VOGONS


First post, by Juan-san

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Motherboard: Compaq 06C4h (Intel 815, non B-step)
Processor: Pentium III 800EB 1000EB
RAM: 256MB (2x128) PC100 PC133
Graphics: XFX GeForce4 MX440-SE 64mb DDR (64-bit bus) Zogis GeForce FX 5500 256MB/128bit DDR
Sound: Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer (CT4760)
HDD: 80GB WD800BB
ODD: HL-DT-ST GSA-4163B
OS: Windows 98 SE + XP SP3 2000 SP4

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3DMark benchmark points & average FPS in game tests @ 1280x720 (current monitor doesn't support 1024x768):

99 MAX: 4317 / 43,6
2000: 3454 / 47,98
2001: 2655 / 33,9

DOS benchmarks

3DBench 1.0c: 3159 points
Chris's 3D Benchmark 320x200: 774,3 points / 464,5 fps
PC Player Benchmark 640x480: 83,8 fps
DOOM max. details: 2134 gametics / 971 realtics
Quake timedemo 640x480: 59,7 fps

Future plans:

.Get a P-III 1000EB (fastest CPU supported by this board)
Done
.Replace the MX440-SE for something better and with a 128-bit memory bus. Done
.2 sticks of 256MB of PC133 RAM. 2 of 128, doesn't want 256MB sticks running at 133mhz(?)
.Move to an ATX or micro-ATX case, plus new PSU. Nah?
.Find a working 3.5 FDD to flash the BIOS (686P0 v1.10 to v2.04), 'cause a Gotek is too expensive. Done

The reason for the BIOS flash is because the current one isn't allowing Win98 to manage system resources (adding a second PCI card causes a conflict), and there is no option for PnP OS in the system's setup screen, so I want to check if a newer BIOS can fix this. It didn't

Last edited by Juan-san on 2023-05-05, 22:40. Edited 6 times in total.

Reply 1 of 13, by Scraphoarder

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We had a dozen of those at work and two were saved, but have not decided what to do with them. I remember this was the first Deskpro where the build quality felt seem to be substandard compare to the battle tanks that came earlier. They probaly saved some in materials and shipping costs. Anyway, Deskpros are becoming rare so i would keep the MB in its original case.

Reply 2 of 13, by foil_fresh

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nice setup. i have the same sb live also (now i know it's actual product name, cheers), did you use the drivers on the vogons page? which one?

and keep that case man! its got charm 😜

Reply 3 of 13, by chinny22

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Nice little Win98 box and desktop means stackabe or put under a screen.
and yeh while they weren't tanks like earlier Deskpro 2000/4000's We had the related SFF's and they were still pretty solid.

Reply 4 of 13, by Juan-san

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Thank you all!
The driver I used for the Live is 4.12.01.0905 VXD (used by Phil on his video), which I got from the Vintage Driver Library.
As for the case, I won't thrash it, but will give way. The yellowed plastic, top cover scratches, and the gaps between the 5.25 drive and the front panel have become an eyesore for me, besides the fact that I have to remove anything on top of the case if I want to do hardware alterations.

Reply 5 of 13, by Blade2086

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Nice little machine. I have the same one but with the 733Mhz PIII and I spend a whole day trying to figure out how to run a GF3 AGP card and a Vortex 2 PCI card and it's PCI LAN card at the same time under Win98SE. It was a nightmare and I had to roll back to GF2 GTS and remove the LAN but still I have issues. As you already said Win98 doesn't seem to be able to manage the IRQs and resources well on this machine and the bios does not have options for PnP or non PnP OS.

I have the BIOS v1.16 and I was wondering if you found the v2.04 BIOS and if it helped with those conflicts?

I managed to get it working under Win98 somehow but in DOS absolutely won't run audio regardless of settings and options... 🙁
Will try today with the SB Live! instead and see if I have more luck with it but I doubt it.

Reply 6 of 13, by SPBHM

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doesn't it support boot from CD? you can burn a CD with the DOS boot files, bios and flash utility if it does

Reply 7 of 13, by enaiel

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Hey, this looks just like my deskpro! I like it because it has a PIII in a pretty small form factor, especially if you stand it on its side. How do you plan to change the case? It seems to me that the motherboard and power supply are custom made for this case.

#1 VIA C3 Ezra-T 1.0GHz / MSI MS-6368 / Voodoo2+ViRGE GX / SBPro2+YMF744+AWE64+SC-7
#2 Pentium III-S Tualatin 1.40GHz / QDI A10T / Voodoo3 3000+GF4 Ti4200 / Audigy+AU8830+SC-50

Reply 8 of 13, by Juan-san

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Nice to see other EXD owers around!

Blade2086 wrote on 2020-06-07, 09:19:

I have the BIOS v1.16 and I was wondering if you found the v2.04 BIOS and if it helped with those conflicts?

Haven't yet.

SPBHM wrote on 2020-06-07, 09:28:

doesn't it support boot from CD? you can burn a CD with the DOS boot files, bios and flash utility if it does

It does, but I'm out of CD-Rs at the moment.

enaiel wrote on 2020-06-07, 20:40:

How do you plan to change the case? It seems to me that the motherboard and power supply are custom made for this case.

It's a micro-ATX motherboard with a regular 20-pin connector for the PSU. The latter is an SFX form factor unit, so it isn't propietary either.

---

With a change in graphics card came a title change for this thread.

The MX440-SE began to give signs of impending death a month ago (was my third one to give the ghost yesterday, all of them XFX cards, same model, in the lapse of two years), so I began looking for a replacement and ended up with this a week ago.

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Yay, my first time getting my hands on a full-height AGP card with a 128-bit memory bus. None of that low-profile & 64-bit bus garbage.

Last edited by Juan-san on 2020-06-16, 06:44. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 9 of 13, by Juan-san

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3DMark Result: 5.464 3DMarks
Synthetic CPU 3D Speed: 11.441 CPU 3DMarks
Rasterizer Score: 6.146 3DRasterMarks
Game 1 - Race: 64,0 FPS
Game 2 - First Person: 47,7 FPS
Fill Rate: 598 MTexels
Fill Rate With Multi-Texturing: 715,1 MTexels
2MB Texture Rendering Speed: 626,6 FPS
4MB Texture Rendering Speed: 426,3 FPS
8MB Texture Rendering Speed: 270,9 FPS
16MB Texture Rendering Speed: 180,6 FPS
32MB Texture Rendering Speed: 111,3 FPS
Bump Mapping Emboss, 3-pass: 266,7 FPS
Bump Mapping Emboss, 2-pass: 321,3 FPS
Bump Mapping Emboss, 1-pass: 462,9 FPS
Point Sample Texture Filtering Speed: 101,0 %
Bilinear Texture Filtering Speed: 100,0 %
Trilinear Texture Filtering Speed: 93,7 %
Anisotropic Texture Filtering Speed: N/A
6 Pixel/individual: 2.040,9 KPolygons
6 Pixel/strips: 5.874,8 Kpolygons
25 Pixel/individual: 1.899,0 Kpolygons
25 Pixel/strips: 5.030,9 Kpolygons
50 Pixel/individual: 1.615,7 Kpolygons
50 Pixel/strips: 3.961,2 Kpolygons
250 Pixel/individual: 827,8 Kpolygons
250 Pixel/strips: 1.345,5 Kpolygons
1000 Pixel/individual: 326,2 Kpolygons
1000 Pixel/strips: 377,9 Kpolygons

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For a lesser update, I shrank down the 98SE partition via Gparted in Puppy Linux to make way for an XP SP3 install, in which I'm installing anything that requires DirectX 8 or 9.

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Reply 10 of 13, by enaiel

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Juan-san wrote on 2020-06-16, 05:53:
Nice to see other EXD owers around! […]
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Nice to see other EXD owers around!

Blade2086 wrote on 2020-06-07, 09:19:

I have the BIOS v1.16 and I was wondering if you found the v2.04 BIOS and if it helped with those conflicts?

Haven't yet.

SPBHM wrote on 2020-06-07, 09:28:

doesn't it support boot from CD? you can burn a CD with the DOS boot files, bios and flash utility if it does

It does, but I'm out of CD-Rs at the moment.

enaiel wrote on 2020-06-07, 20:40:

How do you plan to change the case? It seems to me that the motherboard and power supply are custom made for this case.

It's a micro-ATX motherboard with a regular 20-pin connector for the PSU. The latter is an SFX form factor unit, so it isn't propietary either.

I knew that the motherboard was microATX, but could've sworn it was cut in places to make it fit the case, but I must've been mistaken.
I found the v2.04 BIOS if anyone is interested, but there is absolutely no difference noticeable except for the version number: BIOS 686P0 2.04

#1 VIA C3 Ezra-T 1.0GHz / MSI MS-6368 / Voodoo2+ViRGE GX / SBPro2+YMF744+AWE64+SC-7
#2 Pentium III-S Tualatin 1.40GHz / QDI A10T / Voodoo3 3000+GF4 Ti4200 / Audigy+AU8830+SC-50

Reply 11 of 13, by Juan-san

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If that's the case, then I'll leave the BIOS as it is and make do with those two USB 1.0 ports. I better not mess with it if there's no gain, but thanks anyways.

Reply 12 of 13, by Juan-san

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Updating this after almost 3 years.

Swapped the 800EB for a 1000EB, upgraded the 686P0 BIOS to v2.04 to get rid of the missing processor microcode patch error (it didn't add any other stuff), swapped the PC100 sticks for PC133 ones (2x128), and installed a network card. I'm done touching this PC's internals.

Reply 13 of 13, by Juan-san

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