Interesting motherboard you got there. I don't think I've seen double DIMMs and a COAST on the same board before.

That P200 has a VX Chipset. If that motherboard supports a 2.2v Vcore and a 5.5x Multiplyer, you might be able to toss in a K6-2 366 (or an underclocked 400/450 chip@366), and give that machine a performance boost that will partly make using the V2-SLI worthwhile.

I'm not gonna say "Voodoo1 is better than Voodoo2 on Pentium 1", as even though it's not running at the full potential, it'll still work. Though I'd save the SLI for a 98-00 era Win9x-Glide box, which sounds like what you're considering anyway with the 440BX board.

Very nice P200 rig though, glad to see you ditched that ugly bulbous Gateway case, the new one looks much nicer! And a COAST on a SDR system, that's an odd combo.

I too would say though to ditch the Ensoniq AudioPCI for an ISA Sound Card of some sort for better DOS Compatibility. It's not that the AudioPCI isn't compatible so much as the Synth sounds are way off when using Adlib or SB16 Synth modes. Here's a video that Vogon user Ace did playing Xwing Floppy version using Adlib mode on the AudioPCI, it just sounds horrible: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXObHZEY8u4

I prefer an AWE32 with a Genuine Yamaha OPL3 chip on board, clean almost professional grade sound output and sounds like the real deal on Adlib/Sound Blaster games, as well as bonuses like AWE sound modes and MT32 emulation. Plus they come in a Non-PnP variant (CT3910 and I think CT3990) so theres no need to load any TSRs that may swallow up valuable Conventional Memory. Plus you can usually find them for dirt cheap. I got my CT3910 for free out of a scrap PC.

the mobo doesn't support any of that, but with the price of the 2.2v k6-2 500 and my memory of a hidden setting getting clearer (I recall 2x being seen by it as 5x) I am thinking of just buying one, chucking it in, and seeing how itll handle 2.7v and 2x multi. If it fries the chip, I won't be too worried, really. The current and apparently original cpu is a p200mmx which is a 2.7v core chip.

I'm reasonably certain that a 2.7v Vcore will likely toast that CPU... if theres a Vcore setting lower than that, like 2.3/2.4 there may be a better chance. Are there any voltage jumpers at all?

/me sighs

I made my living building these systems when they were new... if there were, I would have posted there were.

as for frying it? *shrug* $10 shipped isnt huge to lose on a gamble.

True, 10$ isn't a huge loss. Sucks that there's no voltage jumpers, must be a Gateway designed board meant for only supporting PMMX's. Theres also the possibility of finding an original K6 or a Cyrix 6x86MX/MII, might be able to run a 2.9v chip at 2.7... but most of them didn't take kindly to undervolting. Anything else that wouldn't provide a signifigant performance increase would be a waste of money.

EDIT: K6-233 would be a no-go as it required 3.2v, anything faster moved to 2.2v. My 6x86MX PR300 and MII 366 both use 2.9v, so a better chance there.

I don't personally like cyrix processors and never have. I was soured on them permanently by some MII plus pcchips motherboards long ago.

What gets me is it SEEMS to also support the older P54C processors, it may actually have some kind of voltage detection circuitry in it, which I did not think existed back then for CPUs... which is why I am wanting to gamble.

That sounds like really strange board. If it supports P54C Chips, it might be that when dropping in an older chip, the Vcore pin is ignored and runs everything of the 3.3v IO line. On the other hand, if I recall correctly, my old Shuttle HOT591 SS7 board had Voltage autodetect circuitry, not sure though. No harm to the board in trying anyway. K6-2 chips are a dime a dozen, I have a stack of them myself.

And PCChips = Garbage. Them and ECS are crap. Everything from finding drivers for those TXPro boards to tons of dead boards with bad caps, etc etc... One shop I worked for in 2002 had a stack of dead K7S5A's in the corner.

I even tried to give a modern PCChips AM2 board (A33G) I got for free a chance and used it for 2 years in my media centre. The sound didn't work (switched to an SBLive 24) and the LAN was flaky and by the time I retired it last year, it would reboot randomly and now has a swollen cap on the board. Utter junk.

I know. I learned that back then. It also soured me on cyrix cpus, though.

I could never get my K6-2 400 to work properly on my 430vx board. Lowest possible Vcore was 2.5 and it always hanged before even booting Windows!

jaqie wrote:

I made my living building these systems when they were new... if there were, I would have posted there were.

All these motherboards have on-board voltage regulators that are voltage-configurable by onboard SMD resistors. The jumpers only put specific resistors into the regulator's path to set the output voltage.

1) If you change these resistors to another value, you can get just about any output voltage you want. (see the attached article I wrote about this - I replaced one such SMD resistor and put in a 0-5 K-ohm trimmer and now have a whore range of voltages from 2 - 4V in mV increments).

2) Often there is a jumper block for the voltage regulator which sets up various single or numerous parallel resistance values, allowing for a range of CPU votages. I just ran such a test on a socket 7 board that had 5 regulator jumpers, this lead to 32 different possible voltage states. (see the attached table for the voltages I could achieve). I also measured with an oscilliscope all possible FSB and PCI clock frequencies.

Someone smack this guy for me, please? There are no voltage jumpers on this board as I have said multiple times, and I'm not about to go fiddling with smd resistor stacks on it.

Swapping out one or two SMD resistors is pretty straight forward.

jaqie wrote:

Someone smack this guy for me, please?

I'm still wondering why he pointlessly bumped up my Voodoo 5 rig thread....

feipoa wrote:

Swapping out one or two SMD resistors is pretty straight forward.

Unless you happen to have a degenerative neurological condition and two forms of arthritis in rather advanced state to the point it's difficult to use keys and normal doorknobs, find it impossible to use a cellphone anymore, and can only use a model M clicky keyboard to type with anymore.

That and the fact not everyone wants to get that deep into component level of hardware, let alone risking a rare and out of production motherboard on something that is far from a sure bet even if done properly, especially when the board works perfectly as designed as it is right now!