot 1, but it was using a VIA chipset. I guess the actual answer is in fact : VIA did it, intel didn't.

It's true, I forgot I have it also on my Sis chipset motherboard ECS https://www.ecs.com.tw/he/Product/Motherboard … s/specification
You can set DDR 333, while 533 (133 mhz original clock FSB). So RAM have original clock 166, while FSB 133.

Reply 11 of 11, by W.x.

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gerwin wrote on 2021-07-15, 22:19:

I think that most of your questions are answered in the topmost posting already. There is also SoftFSB for windows and RayeR's SMB tool for DOS, both of which work with this mainboard in rev 1.1 and 2.0. Still no direct AGP divider control though.

What does it mean? When you downclock from 100 Mhz FSB processor to 66 FSB, so AGP will be very underclocked, and you cannot set it to right divider to get 66 Mhz AGP?