theiceman085 wrote on 2023-08-01, 11:51:

After doing some research I found a few socket 754 mainboards for a good price

https://www.ebay.at/itm/325529313460?hash=ite … %3ABFBM0vahjrZi

Look at the capacitors. They exploded.
In my opinion thats not a good price even if the board was still working 😁 (because the caps then will probably have exploded after buying it)
You should concider buying a "recapped" board or prepare your self for a solder session... Around this time a lot of boards have problems with leaking and exploding caps...
Just to make you aware of this cap thing... 😀

60 euro 🤣. With those caps and missing radiator it was clearly pulled from garbage, its only a good offer if you buy it and request&receive full refund for seller sending you complete broken junk that was listed as "in working condition, might have slight cosmetic damage"
Polish allegro.pl has ~130 754 boards, first search result is 10 euro http://hw-museum.cz/mb/88/asus-k8n in perfect condition

From my experience.
1. If the radiator and the frame around the socket were removed from the motherboard, the motherboard is definitely and unconditionally dead.
2. Wow, still a live nForce 3....
3. An ordinary office motherboard, if IT8282M did not burn out due to a poor-quality PSU, then it does not bring surprises.

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-08-01, 12:59:

first search result is 10 euro http://hw-museum.cz/mb/88/asus-k8n in perfect condition

Wow, the second still a live nForce 3.... 😀

A couple of things to note if you're going after a motherboard with a VIA chipset.

1) If you want to use modern SATA drives in native mode (without adapters) you need the VT8237R Plus southbridge. The "plus" revision fixed a bug where the chipset could not recognize SATA III drives. If you don't care about native SATA, you can always use a SATA to IDE adapter and bypass this issue entirely.

2) Choose a motherboard which has multiple BIOS revisions still available for download. There's a nasty microcode bug which cripples AGP performance under Win9x, and it can only be solved by using older BIOS versions. I think @bloodem explained it quite nicely here. Rule of thumb, BIOS versions from 2004 are generally not affected by this, while later ones might be. There are some exceptions to this though.

3) Make sure that the BIOS version you end up flashing supports the CPU that you want to use. Venice and San Diego Athlon64 cores are the best, but they likely need newer BIOS versions. Such CPUs are usually fairly expensive too. On the other hand, the older NewCastle and ClawHammer cores are less expensive and usually work fine with older BIOS versions, but they dissipate more heat.

It's quite tricky getting a motherboard which fits into all of these categories, but the main thing is to avoid the AGP performance bug. That bug will absolutely destroy your gaming performance under Win9x, regardless of which GPU you end up using.

PS. If you look at the pinout nForce 3, then the inner square of balls is the grounding .
For some reason, if you remove nForce3 from a dead motherboard, only Asus will have copper glowing instead of melted solder on part of the ground balls.
Neither ECS, nor EliteGroup, nor Gigabyte. Asus K8 series only.

I'd recommend:
1) Asus KV8 SE Deluxe - classic s754 board based on VIA K8T800
2) Asus K8V-MX - should come with VT8237R Plus southbridge, but do check

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-08-01, 13:15:

3) Make sure that the BIOS version you end up flashing supports the CPU that you want to use. Venice and San Diego Athlon64 cores are the best, but they likely need newer BIOS versions. Such CPUs are usually fairly expensive too. On the other hand, the older NewCastle and ClawHammer cores are less expensive and usually work fine with older BIOS versions, but they dissipate more heat.

I's actually the other way around. Venice 3000 and 3200 should be easily obtainable. ClawHammers (1MB L2) are more rare for s754.

stef80 wrote on 2023-08-01, 13:30:

I's actually the other way around. Venice 3000 and 3200 should be easily obtainable. ClawHammers (1MB L2) are more rare for s754.

Too trite.
AMD Mobile Athlon 64 4000+ (E5) - 2.6GHz + 1MB L2 + SSE3, its cool
AMD Turion 64 MT-40 - 2.2GHz + 1Mb L2 + SSE3, its cool enough

To be honest, Venice 2GHz with SSE3 is enough for almost everything.
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-A ... XBOX).html

None of them were regular s754 chips. 4000 is DTR and Turion is mobile, both without IHS and sketchy BIOS support for desktop boards.

stef80 wrote on 2023-08-01, 13:47:

None of them were regular s754 chips. 4000 is DTR and Turion is mobile, both without IHS and sketchy BIOS support for desktop boards.

The problem with some series of Intel and AMD processors is that there is TIM under the IHS. And it's completely petrified.
If you want a long life for A64, you need to rip off the IHS and smear it with thermal paste, alas.
Or will it be
Athlon 64 3000+ s754. Incorrect BIOS initialization or broken L2 cache?

That's general problem with s754/s939 and AM2 excluding "CZ" code which were soldered ... I think.

stef80 wrote on 2023-08-01, 14:04:

That's general problem with s754/s939 and AM2 excluding "CZ" code which were soldered ... I think.

And some stepping of P IV from Intel.

PS. And Tualatin, of course.
But there do not care, with a TDP of 30 watts.

Before choosing a board, you should choose a platform and then a chipset.

Here you have boards with SoA nVidia nForce2 chipset but also So754 nVidia nForce3 250, Via K8T800 and Via K8M800.

All will run a Gf4Ti, but beyond that, there are differences in performance and compatibility.

The nForce2/3 chipsets have full support up to Windows XP only (you can get away with XP drivers on 32b Vista, although with limitations, but 64b is a no-no), whereas the Via chipsets have full Vista support, and claim of integration of the driver into Windows 7 and 8.

nForce3 has better AGP performance in games, but K8T800/K8M800 have better SATA throughput.

As for the individual boards...
- the Asus K8V-X SE looks in a bad state, missing chipset heatsink and bad caps. Would not trust at all. This was from a period was Asus was no longer synonymous with quality and it shows.
- Biostar K8NHA-M looks in excellent state (if the pic is of the actual item being sold), and is better value for money.
- ECS Elitegroup K8M800-M2 PCB is bent. ECS is bottom-feeding low-end build quality. Still, it's cheap.
- ABIT NF7 one of the last great Abit boards. Clearly a generation older than the rest - no SATA - and sadly a low-end version of the board with MCP southbridge instead of MCP-T. Still great board, but you really need to want Socket A for this.

dionb wrote on 2023-08-01, 14:26:

The nForce2/3 chipsets have full support up to Windows XP only (you can get away with XP drivers on 32b Vista, although with limitations, but 64b is a no-no), whereas the Via chipsets have full Vista support, and claim of integration of the driver into Windows 7 and 8.

nForce2/3 and Windows Vista has nothing to do. Even on Windows XP with antivirus.
For more other operating systems, there are more other rig`s.

For s754, I would look for something on VIA from Abit, Epox, DFI or Soltek.
With replaced capacitors, of course.
90 watts is not 30 (like Tualatin), no Japanese capacitors will last 20 years with this power consumption.

PS. I have a Jetway and it has a design flaw in the powering of the HyperTransport.
This is solved by replacing the mosfet, but this is not the way for everyone.
If this is a system problem, then it is in the entire series of motherboards, so I do not advise at all.

stef80 wrote on 2023-08-01, 13:30:

Asus K8V-MX - should come with VT8237R Plus southbridge, but do check

I have one of those, and mine did come with the plus version of the southbridge. But as you say, it's best to check beforehand since this might possibly depend on the board revision. The plus version is clearly labeled as such, and should be easy to identify on pictures.

BTW, it should be noted that the K8V-MX does suffer from the AGP performance bug. Thankfully, the issue can be remedied on that board by flashing the oldest available BIOS, which is v0112.

I's actually the other way around. Venice 3000 and 3200 should be easily obtainable. ClawHammers (1MB L2) are more rare for s754.

Yeah, it might depend on where one lives. In my neck of the woods, NewCastle is the most common one, while ClawHammer is slightly rarer, though not super hard to come by. On the other hand, the socket 754 versions of Venice and San Diego are almost impossible to find here.

@All Thanks a lot for the tons of information you gave me. It helped a lot 😀.

dionb wrote on 2023-08-01, 14:26:

Before choosing a board, you should choose a platform and then a chipset. […]
Show full quote

Before choosing a board, you should choose a platform and then a chipset.

Here you have boards with SoA nVidia nForce2 chipset but also So754 nVidia nForce3 250, Via K8T800 and Via K8M800.

All will run a Gf4Ti, but beyond that, there are differences in performance and compatibility.

The nForce2/3 chipsets have full support up to Windows XP only (you can get away with XP drivers on 32b Vista, although with limitations, but 64b is a no-no), whereas the Via chipsets have full Vista support, and claim of integration of the driver into Windows 7 and 8.

nForce3 has better AGP performance in games, but K8T800/K8M800 have better SATA throughput.

As for the individual boards...
- the Asus K8V-X SE looks in a bad state, missing chipset heatsink and bad caps. Would not trust at all. This was from a period was Asus was no longer synonymous with quality and it shows.
- Biostar K8NHA-M looks in excellent state (if the pic is of the actual item being sold), and is better value for money.
- ECS Elitegroup K8M800-M2 PCB is bent. ECS is bottom-feeding low-end build quality. Still, it's cheap.
- ABIT NF7 one of the last great Abit boards. Clearly a generation older than the rest - no SATA - and sadly a low-end version of the board with MCP southbridge instead of MCP-T. Still a great board, but you need to want Socket A for this.

Yes choosing a platform and chipset first before the board is good advice. I will start my research from there.

Also thanks for rating the individual boards.

shevalier wrote on 2023-08-01, 15:04:

For s754, I would look for something on VIA from Abit, Epox, DFI or Soltek.
With replaced capacitors, of course.
90 watts is not 30 (like Tualatin), no Japanese capacitors will last 20 years with this power consumption.

As good as DFI boards were, they had some of the crappiest capacitors on them.
Epox and Abit used SANYO and Rubycons a lot on s754/s939, but not on all of the boards/revisions.

stef80 wrote on 2023-08-02, 06:05:

shevalier wrote on 2023-08-01, 15:04:

For s754, I would look for something on VIA from Abit, Epox, DFI or Soltek.
With replaced capacitors, of course.
90 watts is not 30 (like Tualatin), no Japanese capacitors will last 20 years with this power consumption.

As good as DFI boards were, they had some of the crappiest capacitors on them.
Epox and Abit used SANYO and Rubycons a lot on s754/s939, but not on all of the boards/revisions.

Thanks for the info shevalier and steff80.

Well it really seems that bad caps are recuiring theme in the discusion which means I have 2 options. Either ask a good friend of mine which is good at soldering to help me as soon as I have the mobo or I have to look specifically for recapped boards already which raise the cost a bit but that's not really a big issue.

I do not mind paying extra if means I do not have to worry about bad caps anymore.

theiceman085 wrote on 2023-08-02, 06:41:

Well it really seems that bad caps are recuiring theme in the discusion which means I have 2 options. Either ask a good friend of mine which is good at soldering to help me as soon as I have the mobo or I have to look specifically for recapped boards already which raise the cost a bit but that's not really a big issue.

From my experience, it helps to know at least basic soldering when you're dealing with retro stuff. I first got into it about 5-6 years ago when I wanted to mod my PAL Sega Mega Drive and make it region-free. But it's very helpful with retro PC hardware as well, since components made during the capacitor plague era have a higher chance to fail.

It does require some financial investment though, especially if you're going for desoldering stations which are extremely helpful for re-capping. A quality multimeter which can measure capacitance also tends to cost a bit more. Also, it takes a bit of practice to get decent at (de)soldering, but there are loads of instructional videos on YouTube. If you're curious about this, I suggest checking out Necroware's channel where he repairs a bunch of retro PC hardware. It's really fun watching him bring broken cards back to life.