VOGONS


Seed to new socket 8 powerhouse

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Reply 20 of 51, by swaaye

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I ran it with a pair of 1MB chips. I think that may be pushing the VRMs out of their power spec but it didn't blow up. 😀 The 1MB chips have higher power demands than the 256 and 512K chips.

Reply 21 of 51, by Amigaz

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swaaye wrote:

I ran it with a pair of 1MB chips. I think that may be pushing the VRMs out of their power spec but it didn't blow up. 😀 The 1MB chips have higher power demands than the 256 and 512K chips.

Yeah...I'm afraid I will put alot of strain on those VRM's
Too bad one of them isn't interchangable
Might go for two 512k cpu's instead and take my chances with the 1mb cpu's on the MSI mobo instead 🤣

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 22 of 51, by prophase_j

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What indication was there that the VRM's were getting pushed to hard?

"Retro Rocket"
Athlon XP-M 2200+ // Epox 8KTA3
Radeon 9800xt // Voodoo2 SLI
Diamond MX300 // SB AWE64 Gold

Reply 23 of 51, by swaaye

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Most PPro boards don't seem to officially support the 1MB chips. Now that's either caused by them just ignoring such late model uber$$$ chip releases, or that their VRM specs are inadequate for the 1MB chips which definitely use more power.

They are about 47W chips compared to a max of 37W or so for the 512KB and 35W for 256K PPros. The VRMs on socket 8 mobos are pretty diminutive. Whether or not it will pop any MOSFETs is up in the air though. Hasn't happened to me yet with my VS440FX mobo which definitely does not officially support 1MB PPro although the BIOS does recognize it.

Reply 24 of 51, by Amigaz

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swaaye wrote:

Most PPro boards don't seem to officially support the 1MB chips. Now that's either caused by them just ignoring such late model uber$$$ chip releases, or that their VRM specs are inadequate for the 1MB chips which definitely use more power.

They are about 47W chips compared to a max of 37W or so for the 512KB and 35W for 256K PPros. The VRMs on socket 8 mobos are pretty diminutive. Whether or not it will pop any MOSFETs is up in the air though. Hasn't happened to me yet with my VS440FX mobo which definitely does not officially support 1MB PPro although the BIOS does recognize it.

I'm suprised my ancient Soltek socket 8 mobo hasn't blown any circuits either yet hehe...think it's one of the first consumer socket 8 mobo's made

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 25 of 51, by 5u3

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When the VRMs are driven too hard, they'll get rather hot, so better cooling may increase their lifespan.
Also, on boards of that vintage, the VRMs are easy to replace with beefier units, if you can get them.

But as long as the regulators stay cool during normal use and the board runs stable with the 1 MB CPUs, I wouldn't worry too much. Those Socket 8 boards were built for the high-end/professional market, in stark contrast to cheap Socket 7 boards, which did get into trouble when the typical CPU load increased by ten watts.

Reply 26 of 51, by Amigaz

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Surfing in here on the dual P Pro Micronics mobo machine...Windows NT4 server installed, IE6 sp1
I'm suprised how fast this thing is even though it only has 256k cpu's
In Win95 OSR2 it was a crawl...

27843971.th.png

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 27 of 51, by swaaye

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Honestly I never could tell the difference between the 256K and 1MB CPUs. I'm fairly sure that it's more important to get them running at 233 MHz than it is to have more cache. Well written software from those days especially is going to target a small L2 cache size. Of course, getting a PPro 1MB going @ 233 MHz is something nice indeed.

I've been wondering if there is a difference in L2 cache latency between the 256K, 512K, and 1MB chips. If there is, I'm sure you'll want the chip with the fastest cache and not the biggest. If you'd like to, you could run the CPUZ latency test on the chips and find out. It's easy and very fast.
http://www.cpuid.com/download/latency.zip

As for XP vs. 9x, personally I've found that NT5 is just a smoother experience in general for non-games. A superior OS architecture in general and it shows.

Reply 28 of 51, by Amigaz

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Update:

Got hold of two NOS shrinkwrapped P Pro overdrive cpu's 😀

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 31 of 51, by Amigaz

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WolverineDK wrote:
Amigaz wrote:

Update:

Got hold of two NOS shrinkwrapped P Pro overdrive cpu's 😀

Nice 😀 so how fast do they run ?

Recovering from a terrible flu which started this Tuesday...but I'm back on my feet..it's not the "pig-flu" from Mexico 😁

Fast! just tested one.... 😀
But the CPU fan has the same irritating, whining noise as the Pentium Overdrive cpu fan 😵

I only managed to get one CPU, the seller's 2nd one was the first one I bought which he had relisted since the first auction on ther first oner had almost ended...clumsy relisting by the seller (swedish Tradera.com)
So I'm on the lookout for a 2nd one....

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 32 of 51, by WolverineDK

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Amigaz wrote:
Recovering from a terrible flu which started this Tuesday...but I'm back on my feet..it's not the "pig-flu" from Mexico :D […]
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WolverineDK wrote:
Amigaz wrote:

Update:

Got hold of two NOS shrinkwrapped P Pro overdrive cpu's 😀

Nice 😀 so how fast do they run ?

Recovering from a terrible flu which started this Tuesday...but I'm back on my feet..it's not the "pig-flu" from Mexico 😁

Fast! just tested one.... 😀
But the CPU fan has the same irritating, whining noise as the Pentium Overdrive cpu fan 😵

I only managed to get one CPU, the seller's 2nd one was the first one I bought which he had relisted since the first auction on ther first oner had almost ended...clumsy relisting by the seller (swedish Tradera.com)
So I'm on the lookout for a 2nd one....

Oh well, if you have any kind of buying power in Denmark. Then you can try qxl.dk and use a Swedish to Danish dictionary if you feel the Danish language is too hard of a nut to crack. Since there are Swedish to Danish dictionaries. and qxl.dk is not a bad site.

Reply 33 of 51, by prophase_j

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Finally took a pic of my Socket 8 kit:

imag0010x.th.jpg

2x Pentium Pro Overdrive @ 333mhz
4x 128mb EDO DIMMS 50ns
Onboard IDE and Ultrawide SCSI
Matrox Mystique 2mb PCI (not pictured)

Used to have a couple Hitachi 10k UW/LVD SCA disks and adapters till they started throwing bad sectors. Also used with a 200gb UltraATA disk and a CD burner until it was taken out of commission.

"Retro Rocket"
Athlon XP-M 2200+ // Epox 8KTA3
Radeon 9800xt // Voodoo2 SLI
Diamond MX300 // SB AWE64 Gold

Reply 34 of 51, by Amigaz

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prophase_j wrote:
Finally took a pic of my Socket 8 kit: […]
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Finally took a pic of my Socket 8 kit:

imag0010x.th.jpg

2x Pentium Pro Overdrive @ 333mhz
4x 128mb EDO DIMMS 50ns
Onboard IDE and Ultrawide SCSI
Matrox Mystique 2mb PCI (not pictured)

Used to have a couple Hitachi 10k UW/LVD SCA disks and adapters till they started throwing bad sectors. Also used with a 200gb UltraATA disk and a CD burner until it was taken out of commission.

Looks like an Intel OEM board

Too bad those 2x P Pro OD cpu's are gathering dust 😉

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 35 of 51, by Amigaz

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Update:

I've discovered the PII Overdrive CPU is incompatible with the MSI mortherboard.
It's recognized as a "100mhz" CPU and both caches are disabled by the bios setup and can't be changed...what a shame.
Will stick with two 1mb P Pro's or two 512k 200 P Pro's and overclock them to 233mhz each 😀

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 36 of 51, by prophase_j

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I'm not really sure who makes the board but when it boots up it has Gateway 2000 in the post screen. It's not really collecting dust, I keep it stashed away in a huge anti-static bag for another day when I can make a proper home for it 😀

"Retro Rocket"
Athlon XP-M 2200+ // Epox 8KTA3
Radeon 9800xt // Voodoo2 SLI
Diamond MX300 // SB AWE64 Gold

Reply 37 of 51, by Amigaz

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prophase_j wrote:

I'm not really sure who makes the board but when it boots up it has Gateway 2000 in the post screen. It's not really collecting dust, I keep it stashed away in a huge anti-static bag for another day when I can make a proper home for it 😀

Think it's an Intel mobo then...Gateway 2000 used alot of Intel boards back then.
My Micronics dual socket 8 mobo here http://www.imagebam.com/image/dfc21732798119 boot up as a Data General PC...another long gone computer maker from the past

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 39 of 51, by prophase_j

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Swaaye.. you are the man. I concur with your opinion. I defiantly believe it to be a quality board. Its a shame that they didn't stick with the standard I/O plate layout, that was really my only grip with it.

"Retro Rocket"
Athlon XP-M 2200+ // Epox 8KTA3
Radeon 9800xt // Voodoo2 SLI
Diamond MX300 // SB AWE64 Gold