Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-04-14, 18:56

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Why would you want VLB slot if you have PCI ? Unless you have a VLB video card you wanted to use. That, or an expensive caching VLB IDE/SCSI controller. Plus that at the beginning of the VIP-IO period, it wasn't absolutely clear that PCI was going to take off. It was only when the Pentium started …

---

Re: Fibre Channel Disk Arrays - Anyone use them?

Posted on 2019-04-14, 13:29

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I once picked up an SGI Origin 2000 with an FC drive array for EUR 1. I was a broke student at the time so the drive array (I forget exact config, but it added up to about 1TB in total) was actually larger than any ATA HDD I could afford at the time, so I got myself an HBA (FC adapter card for in PC …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-04-14, 10:32

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Two little parcels this week. First up - a Music Quest MQX-32m: https://tweakers.net/ext/f/drgMiytWmg4CYEiuMhr31clz/full.jpg Dual intelligent mode MIDI interface. Not 100% MPU-401 compatible, some games don't like it - but they are few & far between, and this remains one of the best ways to hook up …

---

Re: Quad core -> tiny PC?

Posted on 2019-04-12, 14:02

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If the upgrade manual lists 44W CPUs you should be safe on that count, but if both core type and FSB aren't supported it's a big risk, particularly if no other quad-core CPUs are supported. Only try if you're willing to take the risk.

---

Re: Quad core -> tiny PC?

Posted on 2019-04-12, 09:00

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Can't comment on chance of it actually working, but as for the cooking... check the official support lists and see what the highest TDP is of supported CPUs. That might be higher than the 35W the T7250 generates. If 44W CPUs are supported, the Q9000 definitely won't cook the beast- although it will …

---

Re: AMD K6-2 equivalent to pentium......

Posted on 2019-04-10, 21:33

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

According to Anand they tested with: Matrox Millennium G200 AGP Video Card (8MB) Canopus Pure3D-2 Voodoo2 (12MB) Agreed that Unreal looks rather GPU-limited here.

---

Re: AMD K6-2 equivalent to pentium......

Posted on 2019-04-10, 20:41

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not even close.... my k6-3+ clocked at 550-600mhz is in games about equal to a p2-300 to 350mhz. In normal apps they can be pretty equal and actually sometimes a bit faster. in games they can't hold a candle. Clock for clock in games they are about as fast as the pentium1 mmx. The k6-3 is up to 20% …

---

Re: Choosing Socket 7 motherboard

Posted on 2019-04-08, 18:26

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Dallas RTCs were popular back then, but fortunately not everyone used one. FIC was an early adopter of CR-2032 coin cells. Not sure about their HX boards, but the FIC PT-2003 i430FX board certainly uses one. Don't worry too much about RTCs if they're socketed, you can buy a new replacement for about …

---

Re: Choosing Socket 7 motherboard

Posted on 2019-04-08, 09:21

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a tc-97-e Socket 7. I like it gives you alot of options in general. AT and ATX connectors, SIMM and DIMM slots, takes multiple processors from P54c 75mhz, to k6-2 233 or pentium mmx 233 and some cyrix chips. Has pci and 3 ISA. I was lucky enough to find one on the side of the road one day. …

---

Re: Pentium 133 or 200MMX for "time-machine" build

Posted on 2019-04-08, 09:07

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Mine is Asus SP97-XV. i thought of going the extra mile and creating an arduino based jumper configurator, but i guess with a simple toggle switch i could configure the multiplier, cause the voltage and bus speed i would keep the same. SP97XV? That has a SiS 5598 chipset and gives you an extra …

---

Re: I recently found this hardware, AKA the Dumpster find thread.

Posted on 2019-04-07, 21:53

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Whats an "Ultrabook"? [sarcasm]The opposite of a ThinkPad, Ultra books are wafer thin enough so a wee bit of wind sends it flying[/sarcasm] In short, a disposable laptop, if Netbooks were not enough... Don't overrate ThinkPads, certainly not the new ones. There's a reason I still use my battered …

---

Re: Choosing Socket 7 motherboard

Posted on 2019-04-07, 20:58

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The fastest non-MMX P54CS will run on any So7 board. Not So5 (without modification) as it needs the second multiplier pin for 3x multiplier. So that gives you a lower limit. As for the the upper limit, you say no AGP and no DIMM. That means you are limited to the latest chipset without SDRAM support …

---

Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2019-04-07, 11:57

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] It's the bottom 2 keyboards that are of most interest, being XT & AT switchable. The middle Cherry keyboard needs a bit more TLC than just a little cleanup, has a stuck key and the casing is loose. The Cherry would have been the original keyboard on my old 8088 PC that I had back in the early …

---

Re: I have to ask something here, what happens if you use a AMD K6-2 or AMD K6-2 with a Socket 7 or Super Socket 7?

Posted on 2019-04-06, 18:52

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

K6-2 CPUs are generally considered "Super Socket 7", but technically there is no such thing as "Super" Socket 7, it's a marketing term for a bunch of features not directly connected to the CPU socket, such as SDRAM support, AGP, and 100MHz bus speed. Even the most advanced "Super" Socket 7 board is …

---

Re: PC100 CL2/PC133 CL3 RAM question

Posted on 2019-04-06, 15:38

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

i440BX can only run its RAM synchronously, so FSB=RAM. With a P3-450 you're running RAM at 100MHz in any event. Now, the ratings at a given speed (PC133 CL3 etc) are less interesting than the actual ratings of the chips. Look for the last character on the chip code, it will be something like -75 (7. …

---

Re: Socket 5

Posted on 2019-04-05, 23:12

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Async came first, then you got async with COAST to allow for upgrade to PLB, followed by PLB soldered on the motherboard. However certainly during the COAST era you saw all three at the same time, depending on brand, age of stock and high/low-end products. Not sure what sync as opposed to PLB would …

---

Re: Is it possiblie the modify the POD83:s multiplier?

Posted on 2019-04-05, 13:21

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I wonder how a socket 3 POD with 1x66MHz would compare to a socket 4 pod with 2x33MHz Both speed would have the same data rate (66*32bits vs 33*64bits), and so only the guts would matter. Both would have the same theoretical data rate, but in real life, I strongly suspect the 66MHz CPU would win …

---

Re: What 486 motherboard is this?

Posted on 2019-04-05, 13:05

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I found 8 of these NOS, 7 of which worked (the battery juice demon had gotten the 8th); sold most, but still have one. You wouldn't still happen to have the dead board, would you? I do board level trace repair, and am always looking for dead boards to revive! That's a special kind of masochism. I …

---

Re: Sound Blaster AWE32 ram ?

Posted on 2019-04-04, 22:26

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Also, that's no AWE32 :o Thats a CT3600 Sound Blaster 32 (non-AWE), which is in fact a Sound Blaster AWE64 without any onboard RAM but with the SIMM slots. You are thinking of the CT3670 Nope, CT3600 as well: Sound Blaster 32 Model Numbers The following model numbers were assigned to the Sound …

---

Re: What 486 motherboard is this?

Posted on 2019-04-04, 22:22

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Done: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=1530&menustate=29,28 Back to live again! One more board for the retro-computing colletion. Thanks for your help. Great! Out of interest: how did you confirm that the cache was working? I just checked mine and it claimed cache was enabled, …

---