VOGONS


First post, by kegepet

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I just picked up a new old stock Intel PD440FX motherboard. I initially wanted to use it with a P2 350 I had around, but after checking the board's manual, it indicates that it supports Pentium II "operating at 233 or 266mhz." I use the quotes because that's the exact wording in the manual. Now I don't have my SIMM memory yet, so I cannot test it, but I'm worndering if I can still use the p2 350, but just operating at a lower clock? Would this work? If so, are there any other considerations? Any help would be appreciated--thanks.

Reply 1 of 17, by Anonymous Coward

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PII 350 will possibly work with 66MHz bus, but that would give you a 233MHz chip. The 440FX is OLD! I didn't even know you could get one with a SLOT1. I thought they all had Pentium Pro sockets. I always assumed 440LX was the first intel chipset to accept PII, but I guess I am mistaken! Surprisingly the board is even made by intel!

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Reply 2 of 17, by kegepet

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Yeah, I was pretty confused when I saw it too. The guy selling it didn't know what he had and had it listed as "Slot 1 motherboard." I had to have a close look at his pictures and then do some homework to find out what it was. Finally, I got it for just $30US. It's got a built-in opl3 (onboard sound is pretty rare for this era I think) in addition to 3 ISAs. Anyway, when I get the memory, I guess I'll try out with the 350, although cpu-world does not list the 440FX as a supported chipset for that cpu, whereas for the p2 266, it is listed as a supported chipset. This substantiates the information in the manual. I'll see what happens. Thanks.

Reply 3 of 17, by dirkmirk

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Celeron 433 might work as a drop in CPU?

Otherwise I think a basic slot 1-370 adapter could work with a 533/566mhz celeron, after that you might be spending big bucks for something faster.

Reply 5 of 17, by rmay635703

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This brings back the memories of the seemingly infinite time between the pii233 release and the pii300 of the original generation. Further the rarity of the systems at release

A 300 66mhz fsb should work fine as it’s in the same family
As should a 333 despite it being the next generation

Reply 6 of 17, by Anonymous Coward

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You won't know for sure until you try. Maybe intel was being a bitch and did something sneaky with the BIOS to stop the board from booting with "unsupported" CPUs. There is no reason why faster CPUs shouldn't work as long as the board supports the correct voltages.

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Reply 7 of 17, by Standard Def Steve

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My Deskpro 4000 has a 440FX slot 1 board. It works fine with 233-300MHz Klamath PIIs, but it just won't recognize the L2 cache on Deschutes (333+ PII), Mendocino (Celeron), or Katmai (PIII). I'm not sure if that's a 440FX thing or a Compaq thing.

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Reply 8 of 17, by PC Hoarder Patrol

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According to Intel the board is listed as supporting up to Pentium II 333 MHz with 512KB L2 cache (qualified) and Celeron 333MHz (unqualified)

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Reply 10 of 17, by alvaro84

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Anonymous Coward wrote:

You won't know for sure until you try. Maybe intel was being a bitch and did something sneaky with the BIOS to stop the board from booting with "unsupported" CPUs. There is no reason why faster CPUs shouldn't work as long as the board supports the correct voltages.

The voltages are what I'd be worried about, it's 2.0V for the 350 instead of the older models' 2.8V. The FX is so old that they may didn't even think about supporting lower voltages in its time.

I've seen a Slot1 440FX board toom btw, but it was some proprietary stuff. An EDO RAM P2 would be an interesting test subject, though. And I like the 350 too, if it takes 133MHz FSB it's pretty versatile, ranging from the smallest P2 at 233MHz to slightly above the latest and greatest at 466. For not only Celerons are overclockable 😀

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Reply 11 of 17, by BastlerMike

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It all depends on VRM and Bios, the chipset does not matter in that case. Intel boards are known to be pretty unflexible, but on my Asus KN97 I can even run Tualatin CPUs on Slot adapter without hardware modifications.
If your VRM only supports 2.8V you are stuck with 333 MHz Klamath P2.

Reply 12 of 17, by havli

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I have i440FX Slot 1 board, it is OEM design though (Dell). http://hw-museum.cz/mb/30/dell-poweredge-2200 I never tried running anything faster that PII 266 which came with it... and I don't really see the point anyway. i440FX is the slowest chipset by far for Slot 1. In my tests on average 2x PII 233 + i440BX is just as fast as 2x PII 266 + i440FX.

Anyway - PII Klamath is nice match for this board and it will make good retro system.

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Reply 13 of 17, by Kamerat

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alvaro84 wrote:

I've seen a Slot1 440FX board toom btw, but it was some proprietary stuff. An EDO RAM P2 would be an interesting test subject, though. And I like the 350 too, if it takes 133MHz FSB it's pretty versatile, ranging from the smallest P2 at 233MHz to slightly above the latest and greatest at 466. For not only Celerons are overclockable 😀

The 440LX also support EDO RAM but EDO DIMMs are kind of rare.

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Reply 14 of 17, by The Serpent Rider

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you are stuck with 333 MHz Klamath P2.

Klamath 333 does not exist.

Surprisingly the board is even made by intel!

It's based on their earlier Pentium Pro 440FX board.

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Reply 15 of 17, by Windows9566

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PD440FX will only work with Klamath 233 and 266 Pentium II CPUs

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Reply 17 of 17, by Katmai500

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The 300 MHz Klamath and 333 MHz Deschutes will also work in the PD440FX. You need to update to the latest BIOS to support those CPUs. The Intel PD440FX manual spec update explains this and includes the appropriate jumper settings, just like PC Hoarder Patrol posted above. I've tested this personally on my own PD440FX board.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/177 … d?product=50450