PcBytes wrote on 2025-03-03, 23:25:

This is the board you have. It's rebranded by "Full Yes":

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/soyo-sy-5eas

At a glance, it looked a lot like a PC Chips/Hsin Tech/Amptron job.

Yeah, Soyo was one of the brands known to relabel VIA chipsets mostly, all with the ETEQ branding.

The P55TVP4 is getting worked on again today. I'm going to try putting it in a Lian-Li. I haven't built an AT system in a ATX case before, but the one I have is perfect for the job, as it has room for AT power switch.

I initially started with trying to design a modification to the face, to add a stock-looking turbo button and light. I then realized the board doesn't have a turbo button, 🤣 The case I took it out of DID, so I got fooled.
I have an I/O panel printing for it, then I can start figuring what else I want to put in it

Ended up deciding to leave the PCIs for now. I don't have enough to replace them ALL, so I'll save that job for when I do. Those things are just so damn ugly...

I was putting a shorter cable on the PC speaker and realized something: I don't have the HDD tray for this case...

Oh well. I decided to remove the bracket instead. Using a 9/64" drill bit and my powered screwdriver, I was able to easily remove the 4 rivets holding it in. I still have a ton leftover from another project if I want/need to reinstall it.

Earlier I drilled the lock-loop off, since the tray didn't have holes for it. This is a hodgepodge'd case (whole thing really).

I want to fill the bays, so here's what I got:

At least, this is what I'm thinking. I have external optical drives, since I'm going to run a SCSI setup, it'll be no problem. I have a few Adaptec AHA-1542 laying in a drawer I can use. I was considering NO HDD at all! Use external storage ONLY, that'd be pretty fun. I REALLY want to use this big-honkin' drive!

Here's some pictures of the "Big Honkin' Drive":

I have media, both written and blank for it. It looks pretty noisy, I feel like I'm going to enjoy it.

I got some time again and continued working on the ASUS P55TVP4. It was having troubles booting from the onboard IDE. Not sure what IS (still) going on, but the problem is sudo-gone. It wouldn't boot my boot-all drive, it gives me "I/O error, replace disk". I used a Promise PCI ATA(133) controller and it booted right away.

I tried to then load the SCSI drive/CDROM to do a windows install, but THAT was also giving me "issues". Operator error - the AHA-1542CF I was trying to use can only handle less than 1G drives, so the max partition I was able to make was 1074MB (I was using a 4.3G drive). I decided to throw another blank IDE drive (QuantumCR) at it and I couldn't load the SCSI CDROM driver now... This was a lot of messing around... I removed everything and started from scratch again. Pri-Master HDD, Sec-Master CDROM, booted the w98 floppy and everything was working absolutely NORMAL now... Ugh.

Got windows 98 installed and FINALLY got to the desktop. NOW I can start adding more goodies (hopefully). I put the 1542 back in first and it loaded just fine. Enabled USB (irq11), booted fine. Installed CT2770. Still fine, but with sound. I added next AHA-2940U, then I got crash during driver/initialization. I remember this being IRQ conflict, so I removed it, restarted and checked all available IRQs. AHA1542 was on 9 (where 2940 wanted to be), so I moved it to 12. I got to say, there isn't much room for anything else now.

My configuration was starting to look pretty good, so now I move to modding the case, which is what I'm still doing now.
I started with the PSU. I replaced the fan earlier, but that b*tch was LOUD. What I did, was knock a hole in the top and install a 120MM I had laying around. This thing is going to be QUIET.

Now, I usually NEVER cut or otherwise damage any "retro" case, unless it needs fixing. This is the first time I've ever hacked up a NICE (not really) Lian-Li (PC60 variant). I'm adding ALL the ports to the empty space on the back; they were consuming most of my PCI lanes. The AHA2940 is going to be connected to external ports. I want to use this computer for testing SCSI external devices, so I want MORE options for connectors. The thing is really starting to have "AT" vibe about it.

I'm also installing a stereo amplifier in there:

Coming along well. I have a bracket for the amplifier printing right now and most of my holes cut. I'm just using a tiny cut-off wheel and hand files.

I made a ton of progress on the P55TVP4(I'll name this computer "Boom-Box" now)
I was stuck on needing 3d printer fuel. I used the last of the white to print a bracket (and two prototypes) for the amplifier. I was able to feed the printer a bunch "scrap" white and black bits and had just enough for the I/O panel.

I slid the motherboard tray in and ran into a major clearance issue with the amplifier and the PSU fan. Pretty lame, but I had to get one of those thin Noctua fans to put on the PSU. Took a while for that, but it's installed and the thing fits now. Next, I needed to print adapters for the speakers to fit in the front, so I was stuck again, until...

I happened to find some "Wood PLA" for free; hell yeah. Printed the adapters for the 70mm speakers to 80mm fan in the wood.

I think I'm ready to power on again.

So... I booted it and it did nothing. Just dashes on the POST card, too. Whelp, I totally forgot the ZIP drive was faulty and don't remember it being THAT faulty to the point it completely stops the show. Not until finally unplugging everything and it booting like nothing happened, did I remember, then re-assembled it (minus the ZIP). I don't have another ZIP, so I'll install a blank in the face, for now.

I have the ZIP drive open right now and don't physically see any damage. If I knew HOW it was stopping the computer, I bet it would lead me to the failed part(s). Dead-Short in the 40-pin connector, but which one? It has 5/12V still when it stops the boot. It also stops the HDD from spinning. If it's the RESET line, that goes to the main IC, which is bad news. Any ideas or should I consider it toast?

I'll be installing some games and playing with it for the rest of the week.

The Boom-box is working good, so I'll set it to the side for a while to bring up this: Gemlight GMB-P55IPS-V0. I've been working on it for the last couple of days and made good progress. It needed the Dallas RTC replaced, but it was soldiered it the board. I got the chip out and replaced it with a socket months ago, but have done nothing with it. The board itself was "untested" until a few days ago. I was suddenly inspired by watching a video by Necroware, going over what options are available to replace RTCs. This time, I had the parts, tools, and skills to do "the thing" so I modified a RTC for the first time.

I tested the board with the RTC installed, but no battery, because I wanted to know if it would remember anything after a RESET. It did not. Most of my computers can remember until power is removed, so this may be a quirk of the RTC.

The board, of course, ran POST and was looking for boot media. Very good news. I booted a drive with a fresh install of DOS/games and it ran everything just fine. I was thinking this would be the perfect time to try this CF-IDE adapter I've had laying around again.

The adapter was inside of a "project" system I bought a while back and I was excited to test it right away. The 4GB card it came with worked, I could read/write to it with a card reader. I could see the drive in the BIOS and it would get a drive letter, but it would NOT boot. Even if I started from scratch on the computer I was testing with, win98 installer would tell me my format is invalid. The DOS installer, too. It would pretend to format the drive, then tell me it couldn't.

I was going through the same process on this computer, but this time, it WORKED. What? Why?! My process is identical, the boot disk/drive is identical. I set the drive mode to LBA, on all of the tests. Windows98 successfully installed and it boots from it just fine.
It's strange seeing the old OS and no wrrrRRRrrr going on. Just like when I first got a solid state, I can still hear the drive reading in my head (it's a lot faster, though).

Now that the 4GB card works and is setup for the Gemlight, I want to install DOS on this other CF I have, a 30MB. I put it in, and the results were promising. The BIOS showed the different card and the boot disk took me to a usable space. I removed/installed a new partition then rebooted into 6.22 installer. All good, until it's completely done. It reboots and now gets stuck on boot device (after POST, system summary). It will do nothing, but still responsive (ctrl+alt+del works). This is where I'm stuck now. I might try repartitioning/reinstalling DOS. If I load into it with the boot disk, the drive is there and DOS is the only thing on it.

I'll be pausing until I can get a case for now, because I have a few more dirty to clean. A Compaq Multi-media, and a Asus P5KPL-CM in some "Ultra" case with unknown CPU.

Aww, man. I can't keep my hands off these things, 🤣

I got two more mystery machines and started working on the one that said it was "bad". I'm really feelin' the AT stuff right now.

It's some kind of Micron (with the Micronics Board) with a socket 5. It has two sticks of memory. (and a huge-A## modem and the controller for the PC Card adapter) There is a socketed Dallas clock onboard, so yay! I get to try that again!
The RetroWeb Entry:

Pulled it all apart and cleaned the case last night. I'm starting my testing right now. I have done nothing to the board yet (I usually clean first). I grabbed my known-good AT power supply and a PCI video card. Here we go! *click*
Sweet! It works! Of course, it complains about the RTC. This board also forgets everything after a reboot, so I can't go further yet. I'll clean it up and fix the RTC.

Ope. I Lied. I can go further. I got all the parts clean and set them up again and plugged a floppy drive in and let it boot from that.

Interestingly, in the past I've noticed different boards/BIOS do the floppy check differently. This board is really loud about it, with my already loud drive. Pretty satisfying boot. It got late too quickly, so I'll have to do the RTC later.

Major Jackyl wrote on 2025-04-11, 17:47:

I've powered on the ASUS P55TVP4 and it works!! It came with a 133 Pentium ,but I wanted to run MMX in this thing, so I installe […]
Show full quote

I've powered on the ASUS P55TVP4 and it works!! It came with a 133 Pentium ,but I wanted to run MMX in this thing, so I installed one and it's also good.

The attachment 20250411_121812.jpg is no longer available

There is a issue, here though... Not sure what it is yet. I've double checked the jumpers and it POSTs at 225Mhz.

The attachment Screenshot 2025-04-11 122422.png is no longer available

The attachment 20250411_121821.jpg is no longer available

I inverted the bus jumpers (I've seen jumpers be backwards before) and it got worse.

The attachment 20250411_122342.jpg is no longer available

This board has some kind of modified RTC, could that possibly cause this? 75x3 would leave me at 225, but the bus *should* be 66 and the multiplier 1.5? (the board doesn't go to 3.5...) based on the manual. BUT... The screen printing on the board defines the jumpers differently and actually HAS a 75Mhz bus setting...

The attachment 20250411_123221.jpg is no longer available

CPU Core is 2.78V and I/O is 3.32V, so those are correct. Multiplier jumpers are both 1-2, 1-2.

Don't know if I'm too late with this, but;

There is no 3.5x setting on jumpers - the 233 MMX (and IIRC also some 200 and 166 MMX) interprets the 1.5x setting as 3.5

I wonder if the FSB jumpers are being misinterpreted, as it seems 66 and 75 FSB are the excact opposite setting?

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-05-14, 06:59:

Don't know if I'm too late with this, but; […]
Show full quote

Major Jackyl wrote on 2025-04-11, 17:47:

I've powered on the ASUS P55TVP4 and it works!! It came with a 133 Pentium ,but I wanted to run MMX in this thing, so I installe […]
Show full quote

I've powered on the ASUS P55TVP4 and it works!! It came with a 133 Pentium ,but I wanted to run MMX in this thing, so I installed one and it's also good.

The attachment 20250411_121812.jpg is no longer available

There is a issue, here though... Not sure what it is yet. I've double checked the jumpers and it POSTs at 225Mhz.

The attachment Screenshot 2025-04-11 122422.png is no longer available

The attachment 20250411_121821.jpg is no longer available

I inverted the bus jumpers (I've seen jumpers be backwards before) and it got worse.

The attachment 20250411_122342.jpg is no longer available

This board has some kind of modified RTC, could that possibly cause this? 75x3 would leave me at 225, but the bus *should* be 66 and the multiplier 1.5? (the board doesn't go to 3.5...) based on the manual. BUT... The screen printing on the board defines the jumpers differently and actually HAS a 75Mhz bus setting...

The attachment 20250411_123221.jpg is no longer available

CPU Core is 2.78V and I/O is 3.32V, so those are correct. Multiplier jumpers are both 1-2, 1-2.

Don't know if I'm too late with this, but;

There is no 3.5x setting on jumpers - the 233 MMX (and IIRC also some 200 and 166 MMX) interprets the 1.5x setting as 3.5

I wonder if the FSB jumpers are being misinterpreted, as it seems 66 and 75 FSB are the excact opposite setting?

I was starting to assume, since the manual wanted it at 1.5x. SpeedSys reports the correct information (so does everest). I wonder what the actual clock was when the BIOS was reporting 16Mhz? I will get back to find out.

I only recently (finally) extracted speedsys and put it on a floppy, so I don't have a lot of results to compare yet.

Finishing up re-assembling the Micron (since it works fine). I painted the cover for the floppy drive, because it looked like hell and was rusty. Haven't tested it yet, but it is a Teac FD-235HF and those seem to be not only common, but bullet-proof.

I'm going to open the PSU as well and check for problems. If it tests fine, this thing can go back together.

Looks good, so I'll clean it up and look closer before reassembling. I think the whole computer can go back together at this point, leaving only the RTC modification.

I got the Pentium Micron all assembled; I was working on modding the RTC, but dented the crystal again and it doesn't work...

I got a new crystal, but now my desk is piled with a different computer:

I have all the parts cleaned (but untested). The thing had MSI MS-6712 (aka. KT4V) with an AMD Athlon AXDA2400DKV3C and three sticks of 512MB PC3200. The optical drives are both bad, but the floppy works (Teac). The case is, I'm guessing, original to the build! It has MSI sticker/AXP sticker and the MSI USB/diag panel. I don't want to use it, though, as it is chunky AND has rust all over. I can fix the rust, but I don't feel like doing that type of work anytime soon.

I'll probably be trying to put it in this AOpen case:

I also have this cool Creative pair I was test-fitting.

I'll hopefully be able to test the board today, so can even know if I need to prep a case for it. All the cases I have piled up need service: ugly and dirty.

I replaced the crystal on the RTC I needed for the M54Hi, but it still did nothing... Gah. After sticking in the diag card and seeing no signs of life, I was starting to think this is why it was "broken", but no. I tested the RTC in my Gemlight and it worked, so I was able to rule that out. Then, I unplugged everything, and it came back to life. I came to a diagnosis of bad IDE cable on secondary channel. Crazy how that stops the whole show. I bet the crystal I replaced is fine still. Testable? I'll find out soon.

It works again and is now fully assembled and ready to add to the collection. Going to play with it a bit more first, add more goodies. It only has a 1.6GB HDD and DOS 6.22. I want to leave it as a fairly speedy DOS system.

I "accidently" completely built the MSI board into the AOpen case without testing it first. Looks great, though... Just need a few more parts and I'll see how do.

I've been working on a Compaq Presario 4860 "Media Center" PC. I've been ignoring it for weeks, but it's totally in the way and can't be placed until it's cleaned and operational. I was told it "doesn't boot", but powers on. Have NOT done ANY testing yet. Just getting it cleaned.

Ope. so I opened it and revealed one of those soldered-on batteries...I was kinda expecting it, since my other Compaq with this layout had the same thing. I removed the battery so I could clean the board. Got it all clean, but didn't have any battery holders to install. Now, the case says it takes a 4.5V batters. my other one did, too and had a 4.5V battery soldered on. This one had 2335 which was only 3V. I wasn't planning on anything special unless the 3V can't retain BIOS, which is what happened on my ZEOS, when I just wired a 2032 to the ext. battery. It needed the 3xAA(orAAA) pack.

I got a holder from the local crap store* and installed it so I could continue assembling. There were a few interesting things about this case/computer. ACTUAL active cooling on the CPU is rare to see in such a box, but it had a 80mm with a duct that was part of the cooler and was also a ground strap to the frame. The other thing is the button panel on the top (forgot pictures) which not only had all the buttons, but a dozen LEDs what I was unaware of until I had it apart. This computer also has an INTERNAL 5.25" drive bay... dude. This is one of the computers that could've come with a BIGFOOT! Not going to install one, since it's vertical and that don't sit right with me. Bigfoots are too "rare" to set-up for failure.

My least favorite thing about it is the ugly card riser. My DeskPro was "broken" but worked with it removed. The riser itself was good, though, because it worked without the metal frame. The thing just did not/could not slot properly (and there is evidence of this). For that one, I designed and 3D printed a new bracket that DID fit and now that computer works great! I'm hoping this thing works fine, since dry-fitting it seems to slot good.

*Ax-Man surplus

This also had the easiest to open CPU I've ever opened. I was running it under hot water for a while, so I think that helped. The heatsink was a horror-show, but of course, looks new again. This cooler is unique in that it BOLTS to the FLOOR of the damn thing! I don't think I've seen that before...

The board is pretty awesome. It has 3DRage Pro AGP 2x on-board AND ESS 1887F audio WITH a TDA amplifier, RIGHT NEXT to it! Doesn't seems like it would've been bad, back when it was new, as long as nothing goes wrong, 🤣

This is pretty much where I'm at now:

Going to clean the power supply and continue on my way, hoping the main issue was washed away with the second one (dirt and hair)

I open the PSU, got it cleaned.

Got it installed and added a HDD (Quantum CR 4.3). The DVD is Hitachi GD-2000 (OE)\

And with that, I'm ready to test/install!

Hey! Lookie there! It's alive!

Ummm. There was supposed to be a problem... This is fine.