VOGONS


First post, by Nikola99

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I am currently sorting thru my pile of non-working motherboards and trying to decide which ones if any are worth attempting to repair. I would like to hear your guy's opinions on the matter.
I have tested each board using a bios POST card and recorded the error codes displayed. Boards that did not show any error codes are marked with "NO Error codes"
You can see pictures of all of the boards here: https://imgur.com/a/C4yuuGI
Thank You

Reply 1 of 54, by TrashPanda

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The two 370/slot 1 boards would be worth investigating and repairing if at all possible, they are nice boards to have, they also sell decently to collectors due to the dual CPU socket design. I would also go through the rest and check online to find any board that may be rare or noteworthy and if you are not in a position to repair them then possibly consider selling them to collectors who would be.

There are a few LGA boards there that look like their sockets might be damaged, if so then these boards while not unrepairable would be extremely hard to fix without he right equipment like a PCB preheat bed.

Personally I would go through that lot and find the boards most likely to be easy fixes, like bad caps or cleaning and put them into a repair pile. The hardest ones or unfixable throw them into a big job lot and see if anyone is willing to take them off my hands via eBay or local listing, I know there are a lot of people right here on Vogons that are into repairing retro motherboards and have the knowhow and equipment.

Would be a shame to see any of them end up in recycling but its likely quite a few of them will.

Reply 2 of 54, by PcBytes

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What I would fix Slot 1/370 wise:

-ABIT BH6 - ABITs are pretty rare nowadays, seems like it only needs a BIOS chip to work, though I would replace the caps as well and keep it.
-ECS P6BX-A+ - just a recap, as I see some bulging caps near the CPU
-Tyan - keep, I don't think those are easily findable anymore
- unknown green 370 mobo with "AGP SOLT" - recap, check the BIOS string so maybe it can be added if it doesn't exist already in the mobo database
- unknown "V3" slot 1 baby AT mobo - recap, and keep, could be useful for a small baby AT build if the chipset is a VIA 693A
- DFI TA64-B - clean up, check caps, keeper as it seems it runs the 694X chipset which is pretty good for such a mobo
- P2B - keeper, it's one of the best Slot 1 mobos out there, next to the BH6 you have
- GA-BX2000 - do a temporary recap on the whole board and test if it boots. If not, junk it.

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB

Reply 4 of 54, by Sphere478

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Getting those 430hx boards working would be fun

Sphere's PCB projects.
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Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
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SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
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Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 5 of 54, by PcBytes

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kitten.may.cry wrote on 2022-05-30, 11:04:

P2B heavily relies on board revision, though.

Zoomed in his photo, it's a 1.10.

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB

Reply 7 of 54, by kitten.may.cry

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PcBytes wrote on 2022-05-30, 13:06:
kitten.may.cry wrote on 2022-05-30, 11:04:

P2B heavily relies on board revision, though.

Zoomed in his photo, it's a 1.10.

Dat bad. Must be a later revision to be useful.

https://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-ASUS/P2B.html

Reply 8 of 54, by Sphere478

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TrashPanda wrote on 2022-05-30, 13:08:
Sphere478 wrote on 2022-05-30, 11:24:

Getting those 430hx boards working would be fun

I have to ask . .do you have a thing for the HX chipset ?

no more so than Aladdin V or mvp3. It’s probably the best socket 7 chipset though before SS7 came around.

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 9 of 54, by Nikola99

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Sphere478 wrote on 2022-05-30, 13:27:
TrashPanda wrote on 2022-05-30, 13:08:
Sphere478 wrote on 2022-05-30, 11:24:

Getting those 430hx boards working would be fun

I have to ask . .do you have a thing for the HX chipset ?

no more so than Aladdin V or mvp3. It’s probably the best socket 7 chipset though before SS7 came around.

I fully agree. My main Socket 7 system is based on a Tyan S1564. I also have a spare one sitting on the shelf. I only see one board with a 430HX chipset in this pile. I guess I will keep it around even though I don't really need it. If I were to spend time repairing socket 7 boards I would likely prioritize my dead Asus p55t2p4 which I has been sitting around in storage for the last 10 years. Not to mention I also have two or three dead Asus P5A boards sitting around but those fall into the category of super socket 7. I have honestly never been super interested in the 430TX/FX boards but I keep any working ones I come across since I would feel bad scraping them.

Reply 10 of 54, by Nikola99

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kitten.may.cry wrote on 2022-05-30, 13:16:
PcBytes wrote on 2022-05-30, 13:06:
kitten.may.cry wrote on 2022-05-30, 11:04:

P2B heavily relies on board revision, though.

Zoomed in his photo, it's a 1.10.

Dat bad. Must be a later revision to be useful.

https://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-ASUS/P2B.html

Why is that bad? No support for Pentium III CPUs?

Reply 12 of 54, by Nikola99

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happycube wrote on 2022-05-31, 03:33:

None for Coppermine, which are the best ones.

The 430HX is in many ways the best intel Socket 7 chipset (with full tag SRAM it can cache over 64MB)

I see. I already have one or two working P2B boards sitting in storage along with a P3B-F, what should I be looking out for in terms of revision numbers? My main slot 1 system is built on a Asus P2B-D with dual 400 MHz Pentium II CPUs. I feel like slot 1 is mainly Pentium II and Pentium III Katmai territory. For Coppermine and Tualatin I feel like socket 370 is the way to go unless you are lucky enough to hop on to the 840 chipset or Xeon trains (aka slot 2). Now if I could just find the perfect no compromises dual socket 370 board for a coppermine or tualatin build...

As for the 430HX, I am a huge fan of that chipset. My main Pentium I system has a Tyan S1564.

Reply 13 of 54, by Nikola99

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PcBytes wrote on 2022-05-30, 10:17:
What I would fix Slot 1/370 wise: […]
Show full quote

What I would fix Slot 1/370 wise:

-ABIT BH6 - ABITs are pretty rare nowadays, seems like it only needs a BIOS chip to work, though I would replace the caps as well and keep it.
-ECS P6BX-A+ - just a recap, as I see some bulging caps near the CPU
-Tyan - keep, I don't think those are easily findable anymore
- unknown green 370 mobo with "AGP SOLT" - recap, check the BIOS string so maybe it can be added if it doesn't exist already in the mobo database
- unknown "V3" slot 1 baby AT mobo - recap, and keep, could be useful for a small baby AT build if the chipset is a VIA 693A
- DFI TA64-B - clean up, check caps, keeper as it seems it runs the 694X chipset which is pretty good for such a mobo
- P2B - keeper, it's one of the best Slot 1 mobos out there, next to the BH6 you have
- GA-BX2000 - do a temporary recap on the whole board and test if it boots. If not, junk it.

Thanks. This helps a lot. I guess I will keep most/all of the boards for now since they aren't taking up too much room.

Reply 14 of 54, by kitten.may.cry

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Nikola99 wrote on 2022-05-31, 01:40:
kitten.may.cry wrote on 2022-05-30, 13:16:
PcBytes wrote on 2022-05-30, 13:06:

Zoomed in his photo, it's a 1.10.

Dat bad. Must be a later revision to be useful.

https://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-ASUS/P2B.html

Why is that bad? No support for Pentium III CPUs?

Pretty much, yes. P2B is hilariously picky, when it comes to CPU support, per se.

Reply 16 of 54, by dionb

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Bad caps combined with memory errors (C1) is generally very good news with boards like this. There's a clear link between symtoms and observed issue, and the observed issue is fixable.

I'd be reticent about the 'no error code' boards though....

Reply 17 of 54, by PcBytes

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Solo761 wrote on 2022-05-31, 08:31:

Where do you guys get all of these boards 😅.

I barely managed to get 2-3 and then spent few months trying to fix them, let alone have hoard like this 😅.

Flea markets, car boot sales and classifieds are the way to go. That explains how I got my Soyo 6BA+IV and ABIT BE6-II.

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB

Reply 18 of 54, by Solo761

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I guess it helps if you live in bigger country, more potential sources. Here classifieds are pretty much dry, 90% of ads are from one person who I guess entered into this a good time and now sells his loot.

My only source so far was ebay and amibay, usually stuff that's defective or untested so it doesn't cost like new modern components and I hope I can fix them. So far I was lucky I managed to repair them.

Reply 19 of 54, by rasz_pl

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kitten.may.cry wrote on 2022-05-30, 13:16:
PcBytes wrote on 2022-05-30, 13:06:
kitten.may.cry wrote on 2022-05-30, 11:04:

P2B heavily relies on board revision, though.

Zoomed in his photo, it's a 1.10.

Dat bad. Must be a later revision to be useful.

https://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-ASUS/P2B.html

not if you are fine with running coppermines at 1.8V

Solo761 wrote on 2022-05-31, 08:31:

Where do you guys get all of these boards 😅.

judging by the pictures from a dumpster, by the swamp :]

Open Source AT&T Globalyst/NCR/FIC 486-GAC-2 proprietary Cache Module reproduction