Problem is only a few (crazy) people appreciate high end hardware. Most sane people realise it's cheaper and far more sensible to get a newer/faster main stream system.
Plus the fact often the things are built like tanks and weigh a tonne making shipping expensive.
So sadly most are scrapped and rarely parted out.

Working for a MSP I've seen 2 P3 era servers since 2012, Forgotten relics sitting in corners of server rooms so getting to know someone in the industry or ewaste recycler is an option but no guarantee
However if your after a specific system the usual places like ebay or Amibay but you'll have to play the waiting game.

Hey,

I fear you are the guy i messaged on Ebay ?!

Nicely said by chinny22 ; "only a few (crazy) people appreciate..."

Yeah, i mean the SP750 was back in the day ....just epyc!!

compared to todays systems it would be like a Dual Socket Epyc, but just not with DDR5 Ram, instead you fuel it with HBM3E Ram...
Who in the right mind would go for such machine 😀

Were only a few rly crazy peeps..im not crazy - i just have 2 of those... guess time i try reactivate them. (sorry, yeah im...freekymachine, have p3c-d, p3c-e, Intel Or840, iwill df400sn, 2x compaq sp750 )
Everytime i check the world wide web, from korea over japan, to usa, back to europe i only find my own pics in forums.. 🙁

I bet, as chinny22 said too, there are somewhere some, sitting in forgotten corners, leftovers as spareparts, which arent allowed to be thrown away or sold, cause of company policy or so. Last, I saw an old Quad Socket 8 Mainboard, which came out of one of such places. Acer Sparepart, leftover in Serverroom whcih was renovated after over 20 years, but man, what luck, chance to get hands on such things.

And is i mentioned too, i havent seen any SP750 for over a decade - most were put away, as usual, 10 year old Computers are worthless, slow, old, noone cares - is like now buying Core 2 Quad - is boring, you can get the cpu and mainboards in like such vast quantities, noone cares - i bet in another 10 years a standard boring E6400 costs suddenly 75 € - which you could get now handful for like 5€. Like back in 2010 - who cared for an AMD K6-3 550 ?! had like 20 of them, all thrown away - now they are beeing sold for 150€. And this is only for the typical consumer stuff.

Seen latley an Tyan i860 Dual Xeon 603 Mainboard beeing sold for 300€, EVGA SR-2 is 300€ too - all awesome machines are around that, but dont get started on Intel OR840..or even SP750 + there was 2nd option from Dell, very similar to the SP750, but different layout with 2x memeory boards, have never ever even re-found that machine or name, i just remember back then when i was buying, that i had those 2 options, either the Dell or the Compaq - thats another league of its own, nearly experimental, the last push of the impossible, the total crazyness of free engineering total madness by a company.

As i said, i have 2x SP750, including PSU and Memory Board, not the Tower, that one i put away ages ago, just kept the key parts.
Problem with that Alan-tech guy, the ebay-link i send you, he only sells the Mainboard, without the Memory Board, which is the worst problem, where the hell to get a memory board - he doesnt seem to understand, that the Board without the Memory Board is useless. PSU i bet we can adapt.

I guess i will try to reactive and test my 2 SP750 - the one i used myself for over 9 years! - the 2nd was just spare part - was maybe the best computer i ever had - time went by, i de-assembled it, put away in cellar, where it rot a bit - took it up in my living room and just put board/memory-board and 2x Xeon 1000er on Display on my windowsill to look at, with rest of my collection - since then it sits there, collets dust and UV-Sunlight, sat in summer at open window where it sometimes even rained on...... ofc now, or for 2,3 years i view it aswell as rare, epic, awesome, should be more protected - but bit late for that i guess. Well 2nd system sits in a box, i remember i tried one time reactivate it, but could be that psu is done for...etc - i didnt check for now.

What i wanna say... maybe i can give away the 2nd sp750, or we try working to get it to work, find way to replace psu with something else or are able to kick that alan-tech guy in the nuts, so he gives us ALLL the SP750 Boards for good price, since he cant test em!! he doesnt have memory boards 😀 - i have 2 😀)

But i hope you know/understand what you are asking off - Just tell me a more rare, epic system than the SP750 - i know only of that Dell one, lost in time&name&memory ++ maybe 2,3 Quad Socket 8 Mainboards + the Intel OR840 - and even that OR840 is easier to find + saw 2 of them past 2 years, even quad socket 8 mainboards you see every now and then. iwill, tyan, supermicro RD-Ram Boards are damn rare too, but at least those were commercial and can be found/seen, saw one in Japan few weeks ago.

Well, i will go and see what my sp750 do and what we can do.

Nooflebot wrote on 2022-09-25, 00:57:

Hi everyone! First post here on vogons. I know a lot of people here appreciate high end old hardware like I do so I thought here would be a good place to ask WHERE CAN I FIND SOME?!!? More specifically where can I find a Compaq SP750 Workstation? It is my dream Retro PC, Dual Pentium III Xeon support up to 1GHz with support for the 900MHz 2MB Cache PIII Xeons aswell, Upto 4GB RAMBUS PC-800 memory support, PCI-X Slots, and a nice looking and workable large case. Heck if anyone had one I'd be willing to buy it, I really want it badly.

Well...

both of my SP750 are still alive...
Took a bit ;

The one which was sitting on my windowbench collecting saw dust/Dust/Smoke/Heat&Cold/Summer&Winter weather, with sometimes open window + Rain didnt want to start -> cleaned it - works!!
( My beloved machine from 2000 to 2009 !!) [And maybe the best PC i ever had, never crashed, never disappointed my, always worked]
The one sitting in the box as spare-part worked fast.

Weirdly, the memory Board which also sitting outside exposed to the elements worked instantly, the one sitting in the box didnt want to start - found a tiny scratch on the platine, nooo idea where the heck that one comes from - but after cleaning it now works too.

Both PSU work too, one i actually put into different case i built myself out of pure steel ! - i rly hated the look of the SP750 so i took it out and built it into different case, including the PSU - the other one i left orig...as sparepart 😀

Pics here ;

Sorry for not making it "cute and tidy up" - guess im just too happy both are alive and well 😀

And i may have some interesting news, for people who maybe want one too, there are some chances we can get a few more working, if we get all the parts, collecting them worldwide and kicking Alan-tech in the nuts so he gives us some mainboards way cheaper 😀

Holy smokes! I can’t believe you got 2 SP750’s working, that is incredible!
I am the person you messaged on eBay and I did give that Alan-tech guy a message asking if he had the memory board, he did not of course. But yeah maybe now that we have two memory cards we can get those SP750 boards on the cheap and start parting together some more systems for other people who want them. I think I know of the Dell machine you speak of as I actually own it! I believe you are thinking of the Dell Precision 620 MT, very similar to the COMPAQ SP750 but it uses 2.8volt CPU’s, has a worse BIOS in my opinion, has a RAID PCI slot, and is limited to 3GB of RAM. I am pretty sure there are other differences but from my research the Dell system seems worse which is why I want the SP750 so badly, it is the peak of Slot 2 Xeon technology in my opinion. I also have a OR840 motherboard maxed out with 2x 1GHz PIII’s and 2GB of RDRAM, it makes for a great retro system but I’ve always been interested in the Xeons because they took the slot concept to it’s extremes and the legendary 900MHz 2MB cache Pentium III is only available as a Xeon chip. Do you still have the other system with the case and would you be willing to work out a deal for trade or selling it. I am in the United States so shipping might be difficult but I am willing to pay a large sum for a SP750 since it is as I’ve said my Dream Retro PC.

Thought so, Planet is just too small for stuff like that.

Yes - well as said - when i bought the SP750 i was like "you know what, just buy a 2nd one, just in case of the case, everything burns - Might get problematic getting later Spareparts"

And yeah, that Alan guy..that company, no idea how many work there, they have a shit-ton of stuff and dont know what they actually have themselves
+ the one i talked with was obviosly younger than the SP750 itself.
"was before his time" - but they DO HAVE the Memory Board, they just didnt know it - and i tried to kick em hard in the nuts to do something like ;

Test the Board, Bios Batteries dont hold 20 years, not that the Bios died somewhere in between - merge the Board with the Memory Board, they belong together, to form a Unit - Rewrite/reDo the Auction - noone in the right mind buys that machine or a spare part for his Medical/Industrial/Military Application, using a 21 Year old System with est. 2.000 MFlops, vs a Ryzen 3 3300x at around 825.000 !!! Mflops - Make it appeal to collectors, Fans, Retro-stuff - didnt get reply yet - no idea how slow they are - Fear it might rotten forever in their warehouse if it wouldnt be for me, you and 2,3 other Die-Hard-Hardcore Fans from Japan, Germany, Poland and USA.

So the Memory Board is that Number ; 158284-001 AAND 230314-001 - if you type in Ebay you find actually more than Mainboards + Worldwide + from Alan-Tech itself...
Or here ; https://www.ebay.com/itm/373999358537?hash=it … ABk9SR4z3i_f6YA

and the one like around my corner (Germany to Italy) ; https://www.ebay.de/itm/382929983213

Bit weird, in the SP750 manual you find the 158 Number, but on my 2 Boards i have is the 230 Number, yet seems to be 2x the same part, the Compaq W8000 seems to use the same board.

You know of the Dell.... YEEsss thats was the other Machine...AAND you have it - oh no way 😀 Alone that i have the name of that Machine again...Dell precision 620 MT, yes , pls make me some pics from inside 😀 - funny to see some pics on google again of it, not that there are basically none... so much for rare - But yeah, i decided back then "i go for the Compaq" - Everything on the Compaq looked better - the Memory Board config, the Layout, the proportions of the Board itself , SCSI, PCI-X - Dell always builds some weird shaped stuff.

Uh nice, another one with an OR840 - there are many Variants of it, they have those numbers ; 750780-701 is mine, there was somewhere Table of all the Variants, whcih exist, like others have 550-730-201 or so - they all have some flaws, some did not run stable with 2GB Ram, some couldnt use Tualatin at all - Mine does/did run with 2x 1266 on Powerleap Adapters and 2GB Ram - with 1400er it didnt work, some OR840 could, but had numbers like 780780-701 or so, cant remember exactly.
And guess what i just did today, like 3 hours ago.. since i digged out all my old Systems ;

Well back to the one and only SP750 😀

I remember i had the 2MB Cache Variant tested back then aswell - but its bit different in my opinion.
1. the 2MB Variant is designed for 4x way systems and needs that cache for that mainly.
2. the 2MB can help in certain Applications, which are older and use different Ops - there the advantage is clear.
3. Where the Applications use modern Ops, the 256KB Cache are clearly helpful, cause they do run at CPU-Clock !! - where the 2MB Variants do not.
Meaning if the 2MB Variant needs to reload its complete Cache it takes longer, than the 256KB running at full CPU Clock, considering the 1Ghz Variant, cause the Cache runs also at 1Ghz - may need few cycles, but they are still faster than the one cycle at only the FSB Clock of a 2MB Variant.
Depends in the end where you set your Date of Applications for Retro-works - if it is Win NT or 2k, the 900Mhz might be better, but the moment you are on Win 2003 the 1Ghz is better -why not just built 2 machines^^

And yeah Deal..well, maybe not needed ?! (unless i give you one SP750 for the Dell^^)
Shipment im used to ship around the world anyway, no problem, is ofc expansive, but thats the price we always need to take, if we want something special, if it is from Japan, USA, Kenia, Brazil.
Board and Memory Board you could get in USA. I bet if you poke Alan hard again he would give one Board for 100 Dollar + one Memory Board for 50 Dollar ?! still cheaper, if you take the one from Italy for 20€ + atleast 30, up to 70€ shipping.

Problem still could be the PSU, unless the workaround works, as seen here in Forum too + i could measure my own PSU trough, to be sure + maybe we find them on Ebay too, seen some, just not 100% sure if those are the correct ones + hell expansive.

Yeah, well 3 Key Parts - Rambus Modules itself are cheap as hell... i have over 100 Modules - even rare 1Gb PC1066 Modules. Made me even some weird "Shelf?"

And last "No" - ... as mentioned, i didnt like the optics of the SP750 casement / Tower, not that the Dell 620MT looks even worse in my eyes - i didnt kept the Case - I free'd the Compaq of its "ugly" cage and made something bigger, better, more awesome - now ofc maybe bit sad in the eye of having something "Original" - personally i dont regret it - would collect too much in the end, like 30 Servers/Workstation in cellar = too much space^^

If all breaks ofc, im still here, having 2 Mainboards, 2 PSU, 2 Memory Boards.

Small Edit ; If you really want it, the orig. SP750 Case you have to crazy search like me, as mentioned, i surf the globe for stuff friends/collegues/customers want - but google translate will be your best friend, searching europe alone is fun, polish, ungarian, croatian, finnish, danish, french, spanish in so many computerforums- then china/korea/japan is always hell of a nightmare, even talking to people - brazil and usa are hell expansive in shipment and Africa..oh god, fell often enough on my mouth, but you gotta try. And you gotta do it like weekly - that way i got stuff like IBM Power 5 MCM multiple times - where others just say "impossible!!" -> insert meme [and i took that personal ] -> drops off 14x IBm power 5 MCM 😀
I found in cache shreddered one SP750 july 2021 in romania, but no idea what happened to it - who knows, there will always be one again, but you dont know where and when.

I suppose I will have to wait and watch markets closely if I am ever to get a original SP750. In the meantime I will use my Dell Precision 620, I've attached some pictures of that btw.

->

->

aaand damn, nice pics!!

yeah that was the machine, as i remembered with the 2x Memory Boards.
And man, good condition! Doesnt look as some ugly 620 on the net, rotted in basement or so

Just one more crazy collecting these top end machines.
Unluckily I dont own a dual P2/3 Xeon workstation yet, only the board of an SP700 which I did not get running so far and several Servers with up to 8 Xeon CPUs.
Not sure if the HP Kayak dual Xeon is Rambus based as well, it might be another option?
My only Rambus machines are either ordinary dual Pentium 3 (Vectra XM 600/800) or Socket 603/604 (IBM Intelistation 6850, Compaq W6000)

Well, the Compaq SP750 Board with Memory-Board, you can get "easy" - for maybe around 150 € + shipping... aand taxes...

mmm SP700 - Sometimes you need to be a bit..oldschool and radical - rattle all the ports and few days ago i wanted to give away my defective P3C-E - i have 3, but one is defect.
..so i cleaned it, to give away a clean one.
--> Beef Powerspray -> Isoporpanylalcehol -> 10 Bar compressed air -> waschine fuel -> Compressed aid -> 1 day on the heating - and just one last test, to be sure it is defect.

It works... could swaer it was def. defect, maybe it is a buggy one, i remember something, but is now like 17 years ago - but it does boot again, like miracle !

There are btw 2 HP Kayak xm600 WS - one with an OEM Asus P3C-D inside and one with CUC-D inside, dabbed the Xm600 II or so - both i820 Rambus.

"Ordinary Dual Pentium 3 Rambus"^^ - nah, be proud, such awesome machines! nearly all Rambus are ! All Rambus Systems are welcome, all Fans even more! - since those you seem to able to count on 2 Hands and 2 Feet
Not that the list of all ever built Rambus Boards is quite short, easy to list and remember.
and the Intellistation i think was either iWill oder Supermicro Board, cant remember. [just checked, i think it is MSI..or Tyan - they have all the same idea/layout] the Compaq W6000 was bit weird - but hey, all in all also quite the collection!! 😀 - still want/need something like the Intellistation Board.
Best orig iWill DX400-SN - but they are all nice, i like this built type with the Memory-Board. Just revived my iWill Dp400 successfully, with help from forum/manuals here.

But i should keep myself restrained, so much wanted, so less space..and money^^

Well, we still search for a complete SP750 - personally I go only for the Boards/Ram/CPU - easy to store, dont want 20x WS + 14 Server in my room anymore^^ [but thats just me] + maybe this, and that one...hhh - crazy bunch here 😜

True the XM600 has an ASUS board inside, should be the P3C-D.
The intellistation has the MSI board. I have two complete boxes and a spare board with the memory riser.
Nice fact on these machines is that allmost all of them feature an AGPpro slot for high end graphics which is a rare feature.

I personally prefer storage of complete systems in running condition, even if it is really space consuming.
So everything is complete and all docs and drivers related to mainboard and installed cards are stored on the local disks. (and on my archive server of corse)

Yes, i have one of those XM600/ P3C-D Boards still here, works too, like it more than the orig. P3C-D.

Ah ok, so the Intelli is the MSI one - love those Memory Risers, not that there are many variants from Supermicro, Tyan, iWill, Compaq - nearly all built the same way. One i would neeed as representation for that family - else i want them all^^
Latley i notice, it seems to bee quite easy and more or less cheap to get the boards from Compaq W6000 or Intellistation/ or even the complete Station- but not the non-OEM ones like iwill Dx400SN - they seem nowadays more rare - since those arent rly bound to the "Brand" & Tower - could built yourself the dream-machine, i usually took sometimes, as did with the SP750, the in my opinion better Board, out of the bad case and put it in something like RS6000 Case.

The parts inside I kept ofc + i have a 2nd one in basement, complete orig. - Thats the one and only i kept complete - IBM Power Architecture, not X86er - Everything else, i would go nuts and not stopping.

Would here and there love to have ofc the complete WS, but yeah, i would be able to fill 800 Squaremeters with stuff - Worked with/had connections to local Trash-guys, could go there weekly through and pick out all the good stuff, could have kept Tons of Stuff now - But no, is fine^^

But ofc love to see always again those now soon Ancient Godzilla's of Hardware back then and always nice to see some + the people taking care of it 😀

Hey,

Can someone try and contact this guy from this auction here please ?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/294864065835?mkevt … 5&segname=11051

He is selling a SP750, Noflee already did contact him time ago - he took like 4 days to answer.
Now i tried, he also took again daaays to answer - startet to write with him... but

i dont know, that guy seems weird, off !? - just wanna know if he still answers new people - i wasnt inpolite or anything to him, yet he doesnt answer me, i dont get it why - maybe he died or so, no idea, just wanna know if he answers someone else.
Cause if so, i have some angry words about this c*** then... - if not i apologize in advance^^ - still, seems that guy could be a no-go - not sure yet.

Yeah forgot that guy - ignore, do not buy from that "br_ap" guy ;
Bad catch!
he did answer once and that alone let look deep ;

Doesnt answer after, doesnt answer in time, doesnt seem to care enough for a potential buyer, doesnt want to ship, doesnt do any offer, doesnt do any efforts whatsoever ! And i have aunt and uncle in scotland, which could do daytrip per train to get it off his hands - he wouldnt need to do anything!! - and even that seems too much - unless they wring him whiskey, day trip of shopping, new shoes and rub his shoulder ?!?!

I fear he is one of those, can't be helped, dreams - He thinks that a museum in London would contact him like a Royal Princess, asking him politely in a gold letter, if they can drive up 1000 miles with magical free fuel to display it in their museum with his name on it and still give him 600 pounds for it... no really, that's how some people think!

Ye, keep looking 😀 - just not that guy^^

Hello vogoners, I my self have 2 compaq sp700 upgraded to dual xeon p3 900mhz.i also have spare parts for the doom day. Tomorrow I will make some fotos and make a fresh install just for you Vogoners.

amijim wrote on 2023-03-07, 22:03:

I have 2 compaq SP700

Oh!, I was not aware there were SP700s. Please will you try my SIV utility once you have installed Windows and post the two Menu->File->Save Local files so I can check that they are correctly reported?

I am still trying to make my voodoo 2 work on my dual ppro mobo but I will now take a teaser picture now. Wait for me.

Here we go vogoners. Super fast. I will try to oc to 133mhz bus.