VOGONS

socket 7, two i840 builds (tualatin), and two future 440BX builds.

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First post, by Xero

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socket 7 build

  • motherboard: Freetech P5F87 430tx ATX
  • case: inwin a500
  • cpus on hand: pentium mmx 233, amd k6-3+ 450 2.0v, amd k6-2 533, amd k6-3+ 400 1.6v (this latter k6-3+ hasn't arrived yet)
  • memory: 1x 64MB or 256MB SIMM depending on cpu in use.
  • sound : Orpheus (also have AWE32 2760r3 + PCMIDI)
  • video: TNT2 M64 16MB PCI (also have Trio64V2, G450)
  • network card: intel 10/100
  • floppy: 1.44mb and beige oled gotek
  • cdrom: toshiba 40x
  • hdd: IDE to CF card adapter, 32gb CF Card.
  • usb: onboard + NEC USB2.0 card

socket 7 build history:
so I recently got back into my retro nostalgia and started regretting having left some of my old PCs back east when i moved west. needless to say, there was always room for improvement over what I had before, right? So I decided I wouldn't just buy what I had, but perhaps buy what I would have got in the most ideal scenario. I wanted to replace my DOS/Win95/98 socket 7 machine first, i had a 200mhz pentium mmx, 32mb ram, awe32, matrox millennium 2, back in the day. I started searching around forf something similar, and I picked up a 233mhz pentium mmx machine with a 430tx motherboard, 32mb ram, a "Freetech P5F87", a ATX 430tx board that looked promising. It also came in one of my favorite cases of all time - the inwin A500, and had an S3 Trio64V2 and a network card, a good start. My mission was to see if i could modify this board for a K6-3+ and 256mb ram, to get past the caching limits. I also liked the idea of using the K6-3+ as the unlocked multiplier and ability to disable the cache will give me a lot of versatility. I've been e-mailing back and forth with Jan (who does the k6 bios mods) and I've now got a beta bios running on this board!

I also started collecting sound cards, first I got an SB32 CT3670, then I found one of the holy grails, an "AWE32 CT2760 rev3". I am still looking for one of the later ones. I also had some random IBM CS4237 based card in my basement, not sure from what, but this is what I was using at first, and was often using in parallel with the AWE32 - due to the hanging note bugs. I later started looking into orpheus and pcmidi - and I now have both. At first I was pairing the PCMIDI with the AWE32, but lately I'm just using the orpheus by itself. I will likely put some of these cards in another machine later. And, that lead me into my crazy midi stack - I actually had the MPU105 (and 103,104) from my other hobby of collecting vintage synths and drum machines - somehow in all those journeys, I never obtained midi like SC-55 or MT-32 modules? that changed pretty quickly! most of these were pretty good - I put rom 1.21 in the SC-55 (which is a 1.2x model) , and the MT-32 needed some major cosmetic repairs - it was butched badly from the prior owner - i literally found a piece of tissue stuffed behind the knob - apparently the nut had come loose off the potentiometer - but they couldn't get the knob off, so this was the fix? one of the craziest bad repairs i've seen to date....

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Dualatin-i840 build:

  • case: Lian-Li PC-7FN
  • motherboard: Compaq SW400 i840 (AP550 motherboard, ATX with non-standard 24+6 pin psu)
  • cpus: 2x Pentium 3 Tualatin 1.4-S on MS-6905 Master 2.x slotkets (only one currently modded at present)
  • memory: 4x512MB 800-40 RIMM
  • sound: Audigy 2 zs platinum w/live drive, integrated audio (disabled)
  • floppy: black Gotek OLED
  • video: xfx geforce 6800gt 256mb
  • usb: onboard + NEC USB2.0 card, 2 ports used for front panel via 2x USB-A to internal header adapter.
  • network: integrated intel 10/100, intel pro 1000 mt pci
  • scsi: onboard adaptec aic-7892 ultra 160, paralan mm16 multimode expander (to attach cdrom @ 20/SE without slowing down ultra160 bus)
  • hdd: ARS-2018 2xSATA ->SCSI68 raid/mirror drive bay adapter with 2x 120gb intel SSD
  • cdrom: Pioneer DVD-305SB (temporarily pioneer dvr-108bk)

Later, I wanted to build a dual pentium 3 machine again, I had one growing up, a dell precision workstation 420 with dual 733mhz pentium 3s, again, i left this back east. I was looking into OR840 boards but they are pretty hard to find these days - however, what I was able to find was some Compaq AP550s, both motherboards, and even a whole machine. So I ended up with both - a whole machine, and a motherboard. I likely wouldn't have even bought the machine if i had got the motherboard working sooner. The issue was the ram - the board wouldn't boot unless I had a weird/invalid ram configuration, like, it was definitely causing some ram to be disabled or not to show up by having the sticks in there in the order they were in, but once I actually got it to boot, I updated the bios, and then everything started to work correctly with the ram I have. They also use a funky custom power supply, and the first one I got was dead on arrival, so this was just a lesson in pain all around to get this working, and I ended up buying the complete AP550 in order to have a working reference. As luck would have it - I got the motherboard working anyway, and ended up with two working AP550 motherboards. As well as a whole bunch of slot 1 cpus that I obtained cheaply to test them.

For this machine - it's going to get a dual tualatin "n-yagi" mod. I picked up a pair of 1.4-S tualatins and started tracking down MS-6905 Master slotkets. Yeah, in 2022. I think I was 20 years too late on that one. I remember when these things were literally everywhere, and now you're lucky to get one less than $100. I had found a v2.2 on ebay, then a v2.3 on amazon somehow?? that took some sleuthing for sure. Later on I started finding motherboards that had processors in slotkets on them, things like that. I truly only needed two of them, but, i wanted to match the ones I mod as closely as possible, so I have a v2.0 coming, as well as an unknown revision. I'm hoping to end up with about 4 of them to work with in total. I decided to mod the V2.2 I had, and will likely do the v2.0 to match it, unless the "unknown" one happens to be another v2.2. The v2.3 will be saved for a BX build project - that's another story. The v2.2 is successfully modded and running a single 1.4-S tualatin in the AP550 motherboard, I used a slightly lower value resistor for the mod as I'd noticed someone else who did this on an AP550 had done so. I am awaiting the arrival of more slotkets to attempt getting the 2nd tualatin working. Basically, I wanted to have a couple of extras in case i ruin one while modding, so far, I haven't, so if I end up with extras, they'll get used on BX boards.

Lastly, these machines have scsi. I wanted to take advantage. First, I picked up a pair of DVD-305S slot loader drives, one black for the standalone motherboard, one white for the stock machine. Next, I was trying to find some way to adapt SSD to ultra160 scsi, which, yeah, seems silly, but, why not, its probably as fast/faster than a SATA card would be in this machine. The standalone adapters seemed ridiculously rare and expensive, but I ended up finding one better - an ARS-2018, a crazy 2x SATA to SCSI68 raid 2x5.25 drivebay adapter thing. It will put 2x sata drives into raid and expose it as a single scsi 68 device. It wasn't the cheapest thing in the world, but still far cheaper than what people want for the standalone SCSI to SATA drive adapters. So, now i'm commited - i'm building a maxed out retro scsi-bridge-sata-raid dual pentium 3 tualatin workstation thing. This thing is big - it takes up two entire 5.25" drive bays - so it meant it would have to go into the custom build - not the stock machine.

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Compaq AP550 i840 build

  • case: Compaq Professional Workstation AP550
  • motherboard: Compaq SW400 i840 (AP550 motherboard, ATX with non-standard 24+6 pin psu)
  • cpus: 2x Pentium 3 Coppermine 1ghz 133mhz bus
  • memory: 4x256MB 800-40 (will upgrade to 2gb later)
  • sound: integrated audio
  • video: nvidia quadro fx 3000 (fx5900-equivalent)
  • floppy: stock 1.44" drive that came with
  • usb: NEC USB2.0 card
  • network: intel pro 1000 mt pci, integrated intel 10/100 (disabled)
  • hdd: IDE to CF card adapter, 64gb CF Card.
  • scsi: onboard adaptec aic-7892 ultra 160
  • cdrom: Pioneer DVD-305S scsi

When I did get the actual AP550 - it came with dual 866mhz pentium 3s - which was pretty standard for it. The slots are really close together on this motherboard, closer than the or840. Worse, there's really tall capacitors in-between as well, so you need a heatsink that's not only narrow, but sits a bit high as well. I dont know why compaq did this, but it makes picking the heatsink a royal pain. For the actual AP550, it came with two different style heatsinks - one had fins on both sides, and one had fins on only one side. It seems the double-sided one was intended for the 1ghz processors, but they seemingly used either at random. I somehow ended up with one of each, and decided to track down another of the beefier "double sided" ones, as I've decided the "complete" ap550 will basically be stock, but fully maxed out, dual 1ghz, 2gb ram, and a Quadro FX3000 (maybe strapped to Geforce FX5900)

For now this build is using a simple CF adapter, but I suspect it's not ideal. While I'd love to use the scsi, I doubt i'll be able to find any of those scsi adapters I used in the other build, and they'd be a bit too big for the stock case anyway. I may be better off using a SATA card with some SATA SSDs attached, the final drive solution is still TBD, but this build is othewise pretty close to completion. The front bezel is a bit damaged and I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that - it apparently can also use the bezel from an old deskpro - it looks different, but it seems a bit sturdier than the ap550 bezel, we'll see what I end up doing though, I'm still hopeful I'll be able to repair or find a replacement for it.

Future BX build 1:

  • motherboard: Intel SE440BX2
  • cpu: TBD, possibly 1.1ghz / 100mhz coppermine in ms-6905 master? bus may not run at 100+ on this board, possibly older P2s to run in "slow" mode

Future BX build 2:

  • motherboard: Abit BF6
  • cpu: TBD, tualeron @ 100 or tualatin in ms-6905 master if stable @ 133mhz ? also have 1ghz / 133 coppermine to try.

Needless to say, the dual tualatin project turned into way more than i expected, and in the process, I ended up with a pair of 440BX boards, basically just to obtain slotkets, as well as a 1.1ghz / 100mhz bus pentium 3 chip, so now I'm thinking I'll do a "stock" 440bx with the 1.1ghz and maybe a tualatin 440bx with another 1.4-s or even just a 1ghz/133mhz coppermine i have laying around...I've also got some older pentium 2's to run them in "slow dos mode" kind of thing. It never ends. Once I have all these various pentium 3 machines built, I may set them up so I can do a "retro lan party" kind of thing, but, I will probably end up selling off some of the extra stuff I acquired along the way. I also ended up with a half-broken socket 7 motherboard while obtaining the k6-3+ cpu, I still need to see if that's worth saving or not. Needless to say - I've still got a lot going on, so I'll maybe post updates and new pictures as i get more completed.

For these builds, I have a TNT2 Pro AGP, an Elsa Synergy Force (geforce 256), I also have the other fx3000 and fx2000, but their placement may depend upon the 6800gt's final home.

For sound, I need to decide what the socket 7 build will get - orpheus or awe32/pcmidi combo, but whichever it doesn't get may end up on one of these boards - maybe paired with a slower pentium 2 or something. I also have a sound blaster live and a few other parts/pieces laying around, cd/dvd drives, etc, but these builds are still in the early planning stages, i'm open to suggestions for what to put on these.

Last edited by Xero on 2022-02-07, 23:03. Edited 3 times in total.

Reply 1 of 4, by Doornkaat

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Pictures and specs look promising😃, though I haven't read the text yet.

Suggestion: Throw in a couple of pics in between talking about the individual systems. That way your readers don't have to scroll down all the way for reference. It also helps with arrangement and structure of the text.👍

Reply 2 of 4, by Xero

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Doornkaat wrote on 2022-01-30, 09:17:

Pictures and specs look promising😃, though I haven't read the text yet.

Suggestion: Throw in a couple of pics in between talking about the individual systems. That way your readers don't have to scroll down all the way for reference. It also helps with arrangement and structure of the text.👍

thank you - yes, I always struggle a bit with brevity - I have tried to divide it up a bit more and make things more concise. I need to get some more pictures too - It's always a struggle when everything is constantly a work in progress. I do have a big graphics card update i'm going to post shortly though!

Reply 3 of 4, by Xero

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I've been a busy lately tracking down lots of graphics cards while I wait for more slotkets to come from overseas. I've gotten into this fun practice of finding the OEM part numbers for whatever particular card i'm looking for - then trying to find parts recyclers/parts suppliers that have old stock around and such. I've noticed the vintage GPU market is pretty crazy, at least compared to some of the prices I see people talking about in historic posts on these forums. I do feel given many of the ebay prices I see and such, I've gotten somewhat lucky with a few deals I've found, but on the flip side - I do feel it's still a lot worse than it would have been, say, 5 years ago. So, yeah, just rambling on about the current state of vintage graphics cards pricing, but I'm definitely a fan of "find the quadro version" and "find the oem version" and perhaps some combination of those two, hah!

I'm still not 100% sure the final state of graphics cards in all these machines. The pentium mmx build came with an S3 Trio64v2 - that's almost the perfect dos card, but, I came across a cheap pci TNT2M64 through said methods described above, and I've realized it can actually do 1080p on a windows 98 desktop, which is super neat for using on modern LCD displays when I'm just feeling lazy, plus it just has a certain "cool" factor to being able to do that, so that's what I'm using as of late. I also have a pair of matrox G450 pci cards that I mostly use for testing - that's another option, might outperform the tnt2 even, but I think tnt2 wins for overall compatibility, so that might be the winner for this machine. I'd love to find something better than the M64 in PCI - but it seems finding the full tnt2 (non-m64) in PCI is pretty uncommon, I'm keeping my eye open for those, as well as a GF2MX PCI (which I might have now found.) Another idea would be pickup a pair of voodoos to go with the S3 Trio64v2, but I am leaning heavily towards just leaving the TNT2M64 right now, it's perhaps not entirely period correct, but i feel like it's almost a better/more compatible choice than many of the options that were, which often were plagued with bugs and compatibility issues.

For the i840 builds, I picked up a 6800gt, but it seems to throw a post warning every time with that card in there. It does it on both machines, but it doesn't seem to actually cause any problems. Wondering if anyone else has ran into that with this board. The tualatin modded machine throws a microcode error anyway - so I may end up pairing the 6800GT with that machine, since, its gonna be throwing errors regardless unless I can get a modded bios (not aware of one?) I may end up repairing my old pentium 4 machine and that card would probably be better suited there instead.

I decided to try and find a FX5900 instead of the 6800gt to see if this would clear the bios warnings. I was able to find a Quadro-equivalent FX3000 using my above mentioned methods and to my luck - it works perfectly on these machines - no bios warnings. I then read that the FX 2000's DDR2 memory is maybe more reliable than the FX 3000's DDR, so I tried to see if I could find one of those for cheap too, which literally just arrived today, still need to test and re-thermal paste. Interestingly enough, after hearing enough stories about the FX3000's ram failing, I was paying extra close attention to the heatsinks and such during re-assembly, and found what I'd consider somewhat of a fatal flaw on it's memory cooling design compared to the FX2000's coolers. For some silly reason - they put these little plastic washers on the top side of the board - it prevents the heatsinks on the top from ever making full contact with the memory chips on that side, other than through whatever dried-out thermal compound was still left on there. I went to replaced the old compound, which was literally falling off the card in chunks, and I noticed it was not seating well at all on the top side when I applied new compound. I decided to ditch these washers entirely, and now the heatsink makes full and proper contact on both sides. The FX2000's heatsinks do not have these washers. They're also smaller, individual heatsinks. Just makes me wonder - is the real issue with failing ram the ram itself, or perhaps, the result of this poor choice on the heatsink design? I seriously have no idea why they did this, the screws are spring-loaded, so the pressure should be fairly even on both sides without any washers needed, I cannot see any sort of clearance issues or anything else that would justify them either. It really just seems like a pointless set of washers that's keeping the heatsinks from making good contact with the memory.

Through some whacky ebay mixup, one seller sent me a 6600 instead of fx3000, while returning that, I ended up buying another FX3000 from a different seller - this is the one that arrived first, that I'm using now. The first seller ended up finding the FX3000 though - so now I have a 2nd FX3000 on the way, plus the FX2000. Heh! Needless to say, I went from not being sure to what graphics cards I'm going to be using on these old P3 builds, to being pretty sure, haha!

Reply 4 of 4, by Xero

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after a long wait, I finally got two more MS-6905 masters, both v2. I'd already modded a v2.2, so I modded a v2 to pair up with it, and......success! I had to turn the heatsink into a total hackjob to make it work. As I'd suspected - the heatsink hits the capacitors inbetween the two slots. I basically took my angle grinder and cut the fins down so that the mounting bracket can fit next to it's normal position. It does mean the heating mass is reduced slightly, but I have decided to run the fan at full speed to compensate. On the first cpu, I'm going to install a noctua fan- to hopefully compensate for the louder fan on the 2nd cpu.

I'm still sort of amazed its all just working on the first try - I surely expected to run into some issues. It's not for lack of doing research though - between sorting through archive.org for n-yagi's old page, as well as a vogon member's blog who had done similar, as well as notes from yet another forum member who'd said it took 270k resistors instead of the value n-yagi recommended to make this mod work on the ap550/sw400 motherboard, which I decided to start with.

That said, I still feel like I need to stress test the heck out of this thing and make sure it's actually stable, but even with the single tualatin in this machine - it was proving remarkably stable, and I'm not seeing anything different with the two so far. And that's how my i840 I had years ago was too - a rock solid workstation.

For now I'm leaving the 6800gt in the dual tualatin build, and the quadro fx3000 is in the stock ap550 with dual 1ghz slot1 coppermines.

Meanwhile, the arrival of those ms-6905 slotkets means that I got those 440bx boards. I tried the one and it's working fine, both with a 1100mhz/100mhz pentium 3 as well as an ancient pentium 2 - for the "slow down" mode. The other board only just got here today - so I've yet to test it. I'll likely build one with the 1100mhz cpu, and the other will be purposely slowed down.

And apparently I can't resist myself, I found an AT Inwin case I liked the look of, and I asked about what was in it - a P5a-B, Hah! The price was right, and I couldn't resist a SS7 board, sooooo another machine might be coming now, not sure I needed it, but....

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