Socket 478 ISA motherboards - Anyone try them? \ VOGONS

Socket 478 ISA motherboards - Anyone try them?

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First post, by pjladyfox

Posted on 2010-05-25, 16:30

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Been looking for a new retro PC gaming project and, much to my surprise, came across some Socket 478 ISA motherboards. Here is what I found:

Itox G4E620 P4 845E Socket 478 ATX Motherboard
http://www.itox.com/pages/products/mothers/re … l/g4e620-bn.php

ITOX G4V620-B-G Intel 845GV Socket 478 ATX Motherboard
http://www.itox.com/pages/products/mothers/re … /g4v620-b-g.php

Kontron MBATX-845GV-VEA1 Intel 845E Socket 478
http://us.kontron.com/products/boards+and+mez … x845gvvea1.html

INTEL D845GECL SIEMENS D1654 P4 ISA
http://www.legendmicro.com/Store/6225_INTEL-D … DR-SIEMENS.lmsp

EPOX IP-4GVI20 845GV P4 SOCKET 478 VGA AGP 4 PCI 3 ISA
http://www.epox.com/product.asp?id=IP-4GVI20

Corvalent Gator ATX-G Socket mPGA478 motherboard
http://www.corvalent.com/02b_ind_boards/mb_84 … egv_atx_g.shtml

Now, as we are all aware 98SE suffers from an issue that prevents it from running well, if at all, on processors faster than 2.1 GHz:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=312108

My idea is to try and track down one of these motherboards and, using either a P4 2.0GHz or Pentium 4-M 2.0GHz CPU, try and get one of these working with my current collection of ISA sound cards, a GeForce video card (not sure what to use yet), and do a triple boot DOS 6.22/98se/XP SP2 system. Now, granted, there will be some speed issues that will require MOSLO but the idea really is to use my Slot 1 system for those and use this one for newer titles that do not really require it. That, and really this is just a technical challenge to see just how fast an ISA-based sound card system I can build. 😁

Anyone actually attempt to try this or even have a working system similar to this?

Reply 1 of 9, by ratfink

Posted on 2010-05-25, 22:05

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Think there's a few in the forums, like:

My new Woo-Hoo!!! rig
Pentium IV based mobo and Windows 98?

Reply 2 of 9, by mr_bigmouth_502

Posted on 2010-05-26, 06:16

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I actually used to dual-boot XP Home and 98SE on a 2.4GHz P4 Prescott box that I had, and it worked great (save for some occasional memory management issues caused by the 1GB of RAM that system had 😁)

Reply 3 of 9, by pjladyfox

Posted on 2010-06-12, 00:14

pjladyfox Offline

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ratfink,

Huh. I somehow missed those when I looked earlier but thanks for linking to those!

mr_bigmouth_502,

Interesting. It's really odd that Microsoft reports that there are issues with systems running over 2.1GHz under 98SE but others like yourself seem to do okay barring memory issues.

Were it not for the rather pricey nature of these motherboards I'd be tempted to build two separate ones. Maybe I'll just track down a 512MB PC3200 module which I'm sure I have somewhere and swap between that and the two 1GB modules I have.

Now I just need to decide if I want to splurge a bit and get a 30GB IDE solid-state drive for this one to try it out before I start budging aside money for the motherboard. Granted, it will not really give any major boost in performance but it will run quieter and not run the same risk of drive failure that running an older mechanical one would.

Reply 4 of 9, by retro games 100

Posted on 2010-08-02, 09:32

retro games 100 Offline

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pjladyfox wrote:
Interesting. It's really odd that Microsoft reports that there are issues with systems running over 2.1GHz under 98SE but others like yourself seem to do okay barring memory issues.

I think the keyword here is installing

Reply 5 of 9, by Amigaz

Posted on 2010-08-02, 09:41

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Installed and using Win98SE without any issues at all on my 3.06ghz P4 rambus machine but WinXP Pro runs much smoother on it

The trick is to use the unofficial Win98 service pack which adresses alot of issues

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 6 of 9, by cdoublejj

Posted on 2010-08-02, 11:18

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i used the unofficial several times the first time it jacked stuff up the second i did in vmplayer cause it wouldn't connect to the update server. does the unofficial service pack go on after official updates? and how do i get JUST the cool addon boot screen that comes with that service pack.

Reply 7 of 9, by candle_86

Posted on 2010-08-08, 00:40

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Just an idea but you can also get SocketA boards used with ISA, I know i had an old MSI board with 2 ISA slots and an Athlon XP-M 2800 which used a KT266A chipset and the XP-M's use a 266mhz FSB.

Reply 8 of 9, by retro games 100

Posted on 2010-08-08, 03:37

retro games 100 Offline

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candle_86 wrote:
... I know i had an old MSI board with 2 ISA slots and an Athlon XP-M 2800 which used a KT266A chipset and the XP-M's use a 266mhz FSB.

A KT266A chipset based mobo with 2 ISA slots? Are you absolutely sure about that? I searched the net and found a KT266A chipset based mobo roundup review (link below), and they all look about the same: AGP, PCI, and no ISA slots.

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles/roundupkt266adec2k1/

Reply 9 of 9, by candle_86

Posted on 2010-08-08, 19:59

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Yes I am i pulled it from a compaq PC and flashed with a retail bios. You might have to look for OEM boards but it was a KT266A according to everest. Came with an XP 1700+ from compaq.

Also found this online, it supports Core2 Duo and Core2 Quad and has ISA
http://www.adek.com/ATX-motherboards.html

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