Very nice! Keen to see how you implemented that FSB switch. Two of my boards use DIP switches, which make it painful. The Gigabyte works with jumpers, but it's one of slowest boards with Voodoo 3.

I'm with you on the merits of a SS7 98SE build. Having built and cased three very different 98SE systems this year (VA-503+ & K6-3+ 550 / SE440BX-2 & P3 1000 / K7VTA Pro & Athlon 2400+), my SS7 build is my favorite and will be my daily driver.

The K6-3+ (450 MHz OC'ed to 550 MHz) is fast enough for most games up to 1024x768 (a nice, period-correct resolution). Plus, with SETMUL, I can slow this system down to around a 486-66 without opening the case. The FIC VA-503+ is the same motherboard that I used back in 1998 (not just the same make/model, literally the same board). Same goes for the GUS Ace. Once I found a nice Baby AT case on eBay, I jumped on it. I'd never seen one with a full three-digit LED before. Kind of weird to have such a large number on an LED, but who cares? I even programmed the display correctly the first time around with about a million jumpers.

Here are the specs:

FIC VA-503+ / 128 MB PC100 SDRAM / 1024KB L3 cache
AMD K6-3+ 450 ACZ (OC'ed to 550)
Geforce 2 MX 400
3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 PCI
Aureal Vortex 2
GUS Ace
SB AWE32 CT3900
6GB Hitachi Microdrive on CF-to-IDE adapter
Mitsumi FDD with flash memory reader

I'm not sure if I'll stick with the GF 2 MX as my AGP card. I really like that it has great VESA implementation in DOS, and it is fanless. But I may swap it for a Quadro 2 Pro. If I can find a V3 3000 PCI (or a V3 2000 PCI with SGRAM) for a good price, I'll upgrade.

I really like my audio setup. I'm awaiting a pair of 16MB 30-pin SIMMs for the AWE32. With the GUS Ace, AWE32 with genuine OPL3, and Vortex 2, I've got all my favorite sound standards covered. I will definitely consider adding a new Dreamblaster to the Aureal card.

I need to find a nice, beige DVD rewriter (for Ghost 2003 images). Still deciding on whether to put a 5.25" FDD in there. As you can see, I'm not too good at cable management. And I'll probably swap the Microdrive for a plain old IDE HDD or perhaps a DOM. It's super quiet too, though. The Scythe fan on the CPU heatsink is almost silent. This is so much quieter than the BX system because the stock Intel P3 fan is so loud.

I'm curious how did you manage to set that "550" on the LED display!

I haven't even heared of a full 3 digit LED display for that purpose.

^ one of my babyAT tower cases has a full 3 digit led display as well, it's a late one AFAIK

When i bought my first pc at the end of 1996,my at case also had a 3 digit led display,which was necesary since my cpu was a k5-100mhz.
Also the display was programable without jumpers,u had to press a combination of the reset and turbo button from what i remeber.
And ofc i dumped that case in 2005,long before my retro passion started.

Both nice systems. I loved the VA-503+ back in the day.
Other systems may come and go, but I will be keeping my K6+ box forever, it can do everything.

Now squareguy, you do know that there is no such thing as a "final build" 🤣

It will just go on, and on, and on...

The retro bug has consumed you 😵

GeorgeMan wrote:

I'm curious how did you manage to set that "550" on the LED display!

I haven't even heared of a full 3 digit LED display for that purpose.

I'd never seen a full 3-digit display either. I had one that could display a "1" as the first of three digits, IIRC. I thought about spelling out a simple word, but choices are very limited. There's no Turbo header on the VA-503+, so I'm using the Turbo switch as a makeshift power button because I'm using an ATX power supply.

Anyway, here's a link to the page that I used to program the display, if anyone has a similar case. It looks pretty intimidating at first, but it's also kind of cool to know how you can do this with just a bunch of jumpers.

https://web.archive.org/web/20001209170100/ht … article.htm?lcd

You could wire the turbo button to the FSB jumpers for increased flexibility. 100MHz turbo on or 66MHz turbo off could be a nice way to extract the maximum performance of the processor for Windows gaming while still having the option to drop down to 66MHz + disabled caches for maximum 386/486 DOS compatibility.

Nahkri wrote:

When i bought my first pc at the end of 1996,my at case also had a 3 digit led display,which was necesary since my cpu was a k5-100mhz.
Also the display was programable without jumpers,u had to press a combination of the reset and turbo button from what i remeber.
And ofc i dumped that case in 2005,long before my retro passion started.

I'm pretty sure that it wasn't a 3 digit display, rather than a pretty common 2½ digit display, that it could display any number from 00 to 199, but not more. 😀

boxpressed wrote:

I'd never seen a full 3-digit display either. I had one that could display a "1" as the first of three digits, IIRC. I thought about spelling out a simple word, but choices are very limited. There's no Turbo header on the VA-503+, so I'm using the Turbo switch as a makeshift power button because I'm using an ATX power supply.

Anyway, here's a link to the page that I used to program the display, if anyone has a similar case. It looks pretty intimidating at first, but it's also kind of cool to know how you can do this with just a bunch of jumpers.

https://web.archive.org/web/20001209170100/ht … article.htm?lcd

Look my approach on the lack of easily adjustable 3 digit LED displays. --> Creating a new LED MHz indicator for my PC's front panel! [PROJECT] 😉

alexanrs wrote:

You could wire the turbo button to the FSB jumpers for increased flexibility. 100MHz turbo on or 66MHz turbo off could be a nice way to extract the maximum performance of the processor for Windows gaming while still having the option to drop down to 66MHz + disabled caches for maximum 386/486 DOS compatibility.

That's a great idea, but I have no soldering or modding skills. The frequency is controlled by three three-pin headers. Luckily, 66MHz and 100MHz have the same jumper setting for two of the headers.

For 66MHz, pins 1 & 2 are jumpered on the first header.
For 100MHz, pins 2 & 3 are jumpered on the first header.

Given that the turbo connector is only two-pin, it seems like I would need a switch with a three-pin connector that would alternate between closing 1&2 and 2&3, correct? There might be another way of doing this, but it's not coming to me right now.

GeorgeMan wrote:

Look my approach on the luck of easily adjustable 3 digit LED displays. --> Creating a new LED MHz indicator for my PC's front panel! [PROJECT] 😉

Very elegant solution. I wish I had those skills!

I've seen plenty of turbo buttons that are actually 3-wire setups (two of my three AT cases are like that... the other one doesn't have a turbo button), two of them are normally open and are in the same connector, and the other wire is normally closed with one of the other two. Worst case scenario the button itself must have both types of contacts, so all you have to do is solder another wire on the button itself.

squareguy wrote:

Its lack of 32-bit color means that Delta Force 2 cannot run in 3D accelerated mode and is just unplayable.

Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out you never actually played that game ever again?

alexanrs wrote:

I've seen plenty of turbo buttons that are actually 3-wire setups (two of my three AT cases are like that... the other one doesn't have a turbo button), two of them are normally open and are in the same connector, and the other wire is normally closed with one of the other two. Worst case scenario the button itself must have both types of contacts, so all you have to do is solder another wire on the button itself.

Hmm. Now I'm not sure whether this case's Turbo button is has two or three wires. I'll have to double check when I get home.

Being able to set the FSB and multiplier and caches so easily would make this such a versatile machine.

I've got one more shared ISA/PCI slot left. I'll probably leave it empty, but I AM missing SB Pro compatibility (not counting the Vortex's emulation). I'm not sure how many games have SB Pro compatibility but not GUS, SB 16, GM, or MT-32 (if I decide to hook it up), which would all be preferable.

I just opened the case to double check the Turbo connector, and you were right -- it is a three-pin connector. There are only two wires, one orange, one white (no wire in the middle pin). Given that the FSB jumper settings are those below, does it seem like I need to mod the cable/connector coming from the Turbo switch? Thanks again.

Check if all three pins are actually connected to something. I've seen plenty of cases where one of them is not connected to anything, and it is there just so the jumper cap has a place to be. If that is the case, then one of those positions (1-2 or 2-3) is the same as not having the jumper at all, and you just need to wire the button to the other two pair of pins (you might need to reorganize the contacts on the connector). If you actually need to populate all the pins, then get a multimeter and check what contacts of the switch are shorted when the button is not pressed and what contacts are shorted when it is pressed. The common contact (the one always shorted with something) should go in pin 2, and the other two in pins 1 and 3, depending on the desired behaviour, all you'd have to do is solder a wire on the empty contact (maybe by getting the wire from a Reset/Power button of a broken ATX case) and reorganize them in the connector.

alexanrs wrote:

Check if all three pins are actually connected to something. I've seen plenty of cases where one of them is not connected to anything, and it is there just so the jumper cap has a place to be. If that is the case, then one of those positions (1-2 or 2-3) is the same as not having the jumper at all, and you just need to wire the button to the other two pair of pins (you might need to reorganize the contacts on the connector). If you actually need to populate all the pins, then get a multimeter and check what contacts of the switch are shorted when the button is not pressed and what contacts are shorted when it is pressed. The common contact (the one always shorted with something) should go in pin 2, and the other two in pins 1 and 3, depending on the desired behaviour, all you'd have to do is solder a wire on the empty contact (maybe by getting the wire from a Reset/Power button of a broken ATX case) and reorganize them in the connector.

I'm sorry -- I made a mistake. There are three wires. The middle wire is black, and I couldn't see it earlier. I think I will do some trial and error and report back. Thank you!

The black wire in the middle is probably the common wire, so all you'd have to do was put it in place of the jumper.