Nice system! It's always nice to restore a computer to the way you originally experienced it (or there abouts). It might not be the fastest, but that's not the point.

The motherboard manual on The Retro Web seems to suggest your motherboard supports only up to 333MHz CPU speeds. Perhaps that's a maximum multiplier of 5x on the 66MHz bus? Are you sure you were able run a Celeron at 66MHz x6 = 400MHz on a prior BIOS?

I believe a Pentium II 400 would need to run at 100MHz FSB and that is likely not possible on a 440LX based motherboard.

I have two Intevas which I believe is a sister brand to Pionex.

bZbZbZ wrote on 2024-07-15, 22:14:

Nice system! It's always nice to restore a computer to the way you originally experienced it (or there abouts). It might not be the fastest, but that's not the point.

The motherboard manual on The Retro Web seems to suggest your motherboard supports only up to 333MHz CPU speeds. Perhaps that's a maximum multiplier of 5x on the 66MHz bus? Are you sure you were able run a Celeron at 66MHz x6 = 400MHz on a prior BIOS?

I believe a Pentium II 400 would need to run at 100MHz FSB and that is likely not possible on a 440LX based motherboard.

I have it at the highest clock multiplier at 5x, as it currently runs at 333 MHz. Though the latest BIOS update should have updated the bus speed to 100MHz, as it allowed for a higher hard drive throughput speed. The board arrived with the stock BIOS running everything at 33 MHz, it took over 24 hours to install Windows (as I had no other system at the time to create a DOS boot disk to run the BIOS flash tool). All jumper settings seem right, as I checked the manual. Originally it had a 400 MHz Celeron, so my guess is that it was a 66MHz base clock processor. Maybe I’m stuck at 333.

This was my second ever PC from 1999 after my Packard Bell PB1750CDT was claimed by a virus. Restoring this as close to factory specifications was a labour of love and I’m thrilled to have my original system back as, close to, it was.

This was my second ever PC from 1999 after my Packard Bell PB1750CDT was claimed by a virus. Restoring this as close to factory specifications was a labour of love and I’m thrilled to have my original system back as, close to, it was.

Cool system! what was the name of the virus?

jakethompson1 wrote on 2024-07-15, 22:25:

I have two Intevas which I believe is a sister brand to Pionex.

Indeed, Pionex, Inteva, CyberMax, and Quantex were all sister brands.

That's strange, I would have expected 440LX motherboards to run at 66 MHz and nothing else (not 33 MHz, not 100 MHz). I see from the manual that jumper block "JP3" can manipulate the multiplier from 3x to 5x. I don't see a jumper block that can change the FSB. Is there a Front Side Bus setting within the BIOS software? How did you change the FSB from 33 to 66?

How did you manage to run a Celeron at 400MHz before? Are you sure you weren't running the Celeron CPU at 66MHz x5 = 333MHz?

On the bright side, a Pentium II underclocked to 333MHz is still faster than a Celeron at the same clockspeed, due to the PII having four times more cache...

bZbZbZ wrote on 2024-07-16, 19:49:

That's strange, I would have expected 440LX motherboards to run at 66 MHz and nothing else (not 33 MHz, not 100 MHz). I see from the manual that jumper block "JP3" can manipulate the multiplier from 3x to 5x. I don't see a jumper block that can change the FSB. Is there a Front Side Bus setting within the BIOS software? How did you change the FSB from 33 to 66?

How did you manage to run a Celeron at 400MHz before? Are you sure you weren't running the Celeron CPU at 66MHz x5 = 333MHz?

On the bright side, a Pentium II underclocked to 333MHz is still faster than a Celeron at the same clockspeed, due to the PII having four times more cache...

400MHz Mendocino Celerons are a thing (at 6x66MHz) so no problem there. Being multiplier locked, also ignores setting on the motherboard.

The thing about Celeron vs P-II at same speed and FSB is, that all though the P-II has 4 times as much cache, it's only half speed vs the Celeron's full speed cache. Back in the day, a Celeron 300A overclocked to 450 with 100MHz FSB was pretty much on par with a 450MHz P-II in normal gaming/everyday use. In some cases with workstation or server types of load scenarios, the P-II might've had the upper hand, though.

I picked up a Pionex a few years back for cheap that had a T440BX board in it. Loved the case design and the whole setup, seems previous owner must have been using it as a server or something as the dual scsi drives in it still had Novel Netware on them with a scsi tape backup and CD rom.

Nice looking setup you have.

theaellie wrote on 2024-07-16, 18:46:

jakethompson1 wrote on 2024-07-15, 22:25:

I have two Intevas which I believe is a sister brand to Pionex.

Indeed, Pionex, Inteva, CyberMax, and Quantex were all sister brands.

The nice thing is that they used standard parts now looked on by the retro community fondly, such as Biostar motherboards (including Baby AT boards with a PS/2 mouse port), AMD CPUs (sometimes), Cirrus Logic PCI video cards, ESS ISA sound cards, and nice-looking AT cases with no obstructions over the floppy or CD-ROM drive fronts. They also came with the manuals and driver disks for all the components and Windows CDs rather than a restore disc.

The big names were into LPX at that time, or the Dell proprietary ATX power connector, etc.

I think Pionex et al were done in by eMachines and the $700 PC, and maybe even by the increasingly dumbed down new PC purchaser base as the 1990s came to an end (the latter is speculation on my part).

bZbZbZ wrote on 2024-07-16, 19:49:

That's strange, I would have expected 440LX motherboards to run at 66 MHz and nothing else (not 33 MHz, not 100 MHz). I see from the manual that jumper block "JP3" can manipulate the multiplier from 3x to 5x. I don't see a jumper block that can change the FSB. Is there a Front Side Bus setting within the BIOS software? How did you change the FSB from 33 to 66?

How did you manage to run a Celeron at 400MHz before? Are you sure you weren't running the Celeron CPU at 66MHz x5 = 333MHz?

On the bright side, a Pentium II underclocked to 333MHz is still faster than a Celeron at the same clockspeed, due to the PII having four times more cache...

After re-reading the manual, the stock BIOS limited hard drive data rates to UDMA/33. The latest BIOS unlocked it to UDMA/100. As the manual also notes that PCI bus speeds were also limited to 33 MHz with the stock BIOS, no idea if that changed with the update. I struggle to remember what it was like exactly out-of-box as it has been about 25 years now. The latest version grants access to the multiplier whereas the stock version didn’t.

Ah, okay. Thanks H3nrik V for explaining that multiplier-locked Celerons ignore the motherboard's multiplier configuration.

Yeah my understanding is that PCI is supposed to run at 33 MHz and AGP is supposed to run at 66 MHz. On a 440LX motherboard, it will a 66 MHz FSB, a 1/2 multiplier for PCI, and a 1:1 multiplier for AGP. Even if you had a way to increase the FSB, without additional ratios you'd end up overclocking the PCI + AGP which likely results in instability. I have a 440BX at 100MHz FSB... theoretically it supports 133MHz FSB but it lacks a 1/2 AGP ratio so I can't actually increase my FSB without the video card crashing.

I suspect you're stuck at 66MHz FSB on that motherboard (and you're thus stuck at 333MHz for the Pentium II). It's nice that you obtained UDMA100 to improve hard drive transfer rate though. Very nice system regardless! This is a recreation of your historic machine, and that's awesome. 😀

Grem Five wrote on 2024-07-16, 21:34:

I picked up a Pionex a few years back for cheap that had a T440BX board in it. Loved the case design and the whole setup, seems previous owner must have been using it as a server or something as the dual scsi drives in it still had Novel Netware on them with a scsi tape backup and CD rom.

Nice looking setup you have.

Thanks. I would like to see more Pionex systems out in the wild, as it feels like I have a rare unicorn.

Masaw wrote on 2024-07-16, 12:33:

This was my second ever PC from 1999 after my Packard Bell PB1750CDT was claimed by a virus. Restoring this as close to factory specifications was a labour of love and I’m thrilled to have my original system back as, close to, it was.

Cool system! what was the name of the virus?

I don’t recall, it’s been 25 years.

bZbZbZ wrote on 2024-07-17, 03:10:

I suspect you're stuck at 66MHz FSB on that motherboard (and you're thus stuck at 333MHz for the Pentium II). It's nice that you obtained UDMA100 to improve hard drive transfer rate though. Very nice system regardless! This is a recreation of your historic machine, and that's awesome. 😀

I figured that, just thought I’d get some second thoughts. Thanks and cheers!

I have my doubts that an onboard (on chipset) IDE controller runs actual UDMA-100. Pretty sure that even in BX era, UDMA-66 was add-ons by PCI cards or on-board PCI bridges. Or was with UDMA-66 the 80 conductor cables became a thing ...

theaellie wrote on 2024-07-17, 05:09:

Grem Five wrote on 2024-07-16, 21:34:

I picked up a Pionex a few years back for cheap that had a T440BX board in it. Loved the case design and the whole setup, seems previous owner must have been using it as a server or something as the dual scsi drives in it still had Novel Netware on them with a scsi tape backup and CD rom.

Nice looking setup you have.

Thanks. I would like to see more Pionex systems out in the wild, as it feels like I have a rare unicorn.

Looks like the Elite line shared cases with Quantex. Very nice to know.