A couple more pics

Any reason you picked an IDE drive rather than install a sata card and cheap SSD? if the goal is "remove all bottlenecks" - spinning rust sucks.

luckybob wrote on 2024-02-12, 02:34:

Any reason you picked an IDE drive rather than install a sata card and cheap SSD? if the goal is "remove all bottlenecks" - spinning rust sucks.

I have an ATA133 card I'm about to install. I know it sucks but I like the sound and the experience. I have considered an SSD. Also I'm on a budget and I already had it 😄

boggsman wrote on 2024-02-12, 02:39:

luckybob wrote on 2024-02-12, 02:34:

Any reason you picked an IDE drive rather than install a sata card and cheap SSD? if the goal is "remove all bottlenecks" - spinning rust sucks.

I have an ATA133 card I'm about to install. I know it sucks but I like the sound and the experience. I have considered an SSD. Also I'm on a budget and I already had it 😄

Please play a good game of benchmark before and after switching to that ATA133 card; I'm curious if external ATA133 actually outperforms onboard (oh, wait is the onboard 33MiB/s only? In that case, I hope that the upgrade will do a difference, being a 7200rpm, it should be able to move some data)

I have tested on my dual ppro setup and the cap is around 70MB/s. This is seq read/write speed.

The advantage of a sata SSD isnt the max speed, its the zero seek times. even with a 15,000 rip-em hard drive it will take a long time to load different files in different places on the disk. (RELATIVELY) So a $20 sata disk, $2 sata cable, and a $30 sata card goes a LONG way. https://www.ebay.com/itm/263553216313 side note - inflation sucks, those used to be $10. Also, those particular sata cards are HIGHLY compatible. I had zero issue with them and win98 and 2000.

Also, you can just pull the sata disk and plug it into a modern computer with zero issue. So moving a game install onto the older machine becomes a trivial matter. Heck. if you do it often, you can use a sata removeable drive bay for a small price.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-02-12, 18:09:

Please play a good game of benchmark before and after switching to that ATA133 card; I'm curious if external ATA133 actually outperforms onboard (oh, wait is the onboard 33MiB/s only? In that case, I hope that the upgrade will do a difference, being a 7200rpm, it should be able to move some data)

Onboard IDE is only "PIO Mode 4/DMA Mode 2 (16.6MB/S)". I'll see what I can do about benchmarks 👍

luckybob wrote on 2024-02-12, 18:28:

I have tested on my dual ppro setup and the cap is around 70MB/s. This is seq read/write speed.

The advantage of a sata SSD isnt the max speed, its the zero seek times. even with a 15,000 rip-em hard drive it will take a long time to load different files in different places on the disk. (RELATIVELY) So a $20 sata disk, $2 sata cable, and a $30 sata card goes a LONG way. https://www.ebay.com/itm/263553216313 side note - inflation sucks, those used to be $10. Also, those particular sata cards are HIGHLY compatible. I had zero issue with them and win98 and 2000.

Also, you can just pull the sata disk and plug it into a modern computer with zero issue. So moving a game install onto the older machine becomes a trivial matter. Heck. if you do it often, you can use a sata removeable drive bay for a small price.

I heard the older OS don't have support for TRIM. Do you know what the long term effects of that would be? Yeah I have an external SATA hard drive dock. That would be pretty convenient. I will miss the mechanical hard drive noise though.

What do you think about the cheap Silicon Image controllers? Like this one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/126321588248

Actually I just found some stuff in my stash. I have a 32GB SSD and a IDE->SATA adapter so I could use it with my Highpoint ROCKETRAID 133 PCI adapter and I wouldn't have to buy anything. Hmm... Gonna attempt to do some benchmarks

Trim is irrelevant. You are not going to be using this machine as a "daily driver" to even come close to wearing out the disk. two, when you take the drive out and put it in a new machine, you can run it then. three, with small SSD drives in the $20 range, its hardly a consideration. four, most drives now do trim on their own. At least the name-brand ones are supposed to.

the SIL3512 is a "raid" chip. it can be re-flashed to normal sata, but it would be a bit of a hassle, imho. IIRC you want the SIL3511.

I have a few of those cards, and they work fine. I would still get the sata2 card. there is an edge-case with sata3 drives. some do not work with sata1 controllers. its troublesome with cheaper drives.

What do you think about using the 32GB SSD I already have with the IDE->SATA adapter? I would still get the nostalgia of having an IDE cable.

i mean, if you already have it, and it works... no worries.

More pics! She's coming together!

luckybob wrote on 2024-02-13, 03:10:

four, most drives now do trim on their own. At least the name-brand ones are supposed to.

That is a misconception.
Trim is a command issued by the OS informing the SSD controller that certain data in the file system is no longer in use.
The SSD controller uses this info during house keeping tasks like garbage collection and wear levelling to delete the corresponding blocks and not copy invalid data around all the time (write amplification).

It is true that old OSs do not cause that many writes so the wear caused by not regularly having a trim command issued is not a big concern.
However it helps to leave a good part of the SSD unformatted so the controller has always got enough known empty blocks avaliable to move data around during house keeping tasks.

Doornkaat wrote on 2024-02-13, 10:36:

That is a misconception. Trim is a command issued by the OS informing the SSD controller that certain data in the file system i […]
Show full quote

luckybob wrote on 2024-02-13, 03:10:

four, most drives now do trim on their own. At least the name-brand ones are supposed to.

That is a misconception.
Trim is a command issued by the OS informing the SSD controller that certain data in the file system is no longer in use.
The SSD controller uses this info during house keeping tasks like garbage collection and wear levelling to delete the corresponding blocks and not copy invalid data around all the time (write amplification).

It is true that old OSs do not cause that many writes so the wear caused by not regularly having a trim command issued is not a big concern.
However it helps to leave a good part of the SSD unformatted so the controller has always got enough known empty blocks avaliable to move data around during house keeping tasks.

Good info! Thanks!

Ughhhhh what is going on. I'm trying to narrow it down to one or two SIMMs. I'm running 256MB in a Gateway G6 FPC / Intel VS440FX. There are no options to adjust memory timing. Anyone else ran into this issue? Could the modules be too high density or something?

I upgraded the Gateway BIOS to the latest version (1.00.11.CS1T). Is it safe to flash the Intel BIOS instead? There are even newer versions.

Look at the error bits. Most seem to be in the same bit. Reseat the ram, you might have a dodgy connection. If you get errors test with 2 sticks, then swap.

There are other things to try

A bios update is not going to fix memory errors.

I narrowed it down to two modules. Thanks for the help!

boggsman wrote on 2024-02-13, 11:11:

Ughhhhh what is going on. I'm trying to narrow it down to one or two SIMMs. I'm running 256MB in a Gateway G6 FPC / Intel VS440FX. There are no options to adjust memory timing. Anyone else ran into this issue? Could the modules be too high density or something?

There is a jumper on the MB to change RAM timings. It's just a single jumper described as 50/60ns RAM or something

maxtherabbit wrote on 2024-02-13, 15:02:

boggsman wrote on 2024-02-13, 11:11:

Ughhhhh what is going on. I'm trying to narrow it down to one or two SIMMs. I'm running 256MB in a Gateway G6 FPC / Intel VS440FX. There are no options to adjust memory timing. Anyone else ran into this issue? Could the modules be too high density or something?

There is a jumper on the MB to change RAM timings. It's just a single jumper described as 50/60ns RAM or something

I have the full manual for the motherboard. I don't see anything like that. Do you have any other info?