havli wrote:

My personal favourite chipset for P1 build is i430TX / i430HX, preferably on ATX-format MB...
MVP3 and Aladdin V chipsets doesn't really offer anything useful for Pentium / Pentium MMX. Well, unless you really want to run AGP videocard.

Or can not find any boards older than SS7-Boards, though they tend not to go lower than 75 or 90 mhz.

brostenen wrote:

havli wrote:

My personal favourite chipset for P1 build is i430TX / i430HX, preferably on ATX-format MB...
MVP3 and Aladdin V chipsets doesn't really offer anything useful for Pentium / Pentium MMX. Well, unless you really want to run AGP videocard.

Or can not find any boards older than SS7-Boards, though they tend not to go lower than 75 or 90 mhz.

All S7/SS7 boards I've seen can go down to 66MHz at least. 50MHz is a different story, though.

alexanrs wrote:

brostenen wrote:

havli wrote:

My personal favourite chipset for P1 build is i430TX / i430HX, preferably on ATX-format MB...
MVP3 and Aladdin V chipsets doesn't really offer anything useful for Pentium / Pentium MMX. Well, unless you really want to run AGP videocard.

Or can not find any boards older than SS7-Boards, though they tend not to go lower than 75 or 90 mhz.

All S7/SS7 boards I've seen can go down to 66MHz at least. 50MHz is a different story, though.

According to the manual's:
FIC PA-2013 can not go below 100mhz.
Epox MVP3-C can not go below 133mhz.
Gigabyte Ga-5AX can not got below 133mhz.
Asus P5A can not go below 90mhz.

In reality, I do not know if any undocumented clock-speed excists on each of them, to go below 90.
I just remember them all handle 90mhz P1.

Oh, I thought you meant FSB, not the processor speed!
Anyway, I have a hard time believing any board would have trouble getting at least 100MHz working. All boards should have a 66MHz FSB setting, and any Pentium Classic should allow a 1.5 multi (if the manual doesn't show, use the same settings for the MMX 233MHz - the 1.5 multi was remapped to 3.5)

Aren't some of the Pentium and MMX CPUs locked?

Is there a list anywhere of which Intel Pentium and MMX processors are unlocked?

As far as I can remember it was just the MMX chips that were locked (and some of them may not be). I'm more of a 486 guy though, so my information may not be solid.

Hmm the last time I did Pentium / MMX benchmarks, I had no issues selecting the multiplier.

I did have the problem when I tried to add a MMX133 to my list of tested pentium configurations 😁
None of my MMX would go down to 2x multiplier.

sunaiac wrote:

I did have the problem when I tried to add a MMX133 to my list of tested pentium configurations 😁
None of my MMX would go down to 2x multiplier.

Hmm, maybe I have an odd chip. I'm so sure I had the MMX running at 133 at some stage. It was ages ago, so could be my memory playing tricks on me 😊

philscomputerlab wrote:

sunaiac wrote:

I did have the problem when I tried to add a MMX133 to my list of tested pentium configurations 😁
None of my MMX would go down to 2x multiplier.

Hmm, maybe I have an odd chip. I'm so sure I had the MMX running at 133 at some stage. It was ages ago, so could be my memory playing tricks on me 😊

No it's probably that some SSPECS are locked on certain multipliers, others not.
I just happen to have the annoying version of the chip 😁

edit : there was this topic : Pentium MMX Multipliers
I'm in gerwin's case

Might be because it has MMX. No MMX here, no problem running 133mhz on MVP3-Chipset.
I feel it is running better on my SS7 board than my S7 board. (Or it could just be me)

BrAlZy wrote:

Looking to be able to play games without running into speed issues.

List these concrete games.

brostenen wrote:

Might be because it has MMX. No MMX here, no problem running 133mhz on MVP3-Chipset.
I feel it is running better on my SS7 board than my S7 board. (Or it could just be me)

It could be the newer IDE controller, more cacheable memory, etc.

alexanrs wrote:

brostenen wrote:

Might be because it has MMX. No MMX here, no problem running 133mhz on MVP3-Chipset.
I feel it is running better on my SS7 board than my S7 board. (Or it could just be me)

It could be the newer IDE controller, more cacheable memory, etc.

That too... Yeah...
I was mostly thinking in terms of getting an old 386-era game working (DynaBlaster) as it is running fluid on my Epox-MVP3-C.
Anyway. Most likely the cache and everything around controlling the cache in this case.
And it is deadly stable. No lockups and lag whatsoever.
Whenever I disable L1 cache, every 386-Class Dos game that I like, runs well on it.
I actually have not tested it with a game like "Alleycat" as I do not own it. Most games I play are VGA anyway.

If he is going for P-133 non-MMX, I can only say good things about MVP3 chipset's.
Other than that, he should go for 430 boards, if he want to go for a slower CPU.

Some of the latest P54C Pentiums were supposedly multiplier locked. Much of the internet says the SY022 (133MHz) is locked at a 2x multiplier, but I have one that is not locked and runs happily at 2.5x. So I think among the latest steppings there's a chance of being locked, but even then it's not 100%.

KT7AGuy wrote:

Aren't some of the Pentium and MMX CPUs locked?

Last I searched, the lore was that many P133 SY022 have disabled BF1, which is multipliers 2.5 and 3.0. There was a theory that the disabled chips may be the ones imprinted "i133" on the back, whereas "iPP" are good. My iPP runs 2.5x66.6 fine. (3.0x60 boots with 3.52v, 3.0x66.6 won't at all.)

KT7AGuy wrote:

Aren't some of the Pentium and MMX CPUs locked?

Is there a list anywhere of which Intel Pentium and MMX processors are unlocked?

I remember having once found a page on the internet (I suppose it's gone now) that had a list of all or most Pentium 1 chips with an indication as to the chances of the chip being multiplier-locked. The newer the chip of one of the "possibly multiplier-locked" was, the higher the chances of it being actually locked, but the older ones had a higher chance of not being locked.

I ended up testing a bunch of my own MMX chips (I think it was the 166 MMX ones?) and one of the results was that the newer ones had a better chance of having their higher multi's disabled. It was a long time ago, but I am quite certain I posted the results on vogons.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I run a P200, but clocked at 100 MHz for maximum compatibility 😀

Yes, I run a P100 clocked at 75 MHz. When I run at 100 MHz, everything looks great, but I experience the old double tap problem playing Alone in the dark 1, 2 and 3. Run at 75 MHz, I can solve it in Indark 2 and 3. For the Indark 1, I still need to start by aitdrun. Sometimes in the first stage, when I leave the loft, the character goes down the stairs, turn back and goes up to the loft again. Maybe the cause is the processor speed. But I can't be sure, unfortunately.

You may be interested to try your CPU with SETMUL for live performance tuning.
SetMul - Multiplier control for VIA C3 / AMD K6+7+8 Mobile / Cyrix 5x86
I did some testing to see how performance scales with a Pentium MMX. Your P54 should respond similarly.
Let's benchmark our systems with caches disabled

Ooh ooh! Can we brag about our own Pentium 1 systems yet? That's so much fun!

CPU: Intel Pentium P54C 200MHz (non-MMX) Active Fan cooling (2-pin)
Motherboard: Micronics M55HI+ Rev.B (1996) Socket 7
Memory: 4x 16MB EDO SIMM 72PIN 60ns (total of 64MB)
PCI1: ATI Rage IIc 2MB
PCI2: Diamond Monster 3D II 8MB
Network: none
Modem: none
HDD: Maxtor 20.4GB
OS: Windows 95 OSR2

The motherboard has 4x PCI slots, 4x ISA slots (one ISA/PCI shared slot), a built-in Creative Labs Vibra 16C audio chip (gameport + Line In, Line Out, and Microphone), dual PS/2 ports (keyboard + mouse), 1x Parallel Port, 2x Serial Ports, built-in IDE Master/Slave 40-pin ports, Intel PCIset chips on the MB, unknown amount of cache.

I don't have the voltage regulator module I would need in order to use the P55C MMX version. And I don't think the Voodoo2 is the best fit for this machine. I think a Voodoo1 4MB would be better for the period, but those cards are a LOT more rare and a LOT more expensive on Ebay ($60 each instead of the $30-$40 each for the Voodoo2s).