Long overdue update to the blog, documenting the progress so far. This weekend I'll play with this again!

so, this just happened;

quick q3a run with smp enabled gives around 150, compared to 117 of only one CPU.

super stoked!!! I literally only did 1 change compared to what I had done and wrote up in the blog: I was curious as to why PowerLeap didn't include a pullup resistor for NCHCTRL, so I desoldered mine, bridged NCHCTRL with VTT, and the rest you see in the pics. No bios update necessary, just some careful hardware mods! I will continue testing this, but it seems N-yagi's mods are spot on!

EDIT: link to CPUz validation

Nice work!

Jade Falcon wrote:

Nice work!

Thanks!

I am quite excited, but its still not ready: the machine boots up consistently every single time, but it locks up while running 3dmark or unreal tournament (I've only tried these and q3a, which works fine). The CPUs were stable enough to reinstall Windows, though.

Result of last night's efforts;

I'll test more next weekend, but it seems we're out of the forest 😀

Final(?) blog update concerning the mod. I have documented the exact mods done to the slotkets in order to run on the OR840 in the blog post, but I will also put them here for everyone's quick access. No BIOS hacking was necessary. Hopefully this helps other OR840 owners that want to try dual Tualatins but are discouraged because of the negative results reported since ~2001. If you try it, let me know if it works!

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MS-6905 MASTER: Poor man's PowerLeap

The modifications done—up to this point—to the MSI MS-6905 MASTER, Ver. 2 are;

• Pins AG1 (VTT), AJ3 (RESET2), AK4 (VTTPWRGD), X4 (VSS), and X34 (VTT) are removed from the socket;
  The attachment upeb_20170628_pinsRemoved.jpg is no longer available
• Pin AK4 is pulled up to VTT with a 680 Ω resistor. I did this directly under the CPU, and had to modify the socket to make it fit;
  The attachment upeb_20170628_socketHack.jpg is no longer available
• Pins E27 (SLEWCTRL) and S35 (RTTCTRL) are pulled down to VSS with 110 Ω. This can be done in the unpopulated R18 / R19 spots, or directly behind the socket;
• Pin N37 (NCHCTRL) is bridged to VTT;
• Pin N33 (Reserved, but works as BR1) is connected to jumper J3-3.
  The attachment upeb_20170630_recovery.jpg is no longer available

Comment 1: the DYN_OE signal is left completely untreated and connected to VSS, which means VID# and BSEL# signals are set to the safety setting of all 1. This works in our favor since we have jumpers for all of these directly in the slotket.

Comment 2: a complete list of voltages is given by the SECC2 datasheet, and copied here. VID# in the picture corresponds to jumper JV# in the slotket, 1 corresponds to setting the jumper to 1/2, 0 corresponds to 2/3;

(EDIT: fixed some formatting)

Its been 2 months since I started this thread, my first ever post in vogons.

In that post I had 4 things I wanted to do with this system: get a new case, play with slotkets and tualatins, find nice overclockers, and set up a dual 300A configuration. I am happy to say I've achieved 2 of those objectives!

I have successfully set up a dual Tualatin configuration with the OR840 by modding a couple of MSI slotkets. In the process of doing so I came across 2 absolute champion Tualerons: a 1000A that does 1.33 GHz, and a 1200 that does 1.6 GHz. I have played with Tualatins and slotkets, and my thirst for modding this system is quenched. Hence, I will forego the modding of the dual 300A since, in all honesty, I doubt I will use them in the system.

This build's original idea was to be as versatile as possible: being able to use a dual CuMine setup in Windows XP, or being able to plug a 300A and use Windows 98. The focus of this system has now changed to highlighting the OR840/Tualatin/RDRAM config and try to exploit it as much as possible. For this I have a few ideas, but I am looking for input as well.

• OS selection: I will use Debian 8 in this machine, and alongside it I am choosing between Windows XP and Windows 2000. Windows XP has the disadvantage of not being able to use the ACPI HAL, recognizing the PC as an MPS Multiprocessor machine, but allows me to install newer software in it (steam, the Blizzard installers for Diablo2 and Starcraft, etc). Windows 2000 recognizes the machine as an ACPI Multiprocessor PC, but requires the extended kernel to run newer programs, and I am not too familiar with it. I had some success in installing steam already, but running Half-Life 2 is proving difficult, and I get errors when trying to install Diablo 2 and Starcraft. Which OS would you guys go for? Does anyone have any experience with the extended kernel?
  The attachment 19787500_10155552799547082_1102181250957674685_o.jpg is no longer available
• Video card: My original plan was to use an overkill GPU and just forget about it. I tried setting it up a GeForce 7800GS I had laying around but I ran into trouble: it was unstable until I disabled Fast Writes and set it to AGP 2x, and even then I get garbled textures in some games. I've read around that the PCI-E to AGP bridge is the culprit, so I'll have to change the GPU. I have a lead to trade the 7800GS for a plain GeForce 6800, non GT and non Ultra, and was thinking of making the deal, but I thought I'd ask for input first. The plain 6800 will probably be plenty for this setup, but what do you guys think / what would you get?

Besides these 2 things, I found a couple of unmodded P3-S 1400 CPUs in ebay, from different vendors, and ordered them. It is actually easier these days to order the modded ones from korea (also in ebay) than to find them untouched! Anyway, a couple of Tualakings are coming: Dualakings, yo!

as far as windows goes, never had any issue with smp. personally, id probably stick with XP and strip it of as many bells & whistles i reasonably could.

xp likes ram. do you have 2gb in this?

luckybob wrote:

as far as windows goes, never had any issue with smp. personally, id probably stick with XP and strip it of as many bells & whistles i reasonably could.

xp likes ram. do you have 2gb in this?

You mean smp or mps? I have no issues with smp either (as far as I can tell), my problem is with XP not enabling the correct HAL. I tried forcing the ACPI HAL when installing XP (pressing F5 at the beginning of the install and manually select), but Windows would not load when I did this. Windows 2k configures the computer correctly without any help.

I am leaning towards XP, though, just for simplicity of setup. I do have 2GB of RAM.

Also, nevermind about the new blizzard installers: they won't run in XP either. My bad.

Edit: aaaaand nevermind about half life 2. Getting be same error with XP.

I'd still go XP. At the core its 95% the same as 2K, but the little things will make the whole endeavour more enjoyable.

I just noticed you were on my IRC server, so I thought I'd stop by to check what you've done exactly, and hell - amazing work! This is stuff other people have been searching for for the better part of a decade or so! 😀

I will link to this thread and your blog somewhere on the Voodooalert board as well, as there are quite a few people there who're likely still interested in this!

Thanks a lot for the documentation of the whole process! 😎 😁

GrandAdmiralThrawn wrote:

I just noticed you were on my IRC server, so I thought I'd stop by to check what you've done exactly, and hell - amazing work! This is stuff other people have been searching for for the better part of a decade or so! 😀

I will link to this thread and your blog somewhere on the Voodooalert board as well, as there are quite a few people there who're likely still being interested in this!

Thanks a lot for the documentation of the whole process! 😎 😁

You got it! The clues left by you and a lot of people really helped, it only felt right to share it with you guys to hopefully get you up and running!

Got the second Tualaking. I installed it and "tested" the machine a bit by running a 1h stress test from aida64. Nothing extraordinary happened, which is good when you stress test.

I did notice that this CPUs get hot, so I will have to figure out what to do with the cooling: a fan blowing on the heatsinks—like the one I have setup on the right—is all that was needed to cool down a pair of CuMines 1000EB, or a pair of Tualatins 1133, but its not enough for the Dualakings. The lower one runs particularly hotter than the top one (this also happened with the CuMines, but since they didnt get so hot, I didn't bother to "fix it"), so in the meantime I had to remove some plastic from one of the intel fans to install it on the heatsink. It is very noisy 😒 I am thinking of an air duct, like the ones you see on old Dell computers, it should keep things cool and quiet. I'll hack a quick one with cardboard to keep the noise down and test out the idea, when I have free time I'll design one to 3d print.

I also went ahead and traded the 7800GS for what I thought was a regular 6800 with DDR memory. It turns out it is an ASUS v9999GE: a 6800 with DDR3 mem, the clocks of a 6800GT, and the PCB of a 6800 Ultra. Very happy about this the trade! It works flawlessly with the motherboard without the need to lower the AGP multiplier or disable SBA or Fast Writes. I cleaned it up a bit and change its thermal paste, I am still deciding if I want to keep the LEDs or not.

I tried enabling the extra pipelines with RivaTuner but they are hardware masked. There was some heavy artifacting while running 3dmark2000, but everything else ran fine. I may look into modding it into a full blown 6800 GT, but that's a subject for another thread.

As it is now, I am very happy with the machine. Those 2 free PCI slots though… they are almost begging a Voodoo2 SLI set! 🤣

Amazing! Very nice system! I would love to put dual Tualatin on my AP550.

KingPing wrote:

Amazing! Very nice system! I would love to put dual Tualatin on my AP550.

I googled your mobo real quick and it seems to be based on the i840 chipset. A similar mod may work for you 😀

Watercooling parts exist for these setups. If your patient on ebay they can be had for a song. ^.^

luckybob wrote:

Watercooling parts exist for these setups. If your patient on ebay they can be had for a song. ^.^

What, you mean to tell me my ArtAttack-airduct is not awe inspiring? 🤣 Joking aside, its working very well and its dead silent. I'll probably make a couple more iterations of it in cardboard and then sit down and make a 3d model to print. But I want to change the case first, so for now I'll stick to this.

i have the same Board, but it has a broken corner, may you can help me.

Does your boards power turn on with only two RD-Ram Modules and no CRIMM installed ?
i don't want buy unnecessary stuff before knowing this.

it will not. all ram slots MUST be filled. this is how rd ram works.