Re: Pentium(PRO) 2 Overdrive 333 BEAST

Posted on 2012-06-03, 02:30

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Has anyone seen a socket 8 to 370 adapter? Haven't seen one in many years but allowed socket 8 boards to use socket 370 66mhz fsb celerons. I've heard of 'em before, there were a few different variants of them made but AFAIK they weren't that widely available outside Asia. But the primary problem …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2012-06-02, 04:03

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by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Are you sure it wasn't something simple like the adjustment being a little off? DVI isn't really prone to it, but the autodetection of VGA can sometimes result in slight position/size errors on LCDs, and that kinda looks like what was going on in your previous pics. Most halfway decent monitors have …

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Re: Soyo Sy-7VBA133 1gb RAM upgrade

Posted on 2012-06-01, 15:26

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Most of the older Super7 chipsets had problems with so-called 'high-density' memory... it'll sometimes work, but only half of it will be recognized. However, I can't think of any logical reason why a Via Apollo PIII board would only recognize 16MB. One of the main advantages of that chipset is that …

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Re: P55C in a Marl (Advanced/ML) board?

Posted on 2012-06-01, 13:32

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by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, you'll really need to look at the board's voltage regulator chip to be sure on that. Just find the number on it and do a search for the datasheet... that should tell you the rated amperage on it. If it's good for 7A or more, you should be fine, 6A would probably do it but you'd want to keep a …

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Re: P55C in a Marl (Advanced/ML) board?

Posted on 2012-05-31, 23:30

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

They'll work on 3.3V, and the maximum spec voltage is actually 3.7V (though that's the stress rating rather than the functional rating). But you'll definitely want some decent cooling on it, and even so I don't know what the long-term reliability is like. Pentium MMX chips are cheap and plentiful, …

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Re: Pentium(PRO) 2 Overdrive 333 BEAST

Posted on 2012-05-31, 22:56

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by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Ah, y'all are thinking small-time. For the proper PIII Xeon experience, somebody needs to throw a good PCI video card (or ten) into a first-gen Proliant DL760. One Xeon is OK, two is better... so why not go all the way and use goddamn eight of 'em? 🤣

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Re: Another 486 build.... with EISA!

Posted on 2012-05-31, 19:53

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I'm not sure if all this is correct, but here's the way I understand it... TH99 is actually a pirate eBook of sorts... it was ripped off and condensed from the 'MicroHouse Technical Library,' which was a big 3rd-party reference compilation intended for computer support companies and such, kinda like …

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Re: Another 486 build.... with EISA!

Posted on 2012-05-31, 17:21

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by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Just a guess, but I suspect the two things probably went hand-in-hand, since AFAIK the Overdrive was always specced to support WB cache since its original inception. OTOH, that was also the era when a bunch of the fly-by-night Taiwanese manufacturers would blatantly lie about specs, and "Typhoon 486 …

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Re: Another 486 build.... with EISA!

Posted on 2012-05-31, 16:30

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Yeah, your numbers look decent... they're actually not too bad even compared to some of the cheaper boards that do support WB cache. As far as having a 1993 board with WB L2, it's certainly possible there were boards that technically supported it, but there wouldn't have been any processor at the …

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Re: Athlon build

Posted on 2012-05-31, 14:30

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah, 43-43C idle was about the norm for pretty much every Thoroughbred and Barton core I've ever had, with mid-range sort of heatsinks. Some of the fancy high-end coolers could go a couple degrees better, but for a 'silent' cooler like you have, you're doing pretty good. I recommend you try to …

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Re: Another 486 build.... with EISA!

Posted on 2012-05-31, 14:18

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

There are some other EISA boards, like the Everex 'Step 486 EISA' series, Gigabyte GA-486SA/486TA and the AMI Enterprise III, that use the SiS EISA chipset and are a fair bit more modern. Finding one is a bit of a challenge, but they are out there... a few members here have them, and yes, Anonymous …

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Re: Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Posted on 2012-05-30, 00:13

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

I've tried retrobrite and various other things and although you can whiten stuff, it's a lot of effort and the final result is never really worth it. Yeah, the retrobrite paste should never be used on anything. I have my doubts that anyone has ever actually gotten good results with it... looking at …

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Re: Shipping a CPU

Posted on 2012-05-29, 23:19

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by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

By using a conductive material like that, all the pins would be kept at the same voltage potential, thereby preventing any electricity (static in this case) from flowing through the chip. So in that respect, yes it would be a better idea, and it would probably work pretty well for older processors …

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Re: Shipping a CPU

Posted on 2012-05-29, 21:18

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by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Like I said, ideally you would use something intended for the task. I'd recommend looking for some other material first... even foam rubber would be better (and actually, that's what some newer CPUs ship with, it's some sort of really stiff, closed-cell black stuff). But if you can't find anything …

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Re: Shipping a CPU

Posted on 2012-05-29, 20:51

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by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There's really no need to go to any great lengths... processors aren't particularly fragile. Really what you want is some sort of stiff foam that you can press the pins into to keep them from getting bent, then throw the thing in an antistatic bag. You can even forgo a box, just tape the bag in …

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Re: Cheap Zalman-like GPU coolers

Posted on 2012-05-29, 00:08

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah, I've seen that before. Fortunately, that means there's at least enough clearance for the replacement heatsink to extend as far up as wherever the fan sat, so it's only the corner of the tuner shield box you have to worry about. It wasn't just video cards that had... I call 'em "angry bee fans …

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Re: Cheap Zalman-like GPU coolers

Posted on 2012-05-28, 19:29

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by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In addition to being complete overkill for a 9600, the VGA Silencer has been out of production for quite awhile, so it's difficult to find one, and when they do come up for sale they tend to be priced for as much as the AIW 9600XT is worth. Plus not all revisions of it fit the AIW cards. (And the ' …

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Re: Halo CE on a Dell Dimension 4600

Posted on 2012-05-26, 21:48

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by Old Thrashbarg

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

Well, actually the FX5500 is just a refresh/update of the FX5200, using a die-shrunk version of the NV34 core. :lol: But it sounds like you got a proper 128-bit, full clock-speed version this time... which as you've already discovered, is a completely different animal than the crappy 64-bit 5200, …

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Re: Another 486 build.... with EISA!

Posted on 2012-05-26, 21:00

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by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Hm... strange. Maybe somebody more familiar with those cards can offer some insights... I think there are a couple people on here who have them. Of course I suppose the other question is... when would you actually need to boot from a CD on a 486? Everything CD-based I can think of that would be 486- …

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Re: Another 486 build.... with EISA!

Posted on 2012-05-26, 19:59

by

by Old Thrashbarg

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Ah, OK... from what I can gather from the documentation you linked, it looks like the VLB version is capable of PIO4/DMA2 (16.7MB/sec), but the ISA version is a bit more limited... it doesn't state clearly what modes it supports, but 8.3MB/sec is the spec for PIO2 and single-word DMA2. Still, though …

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