I think it has jumper to reset password state (i.e. not requiring it). At least other Intel boards of that time had it.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-06-29, 14:12:

I think it has jumper to reset password state (i.e. not requiring it). At least other Intel boards of that time had it.

It does have the jumper to disable password

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-06-29, 14:12:

I think it has jumper to reset password state (i.e. not requiring it). At least other Intel boards of that time had it.

I confused position, it indeed had to be on pins 1-2, I missed and put on 2-3: doh!
I put red jumpers to have a better view, but I decided to put back the originals (black with an easy grasp for fingers).

100% OK
Being what it is I skipped a couple of beats.

Edit: thanks for quick replies!

I'll check for 2 other matched pair of cpus.

I don't have any suggestions, yet! However I was testing a pr440fx this week with Windows 98SE. I may be able to see how I get on with NT4/2000 over the weekend. I did see a few issues that can affect the board. I know some early bios revisions do not properly support dual CPUs with a later stepping until updated.

There is also an interesting errata document (my board is version ending 504).

This is as far as I got today. Also using a CF to boot 98SE, not got a scsi CD drive yet.

Ricimer wrote on 2023-06-29, 19:06:

I don't have any suggestions, yet! However I was testing a pr440fx this week with Windows 98SE. I may be able to see how I get o […]
Show full quote

I don't have any suggestions, yet! However I was testing a pr440fx this week with Windows 98SE. I may be able to see how I get on with NT4/2000 over the weekend. I did see a few issues that can affect the board. I know some early bios revisions do not properly support dual CPUs with a later stepping until updated.

There is also an interesting errata document (my board is version ending 504).

This is as far as I got today. Also using a CF to boot 98SE, not got a scsi CD drive yet.

Thanks for the input!!
Yours is eye candy coated candy with extra candy filling! 😀

Such old stuff is driving me crazy... 🤣

Won't go beyond "checking your hardware" phase, freezing. Needs a reset.
W98SE installed just fine, twice...

Is it just motherboard, CPU, RAM, floppy drive, CD drive and disk drive? What GPU are you using, any other audio cards etc?

Ricimer wrote on 2023-06-29, 21:32:

Is it just motherboard, CPU, RAM, floppy drive, CD drive and disk drive? What GPU are you using, any other audio cards etc?

Cpus: 150 to P-II OD
Same problem

ram: 128 sticks x4, memtested: good;

Video card: S3 64V+ / Virge / Matrox / Sis ... still hangs

Moved PCI SCSI and still same

Floppy is good, scsi cd-rom fine, no audio cards.

IDK 🙁

Ok, after swapping cards, the last and shittiest SCSI card actually works and loads W2K installer.
Talk compatibility issues...
Crashes at "inaccessible boot device" -----> SCSI not fully supported, scanning for HD makes it freeze

Ok, now I can't have USB working for some reason I don't unerstand.
BIOS not supported.

I've been reading a lot of pr440fx posts on this old newsgroup archive https://groups.google.com/g/intel.motherboards.pentium_pro

"USB will work with W2K on the PR440FX motherboard *only* if you set the PCI
IRQ mapping to "ISA Legacy IRQ". However, this disables the APIC interrupt
scheme, and forces the board to share interrupts on the PCI bus. Bummer.
This is a BIOS problem, and Intel is unlikely to rev the BIOS to fix this
problem."

It works in 98 without changing this setting though, but no one seems to have it working in 2000 until this is changed.

Ricimer wrote on 2023-06-30, 21:15:

I've been reading a lot of pr440fx posts on this old newsgroup archive https://groups.google.com/g/intel.motherboards.pentium_pr […]
Show full quote

I've been reading a lot of pr440fx posts on this old newsgroup archive https://groups.google.com/g/intel.motherboards.pentium_pro

"USB will work with W2K on the PR440FX motherboard *only* if you set the PCI
IRQ mapping to "ISA Legacy IRQ". However, this disables the APIC interrupt
scheme, and forces the board to share interrupts on the PCI bus. Bummer.
This is a BIOS problem, and Intel is unlikely to rev the BIOS to fix this
problem."

It works in 98 without changing this setting though, but no one seems to have it working in 2000 until this is changed.

This was actually a goldmine of information. I now know that I'm not crazy 😀
Thanks again!

Edit: it did fix the USB issue. Excellent!
However installing outside floppy boot disks is a nightmare with the hardware in my possession. Freezes, errors, BSODs...
Reading a few messages, where you pointed me to, revealed that the SCSI cards I have may be not fully compatible with the motherboard.

This game was long and tedious, I had twice a NTLDR failure.
I'll image the W2K installation.
Installing here is a patience game upped to the max 😀

For the eye.

SCSI:

cards I have:
2x Adaptec AHA-2940UW
1x Tekram DC-350UW

Drivers are loaded and present on all Windows cds (98SE/2K/XP).

Behaviour:
1) will work only if I use floppy to boot Win installation, otherwise from CD it'll hang at scanning hardware
2) will copy to target HD but upon reboot to finish installation from HD it'll freeze (I waited 20 minutes while doing other and stuck on there)
3) removing SCSI and swapping to an IDE CD-rom drive will work fine and finish installing
4) I don't have a SCSI converter to use CD-rom with onboard SCSI but I'll pass on that.

Solution: floppy disks + IDE CD-rom; moving to another project.

Edit:
OS I installed successfully:
- Windows 98 SE
- Windows 2K Pro SP4
- Windows XP SP2 (FutureMark 2002 is slower by a 10-5% both cpu and ram tests)

In WXP onboard SCSI works perfectly well.

I now have a 40x IBM branded scsi Plextor drive, so I was able to boot from a Windows 2000 CD and install to the CF card . The CD drive is plugged into the onboard 7880.

I already installed NT4 from my DOS 6.22 install by copying the files over with Windows 98 that was already working. Installing 2000 by booting from the CD was also fine and I had no crashes during hardware detection. There is currently a listed conflict for the Crystal MPU401 device and usb says it has not been configured by the bios, I have not made the changes to fix it yet.

I have the floppy controller enabled but don't have a gotek for the machine yet.

Ricimer wrote on 2023-07-04, 21:19:

I now have a 40x IBM branded scsi Plextor drive, so I was able to boot from a Windows 2000 CD and install to the CF card . The CD drive is plugged into the onboard 7880.

I already installed NT4 from my DOS 6.22 install by copying the files over with Windows 98 that was already working. Installing 2000 by booting from the CD was also fine and I had no crashes during hardware detection. There is currently a listed conflict for the Crystal MPU401 device and usb says it has not been configured by the bios, I have not made the changes to fix it yet.

I have the floppy controller enabled but don't have a gotek for the machine yet.

Are you using an adapter to connect to the Plextor 40x? Btw, we have the same driver 😀
I should buy one.

Nexxen wrote on 2023-07-04, 21:37:

Are you using an adapter to connect to the Plextor 40x? Btw, we have the same driver 😀
I should buy one.

No, the drive has a 68 pin connector. I only found out after I purchased a scsi cable with just two connectors that IBM had the built in terminator/jumper removed compared to the real PX-40TSi. I fought with another lvd cable I found at work for some time before realising the cable terminator was lvd *only* not LVD/SE.

The original cable I got works perfectly with no termination however! I have controller termination enabled, just not the drive end yet.

I do have another cable on the way along with a LVD/SE terminator. It has been a very long time since I used parallel scsi, and that was on a single Pentium II which I didn't originally build!