PCBONEZ wrote:

After all that discussion the FIC board still got listed wrong. Those may or may not have ISA. I suggest. In the model name bloc […]
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After all that discussion the FIC board still got listed wrong. Those may or may not have ISA.
I suggest.
In the model name block something like FR33E / FR33E-L (and only one entry)
In the ISA block something like: 1 or 0, 1 or No.

Are there actually versions of the FIC board designed without the ISA slots or just the regular ones with the slot unpopulated? It could be a hard thing to look for castrated versions of every single board to put "1 or none" or something like that.

Anyway, I'll add those entries later. The file should be editable if anyone wants to add something themselves, but after looking at so many boards (a considerable chunk of which I had to go though their manuals to check stuff), I'm a bit burnt. I'll get back to it later.

FR33E / FR33E-L are the exact same PCB board. FIC doesn't even list them separately. Same BIOS and Manual.
http://www.fic.com.tw/support/motherboard/mot … rboard_all.aspx
ftp://ftp.fic.com.tw/motherboard/manual/socket370/
But when you have one each in front of you they are marked differently on the board sticker. (The "L" or not.)
What is says on the sticker is often (usually in this case) what it will say online as to the model number so it matters to people searching for one.
ISA, Sound and LAN were all ~individual~ options so they were shipped in many different configurations.
These saw a lot of use in data center control/maintenance consoles and the data centers could order the options they wanted.
.

People (like me) are hoarding the ones with ISA so they are very hard to find now.
.

alexanrs wrote:

Guys, calm down... There is a column called "Tualatin support". The 7VBA133 has a big "No" there. My intention is that this spreadsheet might evolve to a comprehensive list for Socket 370 boards, not just DDR or Tualatin ones. Also there is a SMP column, which states whether the boards supports multiple processors or not.

It would seem we have the same intentions then! 😁

Like I said, afaic the way things are going is more than fine by me and if the list starts to include even pre-Coppermine boards, I'd still put time into the list as I just have a thing for s370..even the most "crappy" ones. My second selfbuild computer happened to be a s370 LX board with a Celeron 400 and it has served me well for a number of years, very stable and fast for what it was. I was a newb back then, thinking I had to use some dedicated sound card because those were always better than the onboard stuff so I disabled the onboard one in the BIOS and added some spare Solo-1 PCI card.
Years later when I finally dismantled that system, I finally saw that the onboard chip I had disabled....was also a Solo-1 🤣!
Anyway, it seems everyone is after Tualatin, but theres nothing wrong with Coppermine and imo the pre-Coppermine s370 systems are somewhat left in the cold.

But anyway, we'll see how things go and how much time we can invest into this little project 😀

Alex, have you thought out a way to implement the spreadsheet into Vogonswiki?

PCBONEZ wrote:

ISA, Sound and LAN were all ~individual~ options so they were shipped in many different configurations. These saw a lot of use i […]
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ISA, Sound and LAN were all ~individual~ options so they were shipped in many different configurations.
These saw a lot of use in data center control/maintenance consoles and the data centers could order the options they wanted.
(...)
People (like me) are hoarding the ones with ISA so they are very hard to find now.

I wonder if there is any auxiliary circuitry missing... if not just soldering an ISA slot in one of those boards might be enough. This would make that board an interesting choise, as the variants without the slot might be more common/cheaper. I'll add a footnote saying "This board doesn't always come with the slot soldered on". Probably more informative than just saying it might not have the slot.

Tetrium wrote:

It would seem we have the same intentions then! :D […]
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It would seem we have the same intentions then! 😁

Like I said, afaic the way things are going is more than fine by me and if the list starts to include even pre-Coppermine boards, I'd still put time into the list as I just have a thing for s370..even the most "crappy" ones. My second selfbuild computer happened to be a s370 LX board with a Celeron 400 and it has served me well for a number of years, very stable and fast for what it was. I was a newb back then, thinking I had to use some dedicated sound card because those were always better than the onboard stuff so I disabled the onboard one in the BIOS and added some spare Solo-1 PCI card.
Years later when I finally dismantled that system, I finally saw that the onboard chip I had disabled....was also a Solo-1 🤣!
Anyway, it seems everyone is after Tualatin, but theres nothing wrong with Coppermine and imo the pre-Coppermine s370 systems are somewhat left in the cold.

But anyway, we'll see how things go and how much time we can invest into this little project 😀

I'm very fond of the P6 architecture as well. It just amazes me how good it is, and how well it held up. I'll eventually get a Tually myself, but nothing wrong with Coppermine indeed. I had one back in the day, and it was a mighty fine processor.

Tetrium wrote:

Alex, have you thought out a way to implement the spreadsheet into Vogonswiki?

Not yet, I took some time off. I'm back to work though =)

There are plenty of general s370 lists online already. For example motherboard.cz, motherboards.org
.
What would have made this unique and special would have been focusing on Tualatin boards.
I am not aware of any complete lists online that focus on Tualatin boards.
.

alexanrs wrote:

I wonder if there is any auxiliary circuitry missing... if not just soldering an ISA slot in one of those boards might be enough.

Long time ago I thought about trying that but never did.

There are a slew of SMD parts along the ISA slot footprint .
IIRC mine are populated but I don't know if they all are.

We are remodeling and a lot of my stuff is in storage so I can't just go look.
.

alexanrs wrote:

I wonder if there is any auxiliary circuitry missing... if not just soldering an ISA slot in one of those boards might be enough. This would make that board an interesting choise, as the variants without the slot might be more common/cheaper. I'll add a footnote saying "This board doesn't always come with the slot soldered on". Probably more informative than just saying it might not have the slot.

I'd think the fastest way to find out would be to visually compare both versions of the board and see if they are identical, except for the missing ISA slot plastic thingy.
It was often worth it to make a single design and sell 2 versions of it, one with some components missing, than it was to design and manufacture a second different board with just the ISA slot and perhaps some traces missing.

alexanrs wrote:

I'm very fond of the P6 architecture as well. It just amazes me how good it is, and how well it held up. I'll eventually get a Tually myself, but nothing wrong with Coppermine indeed. I had one back in the day, and it was a mighty fine processor.

True that. The only thing which imo would make P6 more awesome is if all available CPUs for s370 hadn't had locked multipliers.
And I know theres ESs, but these are a bit harder to find obviously.

It has AGP 4x, which basically means that it has the best compatibility with AGP cards.
It's CPU socket has a fantastic variety of CPU HSFs available for it in the form of Athlon XP HSFs, even though this obviously was never intended to be this way by Intel but who cares as long as we can profit from this 😁
It's the fastest platform with ISA slots which is also made in large numbers.
It has a wide variety of CPUs available for the socket (PIII, PIII-S, Celerons, Tualerons, C3s, all in different configurations and speeds and some with IHS and some with a bare die, theres something for everyone! 😁 ), even though of course (Super) Socket 7 had even more options and even though not all s370 CPUs can be used in all s370 mainboards (mainly Tualatins which were somewhat purposefully designed to not work in older motherboards and the first gen of s370 CPUs which often could not be used in the newer s370 boards anymore) and it's CPUs are basically the last major CPU type to have relatively low power consumption (so more silent cooling (also thanks to Socket A) and easier to keep cool, which adds to stability).
Good chipsets with lots of different features (lots of onboard stuff like sound and LAN and even though many might choose to opt for a dedicated sound card, having it as an option is very nice to have I think as it can be disabled and use will save a slot) and the boards usually had good stability.
And the choice of s370 boards is enormous, many different manufacturers with many different chipsets from several makers (even though in the end it's mostly Intel vs VIA, but there were several other ones) and most boards were made before the capacitor plague hit.

alexanrs wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

Alex, have you thought out a way to implement the spreadsheet into Vogonswiki?

Not yet, I took some time off. I'm back to work though =)

I think it will be important to figure this one out rather sooner than later though. No use in creating something that cannot be used 😜

Otoh, perhaps both the Vogonswiki list and the spreadsheet can co-exist with a page on Vogonswiki featuring the list and have it include an external link to your spreadsheet? And this would have the added benefit for me that I'll have something to do 🤣!

Anyway, I'll keep updating the list on Vogonswiki, but I'll follow your lead then since your list is already further developed, so to say 😀

PCBONEZ wrote:

There are plenty of general s370 lists online already. For example motherboard.cz, motherboards.org . What would have made this […]
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There are plenty of general s370 lists online already. For example motherboard.cz, motherboards.org
.
What would have made this unique and special would have been focusing on Tualatin boards.
I am not aware of any complete lists online that focus on Tualatin boards.
.

I also never found a complete list of all s370 boards featuring DDR slots and the list can always be split up again afterwards.
And besides, everyone seems to be using those pin-modded Tualatins and Tualerons these days anyway.

PCBONEZ wrote:

What would have made this unique and special would have been focusing on Tualatin boards.
I am not aware of any complete lists online that focus on Tualatin boards.

I'll focus on Tualatins until this part is nailed down, and only expand once that part is done with.

While motherboard.cz and other places are nice, they are lists (and not complete ones... there are already some boards that I had to find manuals and other sources to fill the info on the spreadsheet), but this, with filtering capabilities, could be used as a quick reference for people wanting to get a "new" board with some features. Want a Tualatin board with ISA slots? Set the filtes and you'll see plenty of candidates. Want to be more specific? Look for elusive i815 boards with bridged ISA slots? Want to ignore all boards without AGP ports? Want dual processor boards? Set the filtes and you are good to go =)

Made it. VOGONSWiki supports sorted tables, but not filtering. Might PM and admin to see if it would be too much trouble to add it (it should not be too much work).

Will try creating a simple program to automate the conversion... or not, I was able to do it so fast with Notepad++ and a macro that took 10 seconds to record that it might not be worth it.

I'm not up for a project that includes more than native Tualatin and DDR.
I won't be here that long.
.
Things get too messy when you start talking about mods because not all boards are tried not all mods are tried on all boards and you'd have to say which mods work or not for it to be useful.
.
There is also the little detail that many boards this age had shared ISA-PCI slots.
.
Extend to all s370 and you bring in boards with combo slot 1/ skt 370 or that only take PC100 or Celeron.
.
And for some of this stuff manuals are already hard or literally impossible to find.
.
You are turning it into a years long project especially if you can't work it full time.
Hope you are up for it. Your games will miss you. 🤣
.

I'm not including a column for pinmodded Tualatin support - that would be a bad idea since I can't verify it through official sources. Besides, the only reason most Coppermine boards would not support Tualatins are voltage and BIOS - and BIOSes can be patched if you have the skill.

Don't worry, my games won't miss me. I'll push this harder to gather info about Tualatin support, DDR and maybe other not-so-common features (official VIA C3 support, perhaps), but after that I'll just let it grow over time: adding a few boards I might come across and commiting whatever other people added to my spreadsheet to the page itself. I'm not crazy enough to try cataloguing every Socket 370 board under the sun like that - I know there are far too many boards for me to complete that task. I'll try to make it as complete as possible for Tualatins and DDR and then see where things go after that 😀

I'm thinking about opening a "call to arms" thread to ask people for help filling that spreadsheet, but tomorrow is chistmas eve and I'm sure as hell not spending the day cataloguing boards and checking all the info added, so I might leave it for the 26th or 27th.

PCBONEZ wrote:

I'm not up for a project that includes more than native Tualatin and DDR. I won't be here that long. . Things get too messy when […]
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I'm not up for a project that includes more than native Tualatin and DDR.
I won't be here that long.
.
Things get too messy when you start talking about mods because not all boards are tried not all mods are tried on all boards and you'd have to say which mods work or not for it to be useful.
.
There is also the little detail that many boards this age had shared ISA-PCI slots.
.
Extend to all s370 and you bring in boards with combo slot 1/ skt 370 or that only take PC100 or Celeron.
.
And for some of this stuff manuals are already hard or literally impossible to find.
.
You are turning it into a years long project especially if you can't work it full time.
Hope you are up for it. Your games will miss you. 🤣
.

Mods? What mods?

If you want a Tualatin-only list then there already is one. It's on Vogonswiki. You can just use that one and fill in the blancs on your own if you think progress is too slow...which is unreasonable since this list didn't even exist online a few days ago.

And I understand your concerns about how much time you're estimating it will take.
I already explained to you why this isn't any concern, or at least why it's no concern to me.

alexanrs wrote:

I'm not including a column for pinmodded Tualatin support - that would be a bad idea since I can't verify it through official sources. Besides, the only reason most Coppermine boards would not support Tualatins are voltage and BIOS - and BIOSes can be patched if you have the skill.

Don't worry, my games won't miss me. I'll push this harder to gather info about Tualatin support, DDR and maybe other not-so-common features (official VIA C3 support, perhaps), but after that I'll just let it grow over time: adding a few boards I might come across and commiting whatever other people added to my spreadsheet to the page itself. I'm not crazy enough to try cataloguing every Socket 370 board under the sun like that - I know there are far too many boards for me to complete that task. I'll try to make it as complete as possible for Tualatins and DDR and then see where things go after that 😀

I'm thinking about opening a "call to arms" thread to ask people for help filling that spreadsheet, but tomorrow is chistmas eve and I'm sure as hell not spending the day cataloguing boards and checking all the info added, so I might leave it for the 26th or 27th.

No rush 😀

It can all be done next year, right? 😁

Tetrium wrote:

Mods? What mods?

We don't need no stinking mods.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqomZQMZQCQ

alexanrs wrote:

I'm not including a column for pinmodded Tualatin support - that would be a bad idea since I can't verify it through official sources. Besides, the only reason most Coppermine boards would not support Tualatins are voltage and BIOS - and BIOSes can be patched if you have the skill.

Don't worry, my games won't miss me. I'll push this harder to gather info about Tualatin support, DDR and maybe other not-so-common features (official VIA C3 support, perhaps), but after that I'll just let it grow over time: adding a few boards I might come across and commiting whatever other people added to my spreadsheet to the page itself. I'm not crazy enough to try cataloguing every Socket 370 board under the sun like that - I know there are far too many boards for me to complete that task. I'll try to make it as complete as possible for Tualatins and DDR and then see where things go after that 😀

I'm thinking about opening a "call to arms" thread to ask people for help filling that spreadsheet, but tomorrow is chistmas eve and I'm sure as hell not spending the day cataloguing boards and checking all the info added, so I might leave it for the 26th or 27th.

Just noticed you're already done with creating a searchable table of the list we made, excellent!

I gave it a little facelift yesterday before the festivities here, color coding stuff. Unfortunately VOGONSWiki also does not have the required extension for references and footnotes installed. Tomorrow (I'm not gonna pester an admin during Christmas) I'll PM someone inquiring if this can be installed to the wiki.

alexanrs wrote:

I gave it a little facelift yesterday before the festivities here, color coding stuff. Unfortunately VOGONSWiki also does not have the required extension for references and footnotes installed. Tomorrow (I'm not gonna pester an admin during Christmas) I'll PM someone inquiring if this can be installed to the wiki.

I noticed 😀

Btw, perhaps we could move the discussion about the wiki to over here? VOGONS Wiki reference
That way others will notice work is being done 😀

It's hard to play with all the hardware at once and I barelly touched the Tualatins all this time...

In the mean time I found a few motherboards that have T support and actually managed to acquire also the one with an ISA slot 😁 Good half a year later and I went through the boxes and upon quick inspection all the capacitors around CPU are _missing_ !! 😕 It came with CPU and heatsink installed... I guess I wasn't paying attention when I bought it 😠

It's this board - Aopen AX34-U in black PCB:
http://soggi.eu/motherboards/aopen/AX34-U.htm
http://www.motherboards.org/mobot/motherboard … d/AOpen/AX34-U/

My guess now is, that the board must have been dead even before removal of capacitors... maybe there is a slim chance it wasn't and it would work if I replace them 😕

Won't know for sure till I try it out... but it will take another half a year before I find the time needed...

The board originally came with good capacitors (Chemi-Con KZE series), so I'd guess that it would work and that the person just removed the caps in the first place to re-use them.

Reading comments from 2001... People were complaining to why some new boards have ISA slot... If they only knew this would be some of the most wanted feature 15 years later 🤣

Like here (at the bottom):
http://techreport.com/news/2415/abit-vh6t

kixs wrote:

Reading comments from 2001... People were complaining to why some new boards have ISA slot... If they only knew this would be some of the most wanted feature 15 years later 🤣

Like here (at the bottom):
http://techreport.com/news/2415/abit-vh6t

I remember those days. I was reading those comments at the time and shaking my head... I knew...