BX133 is pretty good. Well, outside of caps, which were crap on all ABIT motherboards of that era.

I do not mean to denigrate ABIT, but I remember from more than 10 years ago that ABIT BE6 (if I am correct) I picked up from somewhere (likely the nearby university computer room e-waste cart) did not POST at all if one particular ATI Technologies Rage Pro Turbo based card made by ATI itself (pretty much all ATI cards were in-house cards back then) that I happened to own (also picked up from somewhere) was inserted into the AGP slot.
I believed the card itself worked fine on other motherboards, and BE6 itself worked fine with other AGP graphics cards.
It is just this combination that I could never get to POST.
I probably still have the BE6 motherboard and the Rage Pro Turbo graphics card somewhere in my possession so maybe I could revisit the issue someday, but in my own experience, this is one of the few cases that two known good equipment cannot seem to function together at all.
I do not remember if I tried to update BE6's BIOS to the newest one in hopes of resolving this issue.
Of course, I tried cleaning the AGP contacts.
Sorry for being negative about ABIT, but their AMD Socket 939 ULi chipset-based motherboard I played around with worked well, so I am not trying to be negative about the brand.

Abit BX boards were all pretty legendary - but they definitely prioritized features over build quality.

Early boards had AGP issues like other early BX (and indeed all AGP) designs, but crappy caps and voltage regulators that weren't up to handling the overclocks you could do with SoftMenu II and III were pretty common. That said, those components are replaceable and things like the BX133 and BP6 are pretty unique. But with any Abit board, be ready to replace stuff to get it to work in 2024.

Personally I like the ones with less onboard crap (i.e sacrificing a PCI or ISA slot for a Highpoint fake RAID controller), so if going for a regular single Slot 1 board, I'd choose the BH6 (5 PCI, 2 ISA) or for non-DOS build BF6 (6PCI, 1 ISA) over say the BE6 (II). It doesn't make BE6 & co bad boards, just ones with stuff that made (some) sense in the day, but very little now. If I want faster disk I/O than ATA33, I'd go for a PCI SATA controller...

ZM6 is a decent mobo for S370 (Mendocino era only, I've seen some mobo hacks on the net but it's probably easier to just get a better chipset), though good luck finding anything ZX based these days. I used to run C400 at 500 or 450 MHz (all my cards tolerated the 40MHz+ PCI/AGP bus but some HDDs were unstable). It's not a legendary status mobo but very easy to overclock and rock stable too if you don't push the clocks too high. I agree on the caps, they will bloat and require a swap eventually.

Deunan wrote on 2024-12-27, 14:34:

ZM6 is a decent mobo for S370 (Mendocino era only, I've seen some mobo hacks on the net but it's probably easier to just get a better chipset), though good luck finding anything ZX based these days.

The ZM6 also supports Coppermine Celerons with the cB0 stepping when using the latest official BIOS. No modifications or adapters needed, but the stepping of the CPU is important. You may also need a different cooler, as the Mendocino ones don't seem to make proper contact with Coppermine Celerons.

Here's my ZM6 running a Coppermine Celeron 600.

BF6 is essentially just a BE6-2 with the HPT366/370 ripped out and the sixth PCI-slot is populated.
BX133-raid is just a BE6-2 with a socket instead of a slot1.
BX6r2 is nice, as it has four ram-slots, but only has softmenu2.

I just installed windows98se on a BX133-raid and opted to use the udma33. Got sideswiped tho, tried to use a 40pin cable with the sat2ide2 😀 had all sorts of fun.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-12-27, 14:38:

The ZM6 also supports Coppermine Celerons with the cB0 stepping when using the latest official BIOS. No modifications or adapters needed, but the stepping of the CPU is important. You may also need a different cooler, as the Mendocino ones don't seem to make proper contact with Coppermine Celerons.

Nice, it so happens I do have one Coppermine CPU and no mobo for it, and it's SL46U so it should be cB0? CPU-World only shows B0 and C0 steppings: https://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SL46U.html
Did you ever check the actual CPU core voltage though? I have C500 installed in my ZM6 right now but it's almost 30W TDP. The cooler is some server S370 thing but with 3D-printed 60x60 fan cowl to keep the CPU cool while being quiet.

Deunan wrote on 2024-12-27, 15:36:

Nice, it so happens I do have one Coppermine CPU and no mobo for it, and it's SL46U so it should be cB0? CPU-World only shows B0 and C0 steppings: https://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SL46U.html
Did you ever check the actual CPU core voltage though? I have C500 installed in my ZM6 right now but it's almost 30W TDP. The cooler is some server S370 thing but with 3D-printed 60x60 fan cowl to keep the CPU cool while being quiet.

I think cB0 is B0 i.e. that's just how CPU-Z interprets it.

Voltage is on spec with my Celeron 600, sitting at its normal 1.5V. Also, I'm using a Cooler Master Socket 370 cooler (which I originally got with a different Coppermine Celeron) but I've replaced the fan with a 60mm Noctua.

Let me add BE6-II to the club. Absolute trooper that eats 133FSB for breakfast. Paired with a 1GHz/133FSB Coppermine SL5DV and 768MB RAM, and a GF4 Ti4200, and it ran about anything up to I think 2002.

Deunan wrote on 2024-12-27, 15:36:

Nice, it so happens I do have one Coppermine CPU and no mobo for it, and it's SL46U so it should be cB0? CPU-World only shows B0 and C0 steppings: https://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SL46U.html

INTEL does not use a [c] in front of the Celeron steppings. Their annotation s are :
A0
A1
B0
C0
D0

PARKE wrote on 2024-12-27, 18:08:

INTEL does not use a [c] in front of the Celeron steppings. Their annotation s are : A0 A1 B0 C0 D0 […]
Show full quote

Deunan wrote on 2024-12-27, 15:36:

Nice, it so happens I do have one Coppermine CPU and no mobo for it, and it's SL46U so it should be cB0? CPU-World only shows B0 and C0 steppings: https://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SL46U.html

INTEL does not use a [c] in front of the Celeron steppings. Their annotation s are :
A0
A1
B0
C0
D0

So maybe just a community prefix to denote Coppermine?

Deunan wrote on 2024-12-27, 14:34:

ZM6 is a decent mobo for S370 (Mendocino era only, I've seen some mobo hacks on the net but it's probably easier to just get a better chipset), though good luck finding anything ZX based these days. I used to run C400 at 500 or 450 MHz (all my cards tolerated the 40MHz+ PCI/AGP bus but some HDDs were unstable). It's not a legendary status mobo but very easy to overclock and rock stable too if you don't push the clocks too high. I agree on the caps, they will bloat and require a swap eventually.

And the ZX chipset is pretty equivalent to a BX besides a 512 MiB maximum?

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-12-27, 22:31:

And the ZX chipset is pretty equivalent to a BX besides a 512 MiB maximum?

That and one PCI interrupt signal less, so ZX mobos with 5 PCI slots (like what ZM6 has) will have one slot either tied to another and/or incapable of bus mastering. Frankly if you need 5 PCI cards you probably want a full BX chipset, though keep in mind the AGP also needs interrupt line so you won't get 5 unique ones anyway.

My ZM6 runs with 512 MiB currently - these are ECC sticks but ZX doesn't support ECC. It's just I bought a bunch for other BX mobos because ECC were cheaper and of good quality. Apparently not many people buy these because quite a lot of mobos have issues, esp. non-Intel chipsets. That being said just becuase BX does support ECC doesn't mean the mobo is wired for it. Turns out many are not. I have a Slot1 based BX mobo that does seem to support ECC but it's a MSI and not Abit. YMMV.

ZM6 does have two ISA slots if you need that - one shares space with PCI so you can put either PCI there (that's the cut-down slot though) or ISA card. Good if you want to have ISA-based sound card and something else in there as well, or just for experiments.

PcBytes wrote on 2024-12-27, 17:21:

Let me add BE6-II to the club. Absolute trooper that eats 133FSB for breakfast. Paired with a 1GHz/133FSB Coppermine SL5DV and 768MB RAM, and a GF4 Ti4200, and it ran about anything up to I think 2002.

There's like 20+ capacitors to replace on that board 😀.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-12-27, 22:30:

PARKE wrote on 2024-12-27, 18:08:

INTEL does not use a [c] in front of the Celeron steppings. Their annotation s are : A0 A1 B0 C0 D0 […]
Show full quote

Deunan wrote on 2024-12-27, 15:36:

Nice, it so happens I do have one Coppermine CPU and no mobo for it, and it's SL46U so it should be cB0? CPU-World only shows B0 and C0 steppings: https://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SL46U.html

INTEL does not use a [c] in front of the Celeron steppings. Their annotation s are :
A0
A1
B0
C0
D0

So maybe just a community prefix to denote Coppermine?

Yes, but normally it's the element designation that is used for it - Cu.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-12-27, 22:30:

PARKE wrote on 2024-12-27, 18:08:

INTEL does not use a [c] in front of the Celeron steppings. Their annotation s are : A0 A1 B0 C0 D0 […]
Show full quote

Deunan wrote on 2024-12-27, 15:36:

Nice, it so happens I do have one Coppermine CPU and no mobo for it, and it's SL46U so it should be cB0? CPU-World only shows B0 and C0 steppings: https://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SL46U.html

INTEL does not use a [c] in front of the Celeron steppings. Their annotation s are :
A0
A1
B0
C0
D0

So maybe just a community prefix to denote Coppermine?

It goes for all Celeron steppings in the INTELspec sheets: Covington, Mendocino, Coppermine & Tualatin fsb100 but also for the PII Klamath.
Regular Coppermine steppings have a [c] in front, Deschutes have a [d], Katmais have a [k] and Tualatins have a [t].

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-12-27, 10:59:

... or maybe know some of the ABiT nomenclature from back then?

The nomenclature of ABIT boards of these days is very easy. All Slot 1 and Socket 370 boards starting with a "B" have the Intel 440BX chipset. This means you have at least the following different boards (and important board versions which require a different BIOS):

Slot 1:

• BE6
• BE6-II
• BE6-II V1.2
• BE6-II V2.0
• BF6
• BF6N (OEM)
• BH6 V1.0x
• BH6 V1.1/V1.2
• BX-20 (OEM)
• BX6
• BX6 2.0

Socket 370:

• BM6
• BP6
• BX133-RAID

Note:
I added the links to available spec pages on my website (https://soggi.org/), the other boards might be found f.e. on https://theretroweb.com/.

kind regards
soggi

stef80 wrote on 2024-12-27, 23:58:

PcBytes wrote on 2024-12-27, 17:21:

Let me add BE6-II to the club. Absolute trooper that eats 133FSB for breakfast. Paired with a 1GHz/133FSB Coppermine SL5DV and 768MB RAM, and a GF4 Ti4200, and it ran about anything up to I think 2002.

There's like 20+ capacitors to replace on that board 😀.

I counted 22. 24 if the little buggers (100uF I think) are replaced too. I did turn mine full polymer in that regard/

I have one of those with lots of bad caps ... a rainy day project, some day.
I had more luck with BH-6 which is a value board with less capacitors, and they usually don't get bulged. Although some degrade after ~25 years and should be tested/replaced.