Thank you so much, you were super clear.

Mamba wrote on 2026-06-20, 06:41:

Thank you so much, you were super clear.

You're welcome,
I hope in the future to buy some tools to do such work.

Small update on the next tests that I will do (I hope) soon!
Even if the temperatures of this period do not encourage you to work, I will bring the motherboards to try in a more comfortable environment, so I will not use the usual workstation with its bench.
I think I'll order some things, like IDE CF 40 PIN adapter and ATX-AT adapter, I've bought some in the past, but for convenience buying others, I wouldn't be forced to remove them from other PCs.
Maybe I should also buy a SATA CF adapter, or alternatively a SATA IDE, I had a couple of the latter in the past, but after a certain period they didn't work anymore, however to date I don't have any working ones, so at least for now there is no problem.
Going back to the motherboards, these days I had to deal with a non-PC motherboard, with NEC V25 CPU, from surveys it should be the equivalent of an 80186 at 8 MHz, an equivalent PC would not be common, usually XT motherboards used NEC V20, but more or less I think the performance should be similar (roughly).
But those motherboards that I should try shortly, are a pair of 286, and a 486 VLB, in detail we have a 286-12 Headland chipset, a 286-20 Harris chip, and an i486DX2-66, clearly I start with the 486, later I should try the 286-20, and finally the 286-12, for these two 286 I do not have the relative 287, they are not essential but if the motherboards work, I would try to look for them if possible the correct frequency.

During these days I was thinking of trying some PCs, but unfortunately it's too hot, and no improvement is expected soon.
Occasionally I go looking for motherboards for sale at attractive prices 🧐, usually either there is nothing or the price for a single motherboard is a little higher than what I had in mind, so sometimes I find myself deciding whether or not to buy a lot, and usually the decision helps, the presence of one or more quality motherboards, that is, lots with many ASUS ABIT Gigabyte cards, are for me more interesting than 🫡 to others.
Un altro aspetto sicuramente importante e determinante, è le condizioni visive, spesso le foto sono fatte da lontano, e non ci sono dettagli di zone con possibili danni, e le info sulle condizioni sono assenti (totalmente), per cui a volte l’acquisto è fatto al buio, e c’è la possibilità che arrivi in condizioni ancora peggiori, se si danneggia durante il trasporto, perché non è stato imballato a sufficienza.
Despite this, however, motherboards arrived without packaging, and with some scratches on the back, they were functional, or they only required simple repairs, but this concerns the older motherboards, the more recent ones are very delicate, with really 😨 tiny traces, in addition in the back there are several fragile and tiny SMDs, in short if they work it is a great result, but if it is necessary to do some repairs, it will not be easy at all, even having adequate tools.
I'll see if these days, the weather will be cooler, but since the season here is summer, I think that next month too, the temperatures will be similar, and therefore I won't be able to do any test or test, with the various motherboards that I have accumulated, if it will be possible the first to be tested will be this 486 VLB

In the next few days, it seems that the temperatures may drop by a few degrees, and this would allow me in my free time, to go back to the counter to try some PCs.
I recently bought a mini batch of VGA AGP, one is an "ABIT Siluro T400", basically a GFMX but from the info I saw, it seems that there are two types one with 64-bit RAM and the other 128-bit, this makes a certain difference, of course the fastest is the 128-bit one.
Having to try it, initially I would use Phil's benches, and as a motherboard I would use the Gigabyte GA-7VAXP with Duron 1000 (Morgan), which I had tried months ago at various frequencies, from 500 to 1333 MHz without overvolt, but I don't think I'll try all the frequencies, but at least the 500 and 1000 ones for sure, just to understand how it goes compared to the ATI.
Recently another user is trying various VGAs with a P3 1000, and has published the results, and among these VGAs there are some very common ones (which I also own), so I thought I'd see if I can do other bench, installing Windows 98SE, on a 1 GB CF 🇬🇧.

Currently I have had difficulties, due to the temperatures that have reached high peaks during this period.

However, I have to start again with some work on motherboards, never tried before, like the older ones, like XT 286 and 386.
Regarding these motherboards, I don't think I have everything I need for a complete working system, so I would have to borrow from other PCs, some indispensable boards, surely it wouldn't have been a problem, finding these boards many years ago, today unfortunately it's not easy to find things like that at moderate prices, to the point that it could be perhaps cheaper to replicate the boards of the past.
Only after trying a first start, we will be able to understand if it works, or if some repairs need to be done, then in case of success, we need to do some tests, to make sure that everything works well 😌.
Among the motherboards I prefer there are the S.7, which are compatible with CPUs of different brands, something that nowadays is no longer possible, already from subsequent generations, Intel did not want to share the Sockets (or Slots), so that even the competition has created its own CPUs, in short you can't change CPUs keeping the same motherboard.
Thanks to the compatibility of the S.7, it is possible to create PCs from just under 100 MHz up to over 500 MHz, theoretically it could have gone beyond 600 MHz, if FSB 133 MHz and related CPUs (AMD K6+) had been supported, it is usually possible to exceed 600 MHz with overclock, but at those frequencies there may be stability or reliability problems, as well as problems on the cache on the motherboard, which can sometimes be deactivated.

About S7 motherboards and related benches, here are the images, and some considerations on Intel and non-Intel CPUs.
Consider that some dated systems can be influenced enough by RAM speeds or CLs and so on, so if the PC has been optimized using the fastest settings, in theory it should not be possible to do better, which at the time I would not take for granted, I think that many K6-2 and similar, were sold without optimizing them (most?), it was easier to say: buy Intel!
And yes K6INIT is proving very interesting, to the point that it would be worth trying with the simple K6 (first versions not CXT), who knows if even these CPUs, can have improvements, and show that they can do better even in Windows, of course I'm not talking about word or similar stuff!
Among the CPUs I tried years ago, the K5 showed great efficiency on the integers, unfortunately the FPU is quite poor, unfortunately it is that a hypothetical K5-2 was never developed, which could have improved the weaknesses of the K5.
On the Cyrix 6X86 up to the MII, the initial 6X86-200 which was a 150 MHz, was almost equal to the Pentium top frequency, unfortunately here too the FPU was slower and the FSB 75 MHz, which Intel never used on CPUs left the factory, it was a problem especially on the motherboards that at most went to 66, then I think there were also problems with some software, which could have problems working, in short there was never any progress to make them really competitive.!

I'm delving into the topic of VGA performance with S.7 and Slot1 (S.370), just to understand if there is a possibility of improving scores, even marginally, or possibly significantly, this in any case by configuring from BIOS, faster times and settings, and it seems that even if a PC is optimized to the best, it can give strange results, usually not the maximum, or at best just above average.
In particular we are (me and another user), comparing the scores of some benches, for my part as you can see, I have grouped various benches (Sandra mostly), but in recent years I have run on almost all the repaired MBs, the Phil's benches.
These allowed me to notice, clear improvements for example with the 486, using the settings for the fastest RAM (Fastest), in combination with 0WS, but comparing with the other user, it emerged that in particular on the K6-2 CXT you can improve the performance using the K6INIT program, but even with all the optimizations, it remains at parity of frequency quite far from an Intel Pentium II or III (!!!), in fact, however, a PIII would be compared with a Duron or Athlon equal frequency.
Surely there is still something that can be done? Here it seems so, right in Phil's benches there is FASTVID, which I have never tried, because it was not clear to me how it worked, now I understand that you have to redo the various benches after running FASTVID, and at least for the P2-3 you could see a certain improvement, maybe even with other benches not included in Phil's package, we will see why I should redo various benches, and the MB I would use would be a OLIDA OLI-BX, basically an ASUS P2B.

Going back to the possibility that you can always do better, here I did a short bench DOS (Phil's) session, and something interesting came out

First of all I would like to specify that the K6INIT program, acts (I imagine) on CPU Cache and maybe more, so it is clear that by changing VGA you can improve or not (it depends...), you usually change to have better, but this still needs to be verified.

So going back to the Configuration with P3-500 and BX, as I said I redid the main benches of Phil's, before and after activating FASTVID (letter V), well it seems strange but there is a difference, you go from little to a lot, with low resolution the gain is greater.

Let's see what I got:

Without FASTVID and (with)

2) 319.7 (616.1)

3) 310.1 (431.7)

4) 64.5 (148.7)

5) 140.4 (16X.X)

A) 436.78 (491.38)

B) 116.34 (157.24)

C) 111.8 (122.1)

D) 47.6 (50.3)

E) 22.2 (45.0)

For the 5), unfortunately the score is not entirely visible, you can only see the first two digits, and the monitor should be adjusted, but honestly it doesn't matter, there is a gain of over 20 FPS, so at least for now it's fine like this.

A further test, I did it a little while ago, I noticed a second VGA Boost program (letter u) in Phil's benches, so I ran it and redid the bench with the P3-500 i440BX Olidata OLI-BX (ASUS P2B), a couple of tests were even faster, while the others slightly or practically the same, in short, the effect seems to be greater when the resolutions are low, however, there remains a difference perhaps perceptible to a lesser extent, when the resolutions rise.

For convenience I rewrite the scores, obtained normally, with FASTVID (letter v), and with MTRRLFBE [letter u)]!

So:

-2 319.7 (616.1) [738.4]

-3 310.1 (431.7) [491.0]

-4 64.5 (148.7) [148.6]

-5 140.4 (16X.X) [16X.X]

-A 436.78 (491.38) [494.64]

-B 116.34 (156.24) [157.91]

-C 111.8 (122.1) [125.6]

-D 47.6 (50.3) [50.2]

-E 22.2 (45.0) [45.0]

I remember that the precise value of the bench -5, it was not possible to read it, because it was off the screen visible, I still wrote down the first two digits, because you can see a difference of about 20 FPS, however significant, I don't think the other two digits are important, but at least for the moment, I don't think the value of these last two digits is relevant.

In the next few days I will do some tests on the Olidata OLI-BX (aka ASUS P2B), currently there is a P3-500 and 256 MB SDRAM (2X128), GF2 MX 32 MB AGP video card, complete the configuration a SB PCI audio card Ensoniq chip, plus a PCI LAN card.
The tests are not needed to verify that it works, but to try an installation of Windows 98SE, this to run some bench for Windows, I already have in a 4 GB CF memory card 🇬🇧 Windows XP, but I would like to load Windows 98SE on another 1 GB CF memory card 🇬🇧.
The main purpose is to make benches that do not work with XP, and then I will see if everything goes well, to write down the values obtained, and then publish them, but later I would like to do some other tests.
One of these, involves the addition of a PCI Voodoo I card, which I have never tried in any PC, this card was originally purchased to be used on an S.7 with K6 CPU with built-in L2 cache.
Currently if you have read earlier, I ran some bench DOS, while in Windows XP I did some bench including the SuperPI, getting a time slightly more than 4 minutes, all in all I think a good result, which I imagine can be improved using RAM CL2 (or fast), I know that it is possible to go down just under 4 minutes, and I don't think I'm very distant.

I performed some optimizations this morning, to the BIOS of the P3-500 Olidata OLI-BX (ASUS P2B), in particular I lowered some values that concern the RAM, the intent was to go below 4m with the SuperPI 1.5XS, initially it was not possible, because I could not do better than what I got at the start, but optimizing the values with CL2 and 4T, I got a time of 03m 58,522s, which I think is quite good, considering that the PC cannot be better than this, in the sense that it is possible to use better video cards than the GF2 MX200 32 MB that I use, but at least in theory it should not make such a clear difference, at least continuing to use the P3-500.
I don't intend to do any CPU upgrade, because I own other faster P3s, always on MB i440BX or similar, unfortunately I don't have any Athlon Slot A, to be compared to the P3-500, at least here where I live, they are difficult to find and are very expensive, sometimes they were offered to me, but the asking price was three digits, a little too much for me, and despite various researches, I have never found anything at a low price (even not working).
Further updates in the next few days, since I and another user are making a parallel comparison, between mine and his PC (both P2B and P3-500), he has run many bench in Windows 98SE, plus other DOS, but his results are slightly better, because he uses a better VGA AGP.

In the next few days four old motherboards should arrive, some interesting at least nowadays, I consider that about twenty years ago I would never have bought similar boards, sellers usually inserted them in large batches, probably to get rid of them, today instead motherboards like this have a certain value, and allow you to recreate old systems without having to spend a lot.
Currently I have identified three out of four, these are the TRW links:
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p6 … 1s-brillianx-is
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/ecs-k7vza-1.0
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-ms-6178e-wh5
Unfortunately I have not located the motherboard n.4, so far I have not found anything like it, I will be able to learn more in the next few days, when they arrive at home, and then I should start doing some tests, to check which ones work.

PC@LIVE wrote on 2026-08-16, 12:31:

In the next few days four old motherboards should arrive, some interesting at least nowadays, I consider that about twenty years […]
Show full quote

In the next few days four old motherboards should arrive, some interesting at least nowadays, I consider that about twenty years ago I would never have bought similar boards, sellers usually inserted them in large batches, probably to get rid of them, today instead motherboards like this have a certain value, and allow you to recreate old systems without having to spend a lot.
Currently I have identified three out of four, these are the TRW links:
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p6 … 1s-brillianx-is
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/ecs-k7vza-1.0
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-ms-6178e-wh5
Unfortunately I have not located the motherboard n.4, so far I have not found anything like it, I will be able to learn more in the next few days, when they arrive at home, and then I should start doing some tests, to check which ones work.

Looks like a BIOSTAR M6SBA... https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/biostar-m6sba

Thank you very much, I'm back online. I missed Vogons a lot
First of all I wanted to update on the progress related to the motherboards, I ran Phil's Bench with a PCCHIPS M598, the CPU is a K6-2-380, which I tried at various frequencies, unfortunately the L2 cache present on the MB does not work, to make the PC work I have to deactivate it from BIOS, in the next few days I will publish a summary with the results of the bench at various frequencies, some in overclocked, today I took between my paws 🐾, another motherboard, the Biostar S.370 that you can see in the previous message, there is a Celeron 533 Mendocino on board, the chipset is SIS, there is also integrated audio and video.
For the moment I haven't run a start test, but if I have the time I'll see tomorrow to try it, and if it works I'll do some bench DOS, including those of Phil's.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2026-08-16, 12:58:

PC@LIVE wrote on 2026-08-16, 12:31:

In the next few days four old motherboards should arrive, some interesting at least nowadays, I consider that about twenty years […]
Show full quote

In the next few days four old motherboards should arrive, some interesting at least nowadays, I consider that about twenty years ago I would never have bought similar boards, sellers usually inserted them in large batches, probably to get rid of them, today instead motherboards like this have a certain value, and allow you to recreate old systems without having to spend a lot.
Currently I have identified three out of four, these are the TRW links:
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p6 … 1s-brillianx-is
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/ecs-k7vza-1.0
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-ms-6178e-wh5
Unfortunately I have not located the motherboard n.4, so far I have not found anything like it, I will be able to learn more in the next few days, when they arrive at home, and then I should start doing some tests, to check which ones work.

Looks like a BIOSTAR M6SBA... https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/biostar-m6sba

The attachment Biostar M6SBA.jpg is no longer available

Thank you very much for identifying my motherboard, unfortunately due to connection problems, I could not reply to your message.
In a few days I should do some tests, to see if it works, I hope so 👌
Thank you very much greetings
Elio

I finished making a series of benches (of Phil's), to better optimize the BIOS configuration, and get some extra speed, no overclocking unfortunately, yes because there are no selectable FSBs greater than or below 66 or 100.
However, I imagine that the frequency generator can do many intermediate FSBs or even above 100 MHz, I know that some allow FSBs up to 133 MHz (or even more?), here however the BIOS seems very simplified, and I don't think it's possible to choose other frequencies (beyond those two).
Looking at the results of Phil's bench, some have improved significantly, when I ran FASTVID or MTRRLFBE, but the values obtained seem to me all in all good, considering that I have an integrated VGA, regarding the Intel Celeron 533 CPU, this would be the fastest installable, I don't think it's possible to overclock at 800 MHz, the maximum for those CPUs you remember is 600 MHz (75 8X), it's clear that if you wanted much more, you would have to use an adapter (an upgradeware type), but I don't have it, alternatively there would be the use of a modified Coppermine CPU for the Mendocino MB.
This was probably done many years ago, when you could find batches of S.370 CPUs at stock prices, personally I also remember the batches of CPUs sold by weight.
Honestly, I don't know if there are secret settings of the FSB, logically you wouldn't need who knows which FSB, but at least the usual ones, including 75 MHz or higher.
Currently the BIOS version present is the SBA0908B from 09/08/1999, it is from 1999 but should it be from 2000?
Overall, the PC is quite similar to the i810 equivalents, but it should be able to support a greater amount of RAM, since there are three SDRAM slots.
If the integrated video card is not satisfactory, for performance, it is possible to deactivate it from the BIOS, and use an alternative a dedicated PCI, or possibly a VGA PCI plus a Voodoo PCI, but at that point I think, it would be enough to use the integrated one plus the Voodoo.

The last test before moving on to something else, the 16 MB SDRAM was replaced with a 64 MB one, and at least for the moment I will not add more RAM, in reality 56 MB of the 64 MB remain available, because I increased the RAM for the integrated VGA to the maximum (8 MB), with this configuration, I can run the benches in letters d) and e), which was not possible before having very little RAM.

However, by way of curiosity, I report the values of all Phil's benches, executed with the fastest RAM settings, there is something more than the previous results, that is, a few more frames, however I do not report the previous ones, but I only put those obtained with 16 MB RAM (except d) and e) with 64 MB RAM), CL2 4T-2T, then with FASTVID, finally with MTRRLFBE:

2) 296.6 350.3 364.1

3) 217.1 222.0 223.6

4) 52.4 94.5 94.6

5) 94.0 94.9 94.9

6) 29.7 57.3 57.3

A) 323.33 341.05 344.19

B) 94.78 115.26 115.26

C) 68.6 69.0 69.1

D) 28.7 28.6 28.5

E) 17.7 33.9 33.9

For now I don't know how it is possible to speed up the PC further, the BIOS screen about the RAM, has very few settings, only RAS and RAS to CAS plus the CL line, there is not even the possibility of going down to CL1, also because I don't think the RAMs work at 100 MHz with CL1.

A motherboard that I would like to test, since for the moment with the Biostar I'm done, it would be an A-Trend ATC-2000, an S.7 with Intel i430HX chipset, I admit that I already have some motherboards with this chipset, but I don't mind trying others, the HX have a limitation that can be a problem, they don't have SDRAM slots, but only SIMM 72 PIN, and they need a pair of SIMM to work.
I should have tried this card first, but I anticipated the Biostar test, which later turned out to be working, even if a little limited in the BIOS, but I believe that in those years, few used overclocking, and therefore there was no need for FSB beyond the standard ones.
Of course if I wanted to stay on the S.370, I could try an MSI with Intel i810 chipset, it wouldn't be very different from the Biostar, chipsets aside, but they are a little more limited, because of only two SDRAM banks and the lack of ISA slots, only very few i810 cards have at least one, and the MSI is not among them.
I admit that everything that is prior to the P4 or similar, I prefer it, if you don't need a lot of power, I can also find pleasant PCs like the 486, typical of that era the DX2 66 MHz, usually with VLB slot, used until the first Pentium.

I have a PC on the bench that I recently used for a series of benches, including those from Phil's, but not only, because I have a second CF memory card with Windows XP, and with that I can make the benches from Windows, I should also have another CF memory card with Windows 98SE, but using Windows XP I can do almost all the benches I need.
So what motherboard is it? Olidata OLI-BX alias ASUS P2B, with Intel Pentium !!! 500 MHz, 32 MB GF2 MX200 AGP video card, PCI SB CT4810 audio card, originally I don't know what the original configuration of this PC was like, on a site I found interesting info, which could be quite real, that is, the same or very similar to the original, and it would be like this:
OLIDATA ALICON3 (Year 1999),
CPU: Intel Pentium 3 500
RAM: 196 MB
HD: 4,2 GB
FLOPPY DISK: 3.5" 1.4 MB
CDROM: CD RW + DVD 5x Creative
VIDEO CARD: Matrox G200 Agp 8mb
LAN: Realtek 8029 10/100
AUDIO CARD: Sound Blaster
OS: - Windows 2000 Professional