You absolutely need one for bios flash. I think I flashed hundreds of time to find compatible bios version with 1gb ram modules for abit nv7-133r board for example or to find the highest performing version for Abit kw7 - another example. And no, the last bios version is not always the best!

AlexZ wrote on 2025-06-16, 07:46:

I use classic FDDs in my builds. They rarely get used and you can often use USB if you need to so GOTEK or LS120 isn't really needed. I don't want to pay for 3x GOTEK if it isn't going to be used. They do have a major downside that they require your case to have a 3.5" opening. There are many mesh cases on sale which don't.

This is actually the reason i made conscious decision to have no FDD or CD/DVD in my socketA build. I wanted a modern case and had specific one in mind, with no 3.5/5.25 bays. Also yes, buying something that is not going to be used does not make sense either.

nd22 wrote on 2025-06-16, 07:49:

You absolutely need one for bios flash. I think I flashed hundreds of time to find compatible bios version with 1gb ram modules for abit nv7-133r board for example or to find the highest performing version for Abit kw7 - another example. And no, the last bios version is not always the best!

Yep, things like this do happen. That's why i do keep a few drives handy. Situations when using FDD is just easier than trying to work around (which is possible) are even more common. That's only needed during setup though, does not need to be permanently installed in the system.

I do find clonezilla live CD written to a thumb drive extremely useful for working with this systems. I use it to "install" XP - i have a sysprepped image with everything i need including updates preinstalled and i just write that to the drive. It also includes memtest and freedos, which can be used to update bios on many of this boards, as long as "usb-hdd" boot is supported. And whole bunch of diagnostic and information tools, including stuff like ddrescue and testdisk in linux itself. Basically everything that may be needed to diagnose or get information about hardware.

So with that practically i do not need CD/DVD or FDD even for initial setup, at least most of the time, on hardware from discussed time period.

Archer57 wrote on 2025-06-16, 08:41:

This is actually the reason i made conscious decision to have no FDD or CD/DVD in my socketA build. I wanted a modern case and had specific one in mind, with no 3.5/5.25 bays.

I ran into the same issue with my WinXP build (not Socket A based), and I found that an external USB 2.0 DVD drive works surprisingly well. I have a lot of physical games from that era, and the external DVD drive reads them perfectly. Even the ones with heavy DRM crap.

There are USB floppy drives as well, but I've never used one myself.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-06-16, 08:59:

I ran into the same issue with my WinXP build (not Socket A based), and I found that an external USB 2.0 DVD drive works surprisingly well. I have a lot of physical games from that era, and the external DVD drive reads them perfectly. Even the ones with heavy DRM crap.

There are USB floppy drives as well, but I've never used one myself.

Yep, that's always an option. I do have an external drive for situations where it is needed.

I also have firewire drive, still need to dig up and add firewire controller to this system to use it.

This are also laptop drives, so no crazy speeds and no noise.

USB FDD is less useful, since most of the times it is needed USB would not work. It is more useful to work with floppies on modern PC.

Archer57 wrote on 2025-06-16, 11:04:

Yep, that's always an option. I do have an external drive for situations where it is needed. […]
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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-06-16, 08:59:

I ran into the same issue with my WinXP build (not Socket A based), and I found that an external USB 2.0 DVD drive works surprisingly well. I have a lot of physical games from that era, and the external DVD drive reads them perfectly. Even the ones with heavy DRM crap.

There are USB floppy drives as well, but I've never used one myself.

Yep, that's always an option. I do have an external drive for situations where it is needed.

I also have firewire drive, still need to dig up and add firewire controller to this system to use it.

This are also laptop drives, so no crazy speeds and no noise.

USB FDD is less useful, since most of the times it is needed USB would not work. It is more useful to work with floppies on modern PC.

The biggest issue is that where USB floppies would be useful is on systems that cant actually boot from USB let alone a USB floppy drive and even if it does work in windows it wont be working under DOS system without specialized drivers to setup the floppy.

So yes useful but only in specific use cases and a USB stick would do it far better.

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-06-16, 11:22:

The biggest issue is that where USB floppies would be useful is on systems that cant actually boot from USB let alone a USB floppy drive and even if it does work in windows it wont be working under DOS system without specialized drivers to setup the floppy.

So yes useful but only in specific use cases and a USB stick would do it far better.

Exactly. Though newer socketA boards discussed here can boot from USB FDD and i'd guess it'll then work in DOS (never tried this), the same as with USB-HDD boot thumb drive works and is detected as HDD (C:, D:, etc). But then there is no point as thumb drive works, including DOS for BIOS update.

Fun little fact - USB FDD and floppies are still used where i work. With modern OS. Regulations for handling certain documents make thumb drives impossible (device, not media) and CD/DVD are just annoying/slow to use the way they work. So yep, floppies, in 2025...

GOTEK works in every single socket 462 Abit board! I thinki used it only on AN7 10 times or something like that. No way a classic floppy would have worked so many times.
That is the only thing i do not miss about that era: floppies!

Actually old floppies, from times when they were used to boot OS and basically as primary storage, were reliable. At least as reliable as thumb drives, likely - more given how much junk is sold today.

Later floppies from second half of 90s and 00s - yeah... need to write 3 copies to 3 different disks so that you can read one. The result of race to the bottom, the same as with newer optical drives and media.

And TBH thumb drives are rapidly approaching the same level of reliability nowadays, for the same reason. Have to actually choose something decent and it has become far from trivial.

But yeah, GOTEK is nice and probably a must have if you are dealing with older stuff a lot. Mostly DOS, may be 9x to a degree. But on this boards... i definitely updated bios on this ones using thumb drive, in fact i am not sure i have connected floppy to any of them, may be i did, but definitely no more than once at setup. I did use floppy recently to update bios on old dell workstation, but that's older.

And since i am mostly interested in 98-xp era for me it really feels like a waste.

Also one more curious question - what about power consumption of different chipsets/motherboards?

Let's say i have Geode NX-1500 and wanted to build completely passive system to use as a server. It is silly, but something i wanted to try with old hardware for a while. What board/chipset be a better choice? Somehow i get a feeling that it is not nforce...

If you are looking for a fanless silent socket A system, consider the HP T5720. Uses a SiS chipset though so not great for 3d games. There are many newer models of thin client that would work better as a home server if you don't need driver support for vintage OSes.

onethirdxcubed wrote on 2025-06-17, 03:55:

If you are looking for a fanless silent socket A system, consider the HP T5720. Uses a SiS chipset though so not great for 3d games. There are many newer models of thin client that would work better as a home server if you don't need driver support for vintage OSes.

Thanks for the recommendation. Yeah, i know about thin clients and i do have modern boards with low power celerons for more practical use.

This is mostly a fun project though, i'd really like to do it with desktop motherboard in desktop case just to see if it is possible and so that i can use some PCI-SATA controller and add some storage.

Thankyou for posting this, It helped a lot deciding on what boards to keep and to let go off. With over 100 motherboards in my collection it sure was nice to move on some..

Thank you!
With 165 Abit boards in my collection I am not giving up on any of them!

POWERSUPPLY: a few considerations before presenting the options.
Socket A is known to need a strong 5V rail. There are boards with an auxiliary power connector but you will still need a fairly beefy 5V rail by today standards. Even with that auxiliary power connector my Abit AN7 refused to start with XP 3200 when I used a FSP with a 15A on the 5V rail.
One option would be to use a CPU with a TDP up to 62W; however the most powerful is the Sempron 3000, a pretty weak model. As soon as you start using a Barton, a Thunderbird >1100 MHz, an Athlon XP 2200 or higher you will need a PSU with 25A on the 5V rail. If you plan on building the ultimate socket A system 25A is required!

There are plenty of PSU’s with 20 A that you can buy brand new however finding a new one with 25 A is going to be a challenge.
Corsair seems to over engineer their power supplies as I got a RM1000 that can power systems that does not have the auxiliary power connector – such as one made up of made up of Athlon 1400C; 2 * 1 GB DDR; Abit KG7 – RAID; geforce 7600GT just fine – so my recommendation is going to be Corsair for a new one. Also I got from Corsair the RM850, RM750, RM650, TX850 with 25A on the 5V rail and all of them run just fine XP3200 on Abit AN7 or any other socket 462 systems that I used in this comparative.
You can also go the old power supply way and get an unit manufactured 20 years ago with 30A on the 5V rail; I would recommend sticking to reputable brands such as Enermax or FSP. I got a few old PSU’s from Enermax that still work fine but even if the capacitors are visually OK I intend to replace them ASAP.

Tier 1: brand new PSU with 25A on the 5v rail is enough to power even the hungriest Athlon XP’s. I recommend Corsair as I never encountered issues with them but there are many other brands that are just as good but I did not use them so I can not recommend them. Using a new PSU is highly preferable so this is my recommendation for both the ultimate socket A system and the best price to performance ratio system. Because it is likely that your system will be in use for many, many years I insist on buying a new PSU from a reputable manufacturer as the preferred way!

Tier 2: period correct power supply with very strong 5V rail: old units can be used after being tested and inspected for leaking capacitors. I got a few units from Enermax with 30 – 35A on the 5V rail that I use so this is what I recommend if you feel up to the task of replacing capacitors!

Tier 3: new power supply with 20A or lower on the 5V rail: it may be new but it will not have enough for your socket A system so not recommended.

CASE:
In this case 😀 I can not make a recommendation. Everyone likes a certain case: some like the beige boxes of yesteryear, some like a new case with RGB, some like a standard black case - like me, so choose the case you like when building your system!

If your 462 board has a 12v VRM with the P4 supplemental power then you can use any modern ATX PSU since the 12v boards get all their power from the 12v rail just like modern systems do.

Its the older 5v VRM boards that need the beefy PSU with 30+ amps on the 5v rail, if you have one of the bridge boards that have a 5v VRM but also have the P4 connector then you can get away with 20-25 Amps on the 5v rail but more never hurts.

I have done a bit of testing on this as I have all three types of 462 boards, I prefer the new 12v VRM ones over the older ones as finding good high amp PSU units in good working condition is getting more and more difficult not to mention expensive in both cost and shipping.

I have two older units, one has 57A on the 5v and 28A on the 3.3v, and the other unit has 35A on 5v and 30A on 3.3v, the 57Amp PSU is a absolute unit, 600watt capacity and it can deliver all of it and a bit more if needed, its a rock solid PSU.

I use this list here as a rough guide

https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … _A_motherboards

but further research is needed if your board is not listed.

I don't know other manufacturers, but on Abit boards you will still need a PSU with a strong 5V rail even with the auxiliary power connector present.
I tested on AN7 16 processors and the system refused to start with 1400C or Barton 3000 when using some units with weak 5V rail! As soon as I put a Corsair TX 850 everything ran with no problems!

So, RM1000 uses DC-DC converters to generate 5V and 3.3V. Which is great, this is exactly what you want.

And this is what you have to look at when buying modern power supply for 5V socketA. It matters more than current ratings, because for PSU with group regulation ratio between 5V/3.3.V and 12V is what's important, not just load itself. It can be rated for 35A 5V and may shut off due to over/under voltage when you load it with just a couple of amps at 5v with zero 12V load. Or it may blow things up if over/under voltage protection does not work properly.

Modern group regulated power supplies are unsuitable for 5V socketA, no matter how high 5V current rating is!

Said RM1000 is also basically a 150W power supply for such system, since it has 150W limit on 5V+3.3V, so have to keep this in mind. It is enough, but with old high end GPU it may be pretty close. You can see how relatively small whole DC-DC converter board is and how little cooling it has in review i linked, which in this case powers whole system.

I've been using this to power my 5V socketA system for about 3 years at this point:

That's cutting it close, but DC-DC too and works just fine. Partly because the system is pretty mid range one. Partly because ratings here are limited by heat and this DC-DC converters can handle much higher transient loads than the rating for continuous load is.

I've also measured 5V consumption on 12V socketA - it is <~3A and depends more on USB devices and storage than anything. Fun fact - due to the same issue with group regulation old PSUs, designed for 5V systems, will not work well here. The same issues with load ratio, only in this case too much 12V load. Have to keep this in mind - such systems require modern PSU.

Or in summary - picking power supply only based on 5V current rating is a good way to get a non-functional system or even damage the hardware. Have to dig a little deeper.