RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2024-11-04, 07:34:

I recently purchased on ebay an old Viglen PC. Inside it had a Pentium 2 400Mhz, ATI 3D Rage Pro, 100mb intel network card and o […]
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I recently purchased on ebay an old Viglen PC. Inside it had a Pentium 2 400Mhz, ATI 3D Rage Pro, 100mb intel network card and onboard sound. It is in a bit of a state right now. Need to clean it up:

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I want to use this PC primarily for Windows 98 and late DOS games. I have upgraded the CPU to a Pentium III 550Mhz, and that works fine. I am intending to replace the ATI card with an nVidia TNT2 plus Voodoo 2 SLI.

I intend to put this PC in my Retro PC Cupboard (7 PCs to cover 1985-2010)

Initially I thought there was no soundcard. But I see now that the motherboard has some kind of Yamaha soundcard onboard. The chip says ymf740c-v on it. I can see that it supposedly supports DOS. But is a PCI, based chip. So unless that motherboard has integrated SBLink with it, I assume compatability may not be great. Would you use this onboard sound for DOS? Or put in an ISA card?

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Also Power Supply is an FSP235-60GI. Should I Keep or replace? I am not sure on reliability of these. Would it be fine for running Voodoo 2 SLI?

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Nice 😀

I did see this and briefly considered a bid (been an on / off Viglen owner since the late 80s!) but wiser heads prevailed ( despite my username I no longer add to the hoard 🙁 )

The Yamaha is a more than decent sound chip and should support DOS (activating it for legacy use in the BIOS will consume a 2nd IRQ though). The SE440BX-2 board also has an SB-Link header (marked as PC / PCI -see attached pic)

Would have thought the FSP would be OK for Voodoo 2 SLI (maybe under 30W for the two), though I'd probably crack it open for a good clean and caps check first.

Did you update the BIOS from P13 - Viglen do still maintain their updates online - https://download.xma.co.uk/Motherboards/Archive/Seattle_II/ - (they have P16 although the latest from Intel is P17 - may be relevant if there's a Viglen splash screen on POST).

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2024-11-04, 14:04:

Nice 😀

I did see this and briefly considered a bid (been an on / off Viglen owner since the late 80s!) but wiser heads prevailed ( despite my username I no longer add to the hoard 🙁 )

For £60 I couldn't resist!

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2024-11-04, 14:04:

The Yamaha is a more than decent sound chip and should support DOS (activating it for legacy use in the BIOS will consume a 2nd IRQ though). The SE440BX-2 board also has an SB-Link header (marked as PC / PCI -see attached pic)

I will give it a go and see how compatible the onboard sound is.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2024-11-04, 14:04:

Would have thought the FSP would be OK for Voodoo 2 SLI (maybe under 30W for the two), though I'd probably crack it open for a good clean and caps check first.

Yeah, sounds like a plan.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2024-11-04, 14:04:

Did you update the BIOS from P13 - Viglen do still maintain their updates online - https://download.xma.co.uk/Motherboards/Archive/Seattle_II/ - (they have P16 although the latest from Intel is P17 - may be relevant if there's a Viglen splash screen on POST).

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Thanks. I didn't even look for a BIOS to be honest. I just thought I would stick in the CPU I already had to see what would happen. I will think about whether a BIOS update is worth the risk (however low), as I don't think I want a faster CPU in here anyway.