I know it's not quite a thin client, but I have a Shuttle XPC SK41G as a Win98 box. IMHO it makes just about the perfect small PC for 98 - fast (Athlon XP 1700+), decently-compatible onboard sound, a universal AGP slot that can support 3.3V (i.e. Voodoo) cards, a spare PCI slot for whatever you want, and a BIOS that handles large drives (tested 160GB in mine.) The only things I really wish it had are a built-in MIDI/DB15 port for the onboard sound chip, and better voltage/overclocking controls in the BIOS (there are NONE.)

I meant to pull mine apart ages ago to see if a Geode NX1750 would work (pretty much the low-voltage version of the CPU that's already in there), but never got around to it. I'm really happy with how it runs 'as is'.

That could be an option. I have a NX1500 and NX1750 CPU here. And directly integrated CD or DVD and disk drive. No need for external devices.

What is you power consumption idle and load and noise level?

Than i would need a Low-Power GPU as well.

/edit: just checked the CPU specs, i would go for the NX1500(1000MHz) because of 9 Watt TDP in stead of the 1750(1400Mhz) which has 24Watt. Why almost 3 times as much and only 400 MHz more?

No i have a Pentium III s 1400 as Windows 98 Computer, this one is fast for everything but consuming about 60-70 watts and has a BIG ATX case... compared to a MacMini.

^^ I haven't measured power consumption; it is a bit noisy. The cooling system has a thermal block on the CPU connected to a (solid) radiator & fan at the back by thermal pipes. The fan doesn't have any speed control, so you do hear it, and the air coming out the back does carry some heat but it's not an oven. 😜 To be honest, it's on par with any other standard Athlon system from that era. Definitely not the worst I've heard.

The big problem is lack of voltage control in the BIOS; the stock CPU is a 1.6V chip IIRC and there's no way to set it manually to 1.1V for the Geode. Unless the BIOS recognises the chip correctly & sets the voltage (which might work! I haven't tried yet) it'd have to be modded or replaced.

Oohhh powering a 1V CPU with 1.6V could be fatal. According to the CPU-List the Geode is not supported. Maybe it's possible to edit the Microcode to add the Geode, but there is still the problem with the Voltage.

/edit: Found a German-Forum whit the same issue. The guy there said the SK43G has the possibility to change the CPU-Voltage.

The Compaq iPaq desktop is very much a feature packed Pentium 3 system stuffed into a thin client form factor although the video is from the Intel chipset.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00344568

Which of the above noted models have onboard legacy sb pro compatible audio? most thin clients only have an ac97 codec and that's a no-no in most cases..

@BushLin: unfortunately there is no Socket 370 Mobile or Low Power CPU. The Pentium III i have, has a TDP of 35 Watts. The Geode NX 1500 has only 9Watt.

@appiah4: only the NeoWare has Legacy SB compatibility. The HP T5710 sound card could have, but the Bios is missing the option to enable Legacy Sound. And i did not found any patch yet. But running Windows 9x as OS the legacy sound is also working in DOS games.

Roman78 wrote:

@BushLin: unfortunately there is no Socket 370 Mobile or Low Power CPU. The Pentium III i have, has a TDP of 35 Watts. The Geode NX 1500 has only 9Watt.

@appiah4: only the NeoWare has Legacy SB compatibility. The HP T5710 sound card could have, but the Bios is missing the option to enable Legacy Sound. And i did not found any patch yet. But running Windows 9x as OS the legacy sound is also working in DOS games.

500mhz s370 is 13w according to:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel … microprocessors

Not saying it makes them perfect... But they aren't in need of much cooling.

Edit: straight from the horse's mouth
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/p … 00-mhz-fsb.html

I use an FSC ScoveryXS (D1215) i815e either with P-III 600EB and Voodoo1 or with 1400 Tualatin and R7000PCI.
For sound I use yamaha PCI or Ess-Solo1. This machine is small and silent.

Roman78 wrote:

@BushLin: unfortunately there is no Socket 370 Mobile or Low Power CPU. The Pentium III i have, has a TDP of 35 Watts. The Geode NX 1500 has only 9Watt.

@appiah4: only the NeoWare has Legacy SB compatibility. The HP T5710 sound card could have, but the Bios is missing the option to enable Legacy Sound. And i did not found any patch yet. But running Windows 9x as OS the legacy sound is also working in DOS games.

How is it working in Windows 9x? Thtough the standard Windows 98 SB Emulation driver?

appiah4 wrote:

Roman78 wrote:

@BushLin: unfortunately there is no Socket 370 Mobile or Low Power CPU. The Pentium III i have, has a TDP of 35 Watts. The Geode NX 1500 has only 9Watt.

@appiah4: only the NeoWare has Legacy SB compatibility. The HP T5710 sound card could have, but the Bios is missing the option to enable Legacy Sound. And i did not found any patch yet. But running Windows 9x as OS the legacy sound is also working in DOS games.

How is it working in Windows 9x? Thtough the standard Windows 98 SB Emulation driver?

I Think so. I tried DOS-Games on native DOS and the sound didn't worked. But when starting windows and run the game from there, the sound is working.

You guys tried VIAUDIO.COM with T5710?

HP T5710 - gaming wise it's more like P266 (imho), CPU has to do lot of work for GPU and it shows. But still - it can run Need for Speed 3 in 800x600 with full details, not bad 😀

HP T5720 - GPU is reasonably fast and stable under WinXP, it's the W98 drivers that cause problems 🙁 Shame, beacuse otherwise it's a powerfull little machine.

Another W98 compatible thin client is Wyse Vx0. But its GPU is really weak and this particular model has tendency to die without reason (I have two units, both dead now).

I just got an HP T5710 myself. Unfortunately, it's got at least one leaking capacitor, and I don't have the time or the skill to replace the capacitor myself. If you guys are going to go down this road, make sure the sellers you're getting them from can verify the caps are OK before they ship them to you...

Roman78 wrote:

Oohhh powering a 1V CPU with 1.6V could be fatal. According to the CPU-List the Geode is not supported. Maybe it's possible to edit the Microcode to add the Geode, but there is still the problem with the Voltage.

/edit: Found a German-Forum whit the same issue. The guy there said the SK43G has the possibility to change the CPU-Voltage.

Don't think there's any problem feeding the chip with 1,6V as it's based on the same core as Athlon XP, but you don't get the power saving advantage.

BinaryDemon wrote on 2019-05-15, 11:28:

You guys tried VIAUDIO.COM with T5710?

There are two ways to get Audio in DOS.

1. The PCISET Method Using VIA VT8231 southbridge for sound blaster pro emulation (edit : sound blaster emulation available using software !)

1. The @Jazefox Method VIASBCFG - VIA SBPro configuration tool for VIA VT8231 & VT82C686/A/B chipsets (v0.12d)

To the latter @PhilsComputerLab made a video https://youtu.be/W4Fv2DwlldI

How about using a portable pc without a display panel ?
You then have plenty to chose from and can pick the one that suits your requirements.

sledge wrote on 2019-05-15, 11:35:

HP T5710 - gaming wise it's more like P266 (imho), CPU has to do lot of work for GPU and it shows. But still - it can run Need for Speed 3 in 800x600 with full details, not bad 😀

HP T5720 - GPU is reasonably fast and stable under WinXP, it's the W98 drivers that cause problems 🙁 Shame, beacuse otherwise it's a powerfull little machine.

Another W98 compatible thin client is Wyse Vx0. But its GPU is really weak and this particular model has tendency to die without reason (I have two units, both dead now).

@sledge When the Wyse Vx0 unit die, can it be powered on? Or just no video output, no light?

Roman78 wrote on 2019-05-15, 06:25:

I have always keep an eye on power consumption and desktop space. So i like small powerful computers. Nowadays you can install M […]
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I have always keep an eye on power consumption and desktop space. So i like small powerful computers. Nowadays you can install MacOS 9 on a MacMini G4 - Great. And also Windows on thin clients. But what is a good an fast thin client to keep an eye out for?

I have:

HP T5710 https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/hp/t5710/ 800 Mhz Transmeta Crusoe equals Pentium II-400/450 Mhz and Radeon 7000m

This one is great for Windows 98, found all drivers, but to slow for later games.

HP T5720 https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/hp/t5720/ 1Ghz AMD Geode NX1500.

Fast enough for windows 98 but SIS graphic card sux

HP T5730 https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/hp/t5730/ 1Ghz AMD Sempron 2100+ and AMD Radeon X1250

This one would be great if there where X1250 and chipset drivers for Win98

Than i had one with a Dual-Core Amd CPU. Not usable for Win98, i sold that. And i have a NeoWare Capio which is great for native DOS. But what is the best with a native graphic card for late Windows 98 games? Should be around 1 Ghz CPU power and 16 or 32MB dedicate graphics card.

One other option would be a PCI-graphic card in one of those i have, like in the T5710 or T5720. But i don't have the appropriate riser and case extension.

You are looking for something that doesn’t exist - the whole point of a thin client is to act as a cheap-n-cheery alternative to big desktop PCs (their main computing and rendering is supposed to be off a blade server anyways), and it’s very unlikely for a vintage thin client to show up with a strong GPU that has Win98 support.

Most thin clients available in the secondary market today are made around the time XP embedded went mainstream, and the ones with decent enough 3D support (like the NVidia MCP79 Ion chipset for the Atoms) are meant for XPe or W7 enterprise. The truly DOS compatible, Win98 kosher stuff is limited to:

A) stuff made around 2002/2003 (something like either a Via C3 with a VIA southbridge (VT82C686B/VT8231) that has embedded Soundblaster support as an accidental holdover feature (Wyse WT9450XE), or with an AMD K6 embedded CPU that has the aforementioned VIA southbridge (Netier 1000 or 2000XL) or a SiS with an ESS Solo-1 that has DOS support (Wyse J+ winterm). The Wyse XE, Netier 2000XL and the winterm have PCI slots and can accept a faster PCI GPU, like a 3dfx Voodoo or a Geforce 4MX. The Winterm can also do PCI or ISA natively, which is a very unusual feature (although that represent one of the first full featured, fully upgradeable x86 thin clients made). I ran it with either its embedded Solo-1, or an ISA ESS1869. There are one or 2 Via C3s that has the S3 Twister-T, which is “okay” for DirectX6 levels of 3D accelerations.

B) Stuff made way after but with a southbridge that allows you to use a PCI sound card, which can do oldschool SB support or take a more powerful GPU.

Or it has an embedded GPU that’s powerful enough for most things made before 2003 with beta Win98 drivers.

The former is easier to pull off - the t5720 with the PCI expansion kit (HP part # EK530AA) is commonly available on evilBay for about 60 USD or less, or you can buy the expansion kit yourself. I have a t5720 with the expansion kit built-in and alternate between Win98/DOS with 512MB of RAM+Yamaha YMF724 (the embedded SiS Mirage is fine for DOS or early Win98. Otherwise use a PCI graphics card), or XP with 1GB of RAM and a GeForce 6200/128MB (or a Geforce4MX/64MB). That works quite well even for UT2004SE or Battlefield 2.

The latter is a little more tough. There’s 2 possible paths:

- Any Sempron or Athlon64 based thin client (like the HP t5730) has a Radeon X1300 based embedded GPU inside the Xpress 1250 northbridge, which can in theory take the last Catalyst drivers made for Win98 - it does contain beta support for the X800 class GPUs, which the X1300 is based on (check Phil’s computer lab for downloads). You might have to scan the pci id and modify the INF files in the installer to include the pci id so it will be installed.

- Intel Atoms based on Diamondville (N270 and etc) will have the old GMA950 chipset, which should be “adequate” to match the Radeon 7500 Mo of that vintage. That would be the HP t5740, or, the first Merom/Yonah based Mac Minis. There is supposedly a set of modified Intel drivers that’ll work well with them on Win98.