maddrock wrote:

I'm planning on building a PC to run windows 98, but ideally would love the finished build to fit inside a compact case (I'd rat […]
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I'm planning on building a PC to run windows 98, but ideally would love the finished build to fit inside a compact case (I'd rather it took up very little space!).
Please excuse if I'm getting anything wrong here etc. I've only build a PC from scratch once before and its a new build so it was a lot easier researching parts, I'm only a beginner at this!
My plan was to use Pentium 2 processor, and therefore use a motherboard with a intel440 chipset(??)
However all the motherboards I found were of course standard ATX size. Is it possible to find a suitable mini atx board? I know they were first manufactured in 2005 so I'm probably barking up the wrong tree! If not a micro atx would be acceptable.

As far as I know, mini ATX is possible but you need to go for socket 370 PIII rather than PII. For s370 PIII, there are plenty old and even contemporary boards available, though the comtemporary ones are industrial (=expensive).

A pictorial search for "mini ATX PIII" gives tens of relevant results, whereas I only found a single slot1 mini ATX board.

Slot 1 uATX certainly existed. Intel, MSI and Asus made lots of versions. I have two MSI MS-6168 (v1 is i440ZX, v2 is i440BX, both with Voodoo3 on board) and received an Intel MU440EX 'Maui' in the post today. You quite frequently see the MS-6147 (also ZX/BX, but with ATi Rage Pro, just like the Maui). None of these boards I mention have an AGP slot (due to onboard AGP chips) but I'm pretty sure Slot1 with AGP slots also exist in uATX form factor. Come to think of it: AOpen MX-64 (Via ApolloPro133A)

you could, but you loose alot of expansion options, so I hope it has a good onboard options, and honestly in 1998 your only really intergrated chipsets sucked for things like Audio, and network wasn't a thing, let alone the IGPU's where hot garbage for anything besides drawing windows.

The 440LX does exist in micro ATX Slot1 version:
http://www.motherboard.cz/mb/asus/P2L-M.htm
but the choice of processors is rather limited. Have not been able to find a BX version.

Like indicated above, there is a lot more choice when you extend the search to VIA chipsets (and to socket 370).

candle_86 wrote:

you could, but you loose alot of expansion options, so I hope it has a good onboard options, and honestly in 1998 your only really intergrated chipsets sucked for things like Audio, and network wasn't a thing, let alone the IGPU's where hot garbage for anything besides drawing windows.

Wrong era.

Slot 1 is before the rise of integrated chipsets. There are a few boards out there with SiS620 (PC Chips M741LMRT eg.) or early i810 (Gigabyte GA-6WMM), but they are the exception. Older P2-era board makers didn't have the option. None of the boards I listed in my previous post have integrated crap.

As for expansion, the boards invariably have 1x AGP (or an omboard AGP chip), 3x PCI and 1x ISA, shared with the last PCI. Even assuming nothing onboards (and all the ones I mentioned has ESS or Ensoniq chips), that gives you AGP video, ISA sound, PCI NIC and one spare for... what? Do you still want to use an analog 56k modem? The only thing that would be a challenge would be Voodoo2 SLI, but TS wasn't talking about that. And even then, if you use the onboard sound even 2x V2 and a NIC would fit.

Sure, it's less versatile and has worse thermals than full ATX, but even in the day that was overrated and TS specificallt wants uATX. He might well have a big-ass ATX bigtower next to it for all we know.

There are a few Micro ATX motherboards that use Slot 1, but the ones with both ISA and AGP slots are pretty rare - there are two that I know of and have come across:

MSI MS-6156: There are a couple of versions of this, one has a Via chipset and one has a 440BX chipset, with the latter being my preference, the Via version should be an MS6165VA and maybe it can do 133mhz bus.
These were common in the UK in Tiny PCs, which is how I keep finding them.

Aopen MX6B: I seem to have bought one of these years ago, mine is the MX6B-EZ version, which is the 440ZX chipset and is maybe limited to 256MB of ram. It's seemingly quite rare.

MicroATX was popular with OEMs more than people building systems so an mATX slot1 board that has much in the way of overclocking facilities is rather rare.
Sometimes they have pretty interesting integrated hardware - the Intel MU440EX (or Packard Bell Maui) has an integrated Yamaha XG audio chip

Guys....

MADDROCK WROTE;
I'm only a beginner at this!

AND:
My plan was to use Pentium 2 processor, and therefore use a motherboard with a intel440 chipset(??)

Maybe we should ask him first -why- his plan is to use a Pentium 2 processor - and which type ?

It really depends on what you're looking to do with the system. What I really want is an uATX testbed with AGP 2.0, PCI and ISA, Slot1 and support 66-133MHz FSB and voltages from Deschutes to Tualatin, as well as RAM support up to 256Mb density so I can test basically any ISA, PCI or AGP component, any P2/3/Celeron CPU (with slocket if needed). I still haven't found that system - the AOpen MX-64 comes close but lacks ISA, the ISA systems I've found so far lack the 256Mb memory support.

I personally don't give a hoot about downclocking & older stuff for my Slot1 things as I have an So7 system for that (and a 486 that 'just works' for most old crap). But that's the thing, everybody wants something different from their old hardware, so fortunately we're not all hunting exactly the same components 😉

dionb wrote:
What I really want is an uATX testbed with AGP 2.0, PCI and ISA, Slot1 and support 66-133MHz FSB and voltages from Deschutes to Tualatin, as well as RAM support up to 256Mb density so I can test basically any ISA, PCI or AGP component, any P2/3/Celeron CPU (with slocket if needed). I still haven't found that system - the AOpen MX-64 comes close but lacks ISA, the ISA systems I've found so far lack the 256Mb memory support.
>>
>>
If you find one, please let me/us know ? 😉

dionb wrote:

Wrong era. […]
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candle_86 wrote:

you could, but you loose alot of expansion options, so I hope it has a good onboard options, and honestly in 1998 your only really intergrated chipsets sucked for things like Audio, and network wasn't a thing, let alone the IGPU's where hot garbage for anything besides drawing windows.

Wrong era.

Slot 1 is before the rise of integrated chipsets. There are a few boards out there with SiS620 (PC Chips M741LMRT eg.) or early i810 (Gigabyte GA-6WMM), but they are the exception. Older P2-era board makers didn't have the option. None of the boards I listed in my previous post have integrated crap.

As for expansion, the boards invariably have 1x AGP (or an omboard AGP chip), 3x PCI and 1x ISA, shared with the last PCI. Even assuming nothing onboards (and all the ones I mentioned has ESS or Ensoniq chips), that gives you AGP video, ISA sound, PCI NIC and one spare for... what? Do you still want to use an analog 56k modem? The only thing that would be a challenge would be Voodoo2 SLI, but TS wasn't talking about that. And even then, if you use the onboard sound even 2x V2 and a NIC would fit.

Sure, it's less versatile and has worse thermals than full ATX, but even in the day that was overrated and TS specificallt wants uATX. He might well have a big-ass ATX bigtower next to it for all we know.

There was a few correct all garbage. You need a Video Card, Sound Card, Network Card, if he wants voodoo 2, that is the last of 4 slots gone. No room for other qol improvements such as a SATA, SCSI or ATA100/133 card, USB 2.0 card for better file transfer speed from a thumb drive, no voodoo 2 SLI, can't have multiple sound cards for specific needs. mATX at this time frame was still decidedly a budget option meant for bardin PC's, so your also getting feature poor boards, made with cheaper components.

candle_86 wrote:

There was a few correct all garbage. You need a Video Card, Sound Card, Network Card, if he wants voodoo 2, that is the last of 4 slots gone. No room for other qol improvements such as a SATA, SCSI or ATA100/133 card, USB 2.0 card for better file transfer speed from a thumb drive, no voodoo 2 SLI, can't have multiple sound cards for specific needs. mATX at this time frame was still decidedly a budget option meant for bardin PC's, so your also getting feature poor boards, made with cheaper components.

Look, if you really want to stuff your PC full of everything, uATX is not the thing for you, but TS wants uATX.

Also, these things come with sound, including ESS Solo-1, Ensoniq 1373 or Yamaha DS-XG, which in both DOS and Windows are good enough for most purposes (alternatives I've seen include CMI 8378 and Via AC'97 with SB Legacy option, both also OK). My most-used Slot 1 uATX board here (MS-6168) has Ensoniq/Creative 1373 and Voodoo3 onboard. With a Voodoo3 you don't need any Voodoo2s. So all I need to add for basic functionality is a NIC. That leaves me two more PCI slots for USB2 and an extra I/O card (not sure yet whether to do SCSI with a Cheetah 10k or go the whole hog and do SATA with an SSD). Add a Tualatin on a slocket and that's the system I intend building for a small case. Not missing much there IMHO...

But again, by ruling out uATX a priori, you're making assumptions on what TS intends to do with his system. Apart from running Windows 98 on it. we don't know anything. until he comes with more specific info, no one can categorically say anything about it. And maybe, just maybe, he's already considered the limited expansion options of uATX and has figured out that isn't relevant to him.

There are loads of 370 based FlexATX 370 knocking around in UK if you get your search-fu on... as they were popular in our schools and also as Epos terminals...

I got my complete gateway from ebay recently for £5.00 complete and working, transplanted into a typical matx case it works great as a real budget option.

2x PCI slots for a new GPU and Soundcard... I went ATI, but Voodoo 3 PCI if you could find one would be viable if you wanted glide support.

If you were willing to move up to the P4/Socket A era then have a look at the Shuttle range they often show up on ebay here reasonably cheap and that would get you a compact build, with AGP and PCI or later ones with PCIe and PCI?

Thank you all! I will read through your responses properly and do some more research, then probably come back with a million more questions.

You could try a baby AT board. I have an M748LMRT board, I think it's a baby AT. Something like that might make a good small win98 build. The built in audio isn't bad imo, I've used it in win98 and it even works in dos. I got it to work with duke3d. You could put a P2 in it and a Voodoo1 or 2 in the PCI slot. Nice thing about these boards is that they are usually cheap. I took some pics of the board beside a micro ATX and a mini ITX board: https://imgur.com/a/992h5ok

maddrock, there is a bunch of such mATX mainboards produced by different companies for Packard Bell, for example. You can find their specs here. Some mainboards are already mentioned above.

I like my AOpen MX3S as a good retro mATX platform, offers me decent 3d, sb pro compatible onboars ac97 codec as well as a decent amount of agp and pci slots. Obviously no ISA.

I alao have a PC Partner PM601TMS3-T898C that I like for this job. No AGP but Blade3D graphics and sb pro ac97 onboard, also has an isa slot.

If there is an mATX option with agp and isa I dont have one..

appiah4 wrote:

I like my AOpen MX3S as a good retro mATX platform, offers me decent 3d, sb pro compatible onboars ac97 codec as well as a decent amount of agp and pci slots. Obviously no PCI.

I alao have a PC Partner PM601TMS3-T898C that I like for this job. No AGP but Blade3D graphics and sb pro ac97 onboard, also has an isa slot.

If there is an mATX option with agp and isa I dont have one..

Asus P2B-VM would be one, if you can find it. Asus doing it right - it has onboard ATi Rage Pro, but via PCI, not AGP. So you get decent onboard VGA and sound (ESS Solo-1), but also AGP, 3x PCI and ISA for everything else.

Now if I could find some board with similar specs but Via 694X or SiS635, I'd be completely happy - but that combined with Slot 1 seems impossible: Slot1, 512Mb/AGP4x chipset and ISA slot - choose any two 😉

dionb wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

I like my AOpen MX3S as a good retro mATX platform, offers me decent 3d, sb pro compatible onboars ac97 codec as well as a decent amount of agp and pci slots. Obviously no PCI.

I alao have a PC Partner PM601TMS3-T898C that I like for this job. No AGP but Blade3D graphics and sb pro ac97 onboard, also has an isa slot.

If there is an mATX option with agp and isa I dont have one..

Asus P2B-VM would be one, if you can find it. Asus doing it right - it has onboard ATi Rage Pro, but via PCI, not AGP. So you get decent onboard VGA and sound (ESS Solo-1), but also AGP, 3x PCI and ISA for everything else.

Now if I could find some board with similar specs but Via 694X or SiS635, I'd be completely happy - but that combined with Slot 1 seems impossible: Slot1, 512Mb/AGP4x chipset and ISA slot - choose any two 😉

I will keep my eyes open for one.

Little update: I still haven't founf the holy grail of an uATX board with Slot1, ISA and 256Mb mem support, but getting close.

Haven't closed the deal yet, but I've found two very close approximations:
- MSI MS-6198 (uATX, So370 FC-PGA, Via 694X (ApolloPro133A) chipset and that ISA slot)
- Tyan Trinity 400 (full ATX, Slot1+So370 FC-PGA, Via 694X (ApolloPro133A) chipset and that ISA slot)