I worked at Intel when the RAMBUS debacle was going on, in the Enterprise Server Group.

Had an OR840 system as my "desktop" for many years, loved it.

Even the VC820 was a really good desktop system, it was the adapted-to-SDRAM 820 systems that sucked (and were recalled due to the RAMBUS-to-SDRAM translator chip being bad.)

During that time, we had three 820 and 840-based server motherboards ready to release that all got cancelled at the last minute because of the MTH bug. I would *LOVE* to have an i840 board that can take Tualatin-S chips (even if slotkets or PPGA voltage adapters are needed,) that has an ISA slot. That would make a kick-ass late '90s retro-gaming rig. (ISA slot for a GUS or AWE64 Gold.)

Still have 1 GB in RIMMs sitting around unused. (sadly, they are eight 128 MB modules.)

I took a long time with Tualatin stuff since 2001, modded more than 15 tualatins in 440bx i820 (i almost commit suicide coz of my NASTY bugged Asus P3C2000), apollo pro133 and pro266, even did a little Inverse Engineering with Lin-lin adapter, there are many flavors of the mod, finest mods bringing AGTL to Intel specs, i'm sure that can be done on an OR840 and generic Super Slotek III (also modded dual enabled), an OR840 + 4x512 Samsung RIMM PC1066. (samsung's rimms rocked), HD 4670 IceQ agp, NEC usb2, Audigy2 ZS, and of course 2xPIII-s 1.4ghz.

Anonymous Freak wrote:

I worked at Intel when the RAMBUS debacle was going on, in the Enterprise Server Group. […]
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I worked at Intel when the RAMBUS debacle was going on, in the Enterprise Server Group.

Had an OR840 system as my "desktop" for many years, loved it.

Even the VC820 was a really good desktop system, it was the adapted-to-SDRAM 820 systems that sucked (and were recalled due to the RAMBUS-to-SDRAM translator chip being bad.)

During that time, we had three 820 and 840-based server motherboards ready to release that all got cancelled at the last minute because of the MTH bug. I would *LOVE* to have an i840 board that can take Tualatin-S chips (even if slotkets or PPGA voltage adapters are needed,) that has an ISA slot. That would make a kick-ass late '90s retro-gaming rig. (ISA slot for a GUS or AWE64 Gold.)

Still have 1 GB in RIMMs sitting around unused. (sadly, they are eight 128 MB modules.)

Do you still have the OR840's rig working? Intel did use good quality caps 105c (low ESR) from 1000uf and above but for the lowers, they always used "bad" rubycon general propose 85c , they always went dried-out. I always liked Intel mobos, VC820 with 3 rambus slots, lotta smd caps

Hi. This is my first post on the forum and would like to share my experience with the VC820 Motherboard. Maybe it's useful for some of you because the MoBo is a RIMM-based-one, built with the i820 chipset and native support for Coppermine CPU's. It's able to handle Tualatin CPU's up to 1.4 GHz / 133 MHz FSB with a BIOS update. Would like to state that my computer knowledge is a basic one, but I've been able to update and upgrade this system as for today.

This board is stable and has been running for more than 10 years, and its original hardware was a 933 MHz / 133 FSB Coppermine Slot 1 CPU along with two 64 MB PC800-40 Samsung Rambus Memory sticks. Then I bought a new 1.0 GHz /133 FSB Coppermine Slot 1 CPU from now-defunct Seattle-based Compuvest store and managed to upgrade RAM first with two 256 MB PC800-40 Samsung Rambus Memory modules, later replaced with two 512 MB PC800-45 Elpida RAM.

Elpida modules worked great for about a year, then PC started getting blue screens for "unknown reasons". Replaced RAM with previous 256 MB Samsung RIMM's and system has been stable since then. I will try to get new memory modules to keep the system up to 1 GB, will be testing PC-1066 RIMM's 1 GB each, even that I'm sure that chipset/MoBo limitations are PC800 / 2x512 modules.

This board has worked ok for me, also has been running good for more than a decade. The infamous Camino chipset was not really bad at all but got issues when the MTH was implemented on CC820 boards to use SDRAM instead of RIMM's.

Computer Configuration as for today:

VC820 Intel Motherboard
1.4 GHz Pentium III CPU ( 512 KB / 133 MHz ) via PowerLeap SlotWonder Adapter
512 MB RAM (2x256 MB PC800-40 Samsung RIMM's)
ECS 512 MB Nvidia GeForce 6200 AGP graphics card
IOGEAR USB 2.0 PCI card
Smc Ez Card 10-100 PCI (SMC1211 Series) network card
Seagate 7200 RPM / 8 MB - UDMA 5 HDD via SiI0680 RAID controller card
Windows XP SP3

I will be testing new memory modules if I manage to get them, also slightly newer graphic cards (256 MB Radeon HD2400 Pro AGP card) or any other low to middle-end video adapters that won't bottleneck with this aging but stable rig. Will try to post pictures as well.

Thanks.

I had a TH7II P4 box for 8 years until it croaked in 2009 (cap failure). I remember I sold the 2 gigs of RDRAM for large amount of money to some guy in Australia.

@rod
The VC820 looks interesting, but please make your own new thread (in "System Specs" -- System Specs). 😀

Yep got a dual slot 1 rdram build myself (a work in progress) Dell Precision MT430 but recently ran into another rare bird the i830MG which is natively rdram with an igp but crippled with a sdram hub.

Got working compaq sp750 i840 8xRimm riser with dual pIII Xeon 900/2MB L2 and hp x4000 i860 2x2.8GHz Prestonia 8xRimm riser. Also compaq evo w8000 i860 2x2.8GHz prestonia 8xRimm riser (tried with dual gallatins 2.7MP 2MB L3 - it works but with F1 microcode error at post).
Now i'm testing kayak xm600 Series 2 dual p3 1GHz i820 with 2x512MB PC800 and it's damn fast with velociraptor 80hlfs using xp sp1!
These workstations are awesome! Love it!

Uh, and ap550!