Great Hierophant wrote:

If can manage an extreme underclock, you can knock it down to a blazing 133MHz! (2.0 x 66MHz)

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the P-III models have a locked multiplier (except for some ultra-rare engineering and press samples)?
In such a case the CPU could only be downclocked to 466 MHz (7 x 66).

Great Hierophant wrote:

MB - The P3B-F offers one major advantage over the P2B models, a jumperless motherboard. It can probably support later PIIIs better than the older boards as well. This is vital for underclocking the CPU. Older boards have 2 ISA slots, newer boards only 1 ISA slot.

I wonder: is there any PIII mobo with more than 2 ISA slots?

EDIT: I also wonder about Gigabyte GA-6BXC; it has three ISA slots. How about its compatibility with older games? (booting in pure DOS, etc)

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the P-III models have a locked multiplier (except for some ultra-rare engineering and press samples)?
In such a case the CPU could only be downclocked to 466 MHz (7 x 66).

Frankly I am unsure about that bit. While I am definitely sure that Pentium IIIs did have multiplier locks that would forbid you above a certain multiplier, I don't know whether they would recognize a multiplier below the intended one. Fortunately, the P3B-F supports even the meanest Pentium II, so you may have to change a CPU.

The P2B supports Pentium IIIs and has three PCI slots, though personally I don't see the need for the third slot. If it werent for the fact that the SCB-55 sounds poorer on the SB16 than on the MPU-401AT, I would have serious doubts about the need for a second ISA slot.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Great Hierophant wrote:

MB - The P3B-F offers one major advantage over the P2B models, a jumperless motherboard. It can probably support later PIIIs better than the older boards as well. This is vital for underclocking the CPU. Older boards have 2 ISA slots, newer boards only 1 ISA slot.

I wonder: is there any PIII mobo with more than 2 ISA slots?

EDIT: I also wonder about Gigabyte GA-6BXC; it has three ISA slots. How about its compatibility with older games? (booting in pure DOS, etc)

I have recently finished building a Win9x/DOS PC. I wanted a Pentium 3 motherboard with 4 ISA slots. After lots of searching I found an industrial model. The iPox 3BXA2 motherboad: http://www.lead-online.com/catalog/popup.php? … 9d057b6c31e92c9

This motherboard is unique. 1 AGP, 3 PCI, 4 ISA configuration. I have used up all seven expansion slots in my ATX tower and it runs without any problems (after some initial resource configuration (DMA/IRQ etc) 😀

AGP : 3dfx Voodoo3 3000 AGP
PCI1: Matrox Millennium II PCI
PCI2: D-Link AirPlus G DWL-G510 (wireless LAN for internet access)
PCI3: emty (shared with ISA1)
ISA1: Creative AWE64 Gold with 12MB memory upgrade (total 16MB)
ISA2: Roland LAPC-I
ISA3: Gravis Ultrasound ACE with 512kb memory upgrade (total 1MB)
ISA4: Roland SCC-1

With Win98SE/DOS 7.10 and DosBox (as a last resort) I can run pretty much any game I want to.

My complete system Specs are in this thread: My new retro PC

Great Hierophant wrote:

Frankly I am unsure about that bit. While I am definitely sure that Pentium IIIs did have multiplier locks that would forbid you above a certain multiplier, I don't know whether they would recognize a multiplier below the intended one.

I just tried it on my girlfriend's oldschool rig (yes, she has one too, for Diablo2 and old adventure games 😁), which has an Epox EP-3BX mainboard with a Pentium III 600 EB. The CPU completely ignores any multiplier settings and always runs at 4.5x. But this doesn't have to mean anything, since the CPU is mounted on one of these infamous "slotket"-adapters, which possibly blocks the multiplier settings.

Great Hierophant wrote:

The P2B supports Pentium IIIs and has three PCI slots, though personally I don't see the need for the third slot.

On the other hand, you'll never know when the next ISA card comes along to be tried out 😉

I just tried it on my girlfriend's oldschool rig (yes, she has one too, for Diablo2 and old adventure games ), which has an Epox EP-3BX mainboard with a Pentium III 600 EB. The CPU completely ignores any multiplier settings and always runs at 4.5x. But this doesn't have to mean anything, since the CPU is mounted on one of these infamous "slotket"-adapters, which possibly blocks the multiplier settings.

Socket or slotket, I think that my idea of underclocking the CPU through the multiplier won't fly. I consider the 750 E Pentium III to give the greatest range of speeds. It has a 7.5 multiplier, and at the lowest bus speed of 66Mhz, it is ~500MHz, and at the highest bus speed of 133MHz, it is ~1000MHz. A nice range of speeds to play with.

Now for the lower end, some games are ideally looking for something in between 100-500Mhz. All Pentium IIs and IIIs are multiplier locked, (in the P2's case it can be undone but its more trouble than its worth), so you need to produce a range of frequencies with the FSB. Unfortunately, the Pentium IIs are mainly 66MHz parts and use higher multipliers than what is ideal for underclocking. In short, the lowest MHz you will likely get is 233Mhz. I recommend in that case using a PII 350, which has a 3.5 multiplier that should be able to do ~233Mhz and 350Mhz reliably.

Any CPU
A Voodoo5
Monster Sound MX300
512 MB RAM

If you get a Vortex 2 card, make sure the main chip is marked "AU8830", NOT "AU8830A2" because the first is the last and fastest revision of the Vortex 2 chip. Not even all Aureal SQ2500s have the later chip.

I myself have a 1996 Gateway 2000 with a pentium 166, ATI graphics card (good for 96) and soundblaster 16 soundcard, works great on games that run sluggishly on dosbox, but I wish I had a soundblaster pro so that I can play more games on it.

Great Hierophant wrote:

NIC - For when you need to connect to the Internet. Still trying to figure out how to network with an XP machine.

Are you talking about file sharing, GH? If so, Linux SaMBa implementations of windows file sharing are accessible by both Windows XP/2000 and Win9x clients. That's how I get files to and from my older machines quickly. I have an off-the-shelf NAS box (Dlink DSM-G600, but there are plenty others) that uses Samba for it's windows file sharing. In fact, even DOS clients using MS Client for DOS or Lan Manager for DOS can access it. I can share files between my DOS 3.3 XT and my P4 XP machine if use the NAS box as a central repository.

Or are you just referring to getting the Win9x box talking TCP/IP? (which it should be able to do right out of the box)

For Max Glide compatibility I recommend 2 Voodoo 2s in SLI. It is almost as fast as a Voodoo3 and can be "dumberd down" to a voodoo 1.