Ideally you would have a terminator for the unused slot/socket.

But you can try it, and if it works, then roll with it. 🤷‍♂️ If stability issues, revisit the problem.

GTL busses are supposed to have stray ends terminated to prevent reflections.

You could maybe instead just leave the cpu in there…? It doesn’t really matter that it is there does it?

Baoran wrote on 2023-08-10, 02:37:

Anyone knows if with GA-6BXD motherboard If I were to install win9x and the OS cant use 2 cpus anyway can I just remove one of the cpus or would I need some kind of terminator card in the empty slot that I would not have?

Generally the answer is with a terminator card is fine; without may be OK depending on which cpu...

Board makers only tended to ship terminator cards with motherboards once coppermine cpus were introduced as these were more prone to signal reflections

Like @Sphere478 say, try it without first, though there is a broader recommendation that in single cpu mode use slot #2 (the one nearest the memory slots), but if instability arises then add a terminator card in slot #1

it has two slot 1 Pentium 3 550Mhz cpus. Another thing that this made me wonder is that would the second cpu use much power if I just left it there even if it is unused. Another question is of course if taking it out would make sense in a sense that I would have a spare if the cpu that is on the motherboard fails in use while the cpu might degrade more if left on the motherboard.

CPU degradation isn’t really a concern. It will use less power if you remove it, but I think this falls under overthinking the situation just leave it in there and run your single CPU operating system and call it a day.

Do you use the system so much that the power consumption of a second CPU is a concern?
A dual slot 1 System isnt that common and a nice to have... i would leave it as it is.

I ran one of these boards from new with a single P3-450 for years before picking up a second processor.

It was fine without the slot terminator.

I still have it. It was a solid system.

Home build oriented motherboards like this generally try to work without requiring a terminator.
I don't think I needed a terminator on the Asus P2B-D, and I know I didn't need one on an Epox. It worked totally fine without one.
The Intel, HP, and IBM boards I've used though each required a terminator or they wouldn't POST.
I think I've read about a difference in the design of the boards that makes terminators mandatory, but I don't know the specifics. Expensive prebuilt servers/workstations are likely to prefer that design because they like to be strict and formal about everything.
Home DIY oriented boards come from a different culture that tries to be more flexible.

Main reason I am considering this motherboard is because I heard 440BX chipsets are stable and if leaving the second cpu there will mean it is more stable I will definitely leave it there. I got it with 2 CPUs installed and four 128MB sticks of ram for total of 512MB. I thought it might make a stable platform for win98.

All I can say is that mine was rock solid.

A second cpu won't hurt win9x, but won't be taken use of either. You could always dual boot NT or 2000, or Linux if you wish.