"Power up" not POST.

I know that RD-Ram needs to be filled for booting/POST.

Yeah, it does power on. I think the only time it hasnt powered on is without any CPUs at all.

Of course, no post, I get the beeps of no memory.

Thanks, that means some of the tracks are cut damn.

I've been testing the machine for over a month now, and the CPUs seem to be stable. In the meantime I've also done a couple of things: I finally changed the case, and I looked into some RAM issues I've had in the past.

RDRAM Trouble
Previously in this thread I had stated that 40 ns RIMMs made the machine unstable. This was my theory at the time, and I had no reason to suspect the CPUs since I was running 933 MHz CuMines. I went through the trouble of acquiring 2 GB of PC800-45 RIMMs, with ECC, and even though they worked ok for a while, they seem to be giving me grief lately. Here's where I stand:

• 2 GB (4x 512 MB) of PC800-45 w/ECC are unstable, crash the machine upon boot-up or AIDA64's stability test, single-bit and double-bit ECC errors reported in BIOS,
• 2 GB (4x 512 MB) of PC800-40 w/ECC behave the same as previous ones,
• 1 GB (2x 512 MB, 2x CRIMM) of PC800-45 w/ECC are rock solid (memtest runs forever, AIDA64's stability test runs forever, no ECC errors reported in BIOS, etc),
• 1 GB (2x 512 MB, 2x CRIMM) of PC800-40 w/ECC are ALSO rock solid, like previous ones

I suspected power supply, so I unplugged EVERYTHING, and using a 600EB CuMine, a Radeon 9100, and a SATA-IDE bridge for my SSD I tested the memory configurations: same deal. Filling up the 4 slots will make the machine lock up due to ECC errors, using only 2 RIMMs and filling up the other slots with CRIMMs renders the machine completely stable. While everything was out of the machine, I ran another ram test:

• 1.5 GB (2x 512 MB, 2x 256 MB) of PC800-40 w/ECC disabled (256 MB sticks don't have ECC, so BIOS disables it) are also "stable": no errors are reported in memtest and it can run forever, AIDA64 stability test runs forever, etc.

I don't know what to think now. Either the machine dislikes having 2 GB, or it dislikes ECC, or both. Has any of the other OR840 users had trouble with 2 GB of RDRAM? I would appreciate any input on this.

New Case
Right, onto more joyful topics.

In the first post I said I really liked working with modern cases because of the "extras" they have. In particular I like cases with small footprint, grommets and PSU shrouds like the Fractal Design Define C, or the NZXT S340. The problem with those—at least for retro systems—is the lack of external bays, so I was reluctant to get one for this build. By chance I found out about Chieftec's AL-01B-OP and it had everything I wanted: small outside, roomy inside, full lenght psu shroud, grommets, lots of cable managing, and the all important(?) 5.25 drive bay. I was unsure due to no online reviews, but I went for it anyways. The machine currently has the dual 1400 Tualatins I worked hard to get to work, 1 GB of RDRAM, a GeForce 6800, a Voodoo2 SLI set (with home-made SLI cable 😀 ), an Audigy2 Zs (with home-made front panel cable 😁 ), and a USB2 card with front panel connectors. Two 14cm intake fans in the front to keep the Voodoos cool, a 12cm exhaust in the back—with a homemade airduct not pictured 🤣—to keep the Tualatins cool. I know some might dislike not using a true retro case for this project, but I really like the case!

Let me know what you think about it and if you have any suggestions.

I like it! I prefer modern cases too, the superior cooling and cable management capabilities are a big plus in my books. And if the case is good looking (that's highly subjective of course), then why not? I do like the Fractal Design cases which look similar. I have used the Define R5 for three of my four retro machines.

The 5.25" drive seems to have very little support from the case, looks like it is slightly hanging down at the rear. Are there at least screws on the other side for the rear of the drive?

Had you tested the 2GB without ECC? And do you actually need ECC? Maybe the Tech Spec document contains a QVL for RDRAM in those sizes. I have seen many memory controllers struggling with fully loaded banks...

Overall a great system. Outstanding work getting the dual Pentium III-S CPU to run on this board 😀

voodoo5_6k wrote:

I like it! I prefer modern cases too, the superior cooling and cable management capabilities are a big plus in my books. And if the case is good looking (that's highly subjective of course), then why not? I do like the Fractal Design cases which look similar. I have used the Define R5 for three of my four retro machines.

I know whatyou mean. I am a NUT for cable managing—it may be one of the things I enjoy more about building a new PC—and modern cases offer too many things to make it look neater that I just want to have in every build.

voodoo5_6k wrote:

The 5.25" drive seems to have very little support from the case, looks like it is slightly hanging down at the rear. Are there at least screws on the other side for the rear of the drive?

Yeah, on the rear panel the drive is supported by all the screws, all the way to the back. In this case the 5.25 bay is pretty much an afterthought: it ships with an aluminum bezel that has to be removed in order to use the bay, and this bezel has the top 2 supporting holes for 12cm fan. I jumped on it because in reality I needed only 1 bay, and all other cases I found that I liked had 3 or more.

voodoo5_6k wrote:

Had you tested the 2GB without ECC? And do you actually need ECC? Maybe the Tech Spec document contains a QVL for RDRAM in those sizes. I have seen many memory controllers struggling with fully loaded banks...

I don't need ECC, but its a LOT simpler to find 512 MB RIMMs with it than without it. The BIOS itself offers no option to disable ECC, so that's a dead end.

My google fu has yet to give me a source where I can download the manuals and documents for the board. I have amassed a tiny repo with manuals, drivers, and datasheets, but small supporting documents like recommended memory modules and the such are impossible to find. Hell, even the last BIOS update I had to download from a german forum because its the only link I found! Intel long ago nuked the files from their server, and all I get with the internetArchive are dead links, or references to an intel ftp that needs authentication 🙁

voodoo5_6k wrote:

Overall a great system. Outstanding work getting the dual Pentium III-S CPU to run on this board 😀

Thanks so much! Means a lot, a lot of hard work went into it!

with all these instabilities, im wondering if the board needs new caps. they dont need to be bulging, but might have dried out.

luckybob wrote:

with all these instabilities, im wondering if the board needs new caps. they dont need to be bulging, but might have dried out.

Some times they bulge from the bottom too, hard to see when that happens.

luckybob wrote:

with all these instabilities, im wondering if the board needs new caps. they dont need to be bulging, but might have dried out.

True. In fact I should've replaced them as soon as I got the board, but I slacked off.

I'll make this my next priority.

Replacing the caps will have to wait a bit: 16 out of the 18 capacitors on the board are (ultra) low ESR Sanyo caps which are not carried by my local electronics shop. The low ESR caps at my local shop are Panasonic/Nichicon, and they have like an order of magnitude more resistance. I will have to order the Sanyo ones from a reputable online store and have them shipped. Besides that, my soldering iron broke, and I have a couple of busy weeks coming.

I want to take my time and find proper replacements, and while I'm at it outfit the slotkets with some quality caps as well. I did find a set of 2x 256 MB PC800-40 sticks with ECC, so I will play with them and see how the PC behaves with 1.5 GB of ECC memory.

More later.

i really like mouser.com reasonable prices, quick shipping.

luckybob wrote:

i really like mouser.com reasonable prices, quick shipping.

Thanks for the heads up, mouser was indeed the best price I could find that does not involve ebay, alibaba, or other pages like that.

Oh boy. Caps range from €1.2 to €1.75 a piece, need 18 for motherboard, 8 per slotket, a spare of each denomination in case I screw something up, add the proper SMD resistors I needed to make a more "final" mod to the slotkets… total is around €55! I'll wait until the end of the month to order these.

Silver lining: I get free shipping.

A quick update after quite a while: I have replaced the caps, sort of.

I desoldered the 18 non-tantalum caps and measured their ESR and capacitance values. 16 of the capacitors are Sanyo OS-CON caps which were basically in pristine condition, the other 2 "normal" caps have been replaced. OS-CONs were resoldered.

Sadly, the instabilities with 2GB of RDRAM continued. While researching a new build I am planning around the i850 chipset and a socket 423 Willamette, it came to my attention that some people have reported instabilities with various AGP cards and the full 2GB of RDRAM. Since the i850 and i840 use the "same" ICH, I figured it could well be the case that this almost "experimental" controller is at fault. Indeed, I switched to a Quadro2 Pro and haven't had a single problem with 2GB of RAM since I changed the cards over a month ago.

---

The PSU I was using to power up this beast gave up. It was pretty scary, too: I pressed the power button to turn on the computer and heard a brief pop, and afterwards there was a constant humming noise. Luckily the hardware is intact. It was an old 350W AOpen, with a 5V rail providing up to 30A. I tried sourcing a similar one, since I also needed a PSU with an "old-school" auxiliary 6pin connector providing 5V and 3.3V, but could not find any locally. After the experience I decided to use a new PSU and settled for a Seasonic M12II-520 Evo. Its a 520W PSU with semistrong 3.3V and 5V rails at 24A, and these combined can output up to 130W. I figure its enough to power the MoBo and CPUs, while the rest feeds off of the 12V rail. Its also fully modular, so I salvaged the auxiliary 6pin connector from the old PSU and made my own cable.

---

Finally, I've been switching up the config a bit, more akin to what I first reported in this thread. I got a kick out of reading MaximumPC's Dream Machine 2000 issue and have been playing with my pair of 1GHz Coppermines, a Quadro2 Pro, and some V2 SLI. I really like this setup—the fastest native Slot 1 CPUs!—and my next build will "overlap" with the Tualatins, so I am thinking about keeping the machine like this.

What do you guys think?

EDIT: corrected specs of new PSU

hmm... I wonder if that's the issue with my 840's...

luckybob wrote:

hmm... I wonder if that's the issue with my 840's...

its farfetched, but not impossible: 1.5 GB and less—both ECC and no-ECC—work perfect with any AGP card I've tried, while 2GB gets weird. I'll try some more cards and report back, but if you are experiencing something similar and feel like testing and reporting back, that would be awesome. I also haven't tried a PCI card, I'll try plugging one in when I get a chance and just memtest the hell out of the system.

slivercr wrote:

Finally, I've been switching up the config a bit, more akin to what I first reported in this thread. I got a kick out of reading MaximumPC's Dream Machine 2000 issue and have been playing with my pair of 1GHz Coppermines, a Quadro2 Pro, and some V2 SLI. I really like this setup—the fastest native Slot 1 CPUs!—and my next build will "overlap" with the Tualatins, so I am thinking about keeping the machine like this.

Is this the model with 100MHz FSB or 133MHz FSB? The latter is marginally faster, but the 100MHz FSB model is definitely a great thing, perfect for using with a BX board on stock FSB settings (i.e. no overclocked AGP)!

There is nothing wrong with having the Coppermines in there. On the other hand, having the big Tualatins in there, really working, is a testament and a constant reminder of your great achievement 😀 Tough decision. If there is no emotional attachment to the Coppermines, I think I would keep the Tualatins in there. They excel in everything the Coppermines could do and are still "Pentium III". If period correctness is no hard requirement for you (imho, in many cases this is only an annoying obstacle) and don't need the Tualatins in another build, I wouldn't even hesitate a single second and put them back in.

What are you planning as a next build? Oh yes, I'm curious 😉

slivercr wrote:

Indeed, I switched to a Quadro2 Pro and haven't had a single problem with 2GB of RAM since I changed the cards over a month ago.

Great news! And an interesting discovery. Maybe luckybob can even idenpendently verify this with his OR840.

slivercr wrote:

The PSU I was using to power up this beast gave up. It was pretty scary, too: I pressed the power button to turn on the computer and heard a brief pop, and afterwards there was a constant humming noise. Luckily the hardware is intact.

That was a close one... I'm glad all your hardware survived this!

voodoo5_6k wrote:

Is this the model with 100MHz FSB or 133MHz FSB? The latter is marginally faster, but the 100MHz FSB model is definitely a great thing, perfect for using with a BX board on stock FSB settings (i.e. no overclocked AGP)!

I have a pair of 1000B, so 133 MHz FSB. I got them by trading hardware directly, which I always appreciate. The 100MHz FSB version is too difficult to trade for, everyone wants €50+ per CPU precisely because they work so well with BX boards.

voodoo5_6k wrote:

There is nothing wrong with having the Coppermines in there. On the other hand, having the big Tualatins in there, really working, is a testament and a constant reminder of your great achievement 😀 Tough decision. If there is no emotional attachment to the Coppermines, I think I would keep the Tualatins in there. They excel in everything the Coppermines could do and are still "Pentium III". If period correctness is no hard requirement for you (imho, in many cases this is only an annoying obstacle) and don't need the Tualatins in another build, I wouldn't even hesitate a single second and put them back in.

I've thought of this too. It was difficult to set them up, and it was very cool when I got them working. The Tualatins are beastly processors, they just trounce the Coppermines in every way. My only argument for the Coppermines is that I like the idea of "native Slot 1" CPUs, and that it saddens me to see them unused. Maybe I just need to source a dual socket 370 board and put the Tualatins there? 😜

voodoo5_6k wrote:

What are you planning as a next build? Oh yes, I'm curious 😉

Well, I want a "slow" machine with SSE2, that way I can install Linux and actually work with the machine, since SSE2 allows modern browsers and other utilities to run. I can also install a "modern OS" and Steam, and play indies/remakes/oldies from my library. I was thinking Windows XP would do fine, but Sonic Mania—a game I just adore these days—requires Windows 7 at least (it won't run on XP, already tried), so now I am thinking Windows7 Starter.

The idea was using some DDR and a 3 GHz Prescott I have laying around, so I was looking for a cheap socket 478 motherboard. While looking around locally I found an ABIT TH7-RAID with some RDRAM and a 1.7GHz Willamette for €5. I decided to get it and see how much I can push the system 😀 I'll start a thread about it one of these days.

voodoo5_6k wrote:

That was a close one... I'm glad all your hardware survived this!

Thanks. I was very nervous and sure my hardware had died on the spot. Only new PSUs from now on!

Just read your topic with great interest, as I have a Compaq Ap550 and two 1.4ghz Tualatins waiting to be put to good use. Can you tell me where did you sourced the slotkets and how much did you paid for them?

Adrian_ wrote:

Just read your topic with great interest, as I have a Compaq Ap550 and two 1.4ghz Tualatins waiting to be put to good use. Can you tell me where did you sourced the slotkets and how much did you paid for them?

I got them on eBay (EDIT: forum doesn't like the ü, so I'll post as code for copy/paste):

1http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Stück-MS-6905-Master-6905-Adapter-Slot-1-auf-Sockel-370-OVP/372083570266

The seller has plenty in stock, but is European based so depending where you are shipping can be expensive.

Do let me know if you try it!

Thanks a lot, I'll see what I can work out with the shipping. (I'm in Europe but the shipping still costs 50% more then the items).

I'm thinking maybe at purchasing 4 of these since I actually have a second AP550 mobo at home (but sadly lacking the VRM for the second CPU, which means more $ particularly for shipping).

I have already modded one Tualatin for an Asus cubx (did the mod on the CPU) Problem running Asus CUBX at 133FSB with 1Gb RAM so working on the slotkeys should be much easier.

Btw, did you tried Win7 and 2Gb RDRAM on your machine?