Gateway from 1999 \ VOGONS

Gateway from 1999

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First post, by Great Hierophant

Posted on 2013-10-05, 02:59

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I found this Gateway from 2000 in my friend's basement, so I decided to take it home with me to check it out.

The CPU is an Intel 600E Pentium III, it has 320MB of RAM, and came with no drives.

The case is sturdy and can fit full length cards. On the downside it seems to have room for only for one 3.5" hard drive. It also has no designated reset button, and for a system designed for Windows 98 label on it, this omission is inexcusable. The power button and LEDs have wires that end in a custom plug, this would need to be fixed if I were to replace the motherboard.

It has an Intel i440BX motherboard, unfortunately the board seems to be based wholly off the reference Intel SE440BX-3 reference design. This means no overclocking or underclocking, no multiplier or voltage selection, and only one floppy drive.

The power supply is somewhat anemic at 200W. Thats only 8W more than the original IBM PC AT could put out. However, it does have a-5v rail and I don't intend to use any truly power-hungry cards in the system.

Last edited by Great Hierophant on 2013-10-06, 22:04. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 1 of 6, by Forevermore

Posted on 2013-10-05, 03:32

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If it's a good brand PSU, like a delta or fsp. 200w should be more than adequate unless you want to chuck in a voodoo5 or something 🤣

I have the same complaint with my SE440BX-2, its a very rudimentary board. Stable though, unlike some others Ive had.

So many combinations to make, so few cases to put them in.

Reply 2 of 6, by Great Hierophant

Posted on 2013-10-05, 04:38

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Nothing more taxing than a Voodoo 3 3000 PCI and a bunch of typical PCI cards.

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Reply 3 of 6, by Forevermore

Posted on 2013-10-05, 04:40

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Why PCI for the v3?

So many combinations to make, so few cases to put them in.

Reply 4 of 6, by squareguy

Posted on 2013-10-05, 05:58

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Yeah, my 98 build is a Gateway case and PSU. P3-450, Voodoo3 3500, 384MB RAM, blah blah.... Less than (a lot less) 100-Watt system draw playing games. I think people use 2000-Watt PSU's when they need 500. I don't know why... sounds cool to say more Watts? Don't fall into that trap. Definitely get a large enough PSU but not 5x what you need. Also remember that your PSU actually has more usable power for your system than a modern Seasonic 350-Watt PSU due to modern systems using the 12V rails to power the CPU's. Also, don't knock the SE440BX boards, maybe they aren't sexy but damn they work great.

Edit: I believe you can change multiplier (of course on an unlocked CPU) but you have to put board in setup mode and I have never needed to do that.

Gateway 2000 Case and 200-Watt PSU
Intel SE440BX-2 Motherboard
Intel Pentium III 450 CPU
Micron 384MB SDRAM (3x128)
Compaq Voodoo3 3500 TV Graphics Card
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound Card
Western Digital 7200-RPM, 8MB-Cache, 160GB Hard Drive
Windows 98 SE

Reply 5 of 6, by Forevermore

Posted on 2013-10-05, 06:21

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squareguy wrote:
Yeah, my 98 build is a Gateway case and PSU. P3-450, Voodoo3 3500, 384MB RAM, blah blah.... Less than (a lot less) 100-Watt system draw playing games. I think people use 2000-Watt PSU's when they need 500. I don't know why... sounds cool to say more Watts? Don't fall into that trap. Definitely get a large enough PSU but not 5x what you need. Also remember that your PSU actually has more usable power for your system than a modern Seasonic 350-Watt PSU due to modern systems using the 12V rails to power the CPU's. Also, don't knock the SE440BX boards, maybe they aren't sexy but damn they work great.

Edit: I believe you can change multiplier (of course on an unlocked CPU) but you have to put board in setup mode and I have never needed to do that.

Very true words about modern PSUs. I tend to forget what was changed in each ATX standard Intel set, but it effectively renders a modern PSU useless for an old board. Regardless of whether it fires it up or not. The biggest one I remember was the dropping of ISA power support in v2.1 (I think) or newer. And I think 5VSB is also gone on newer ones.

Last rumour I heard is the dropping of 3.3 & 5 altogether.

So many combinations to make, so few cases to put them in.

Reply 6 of 6, by GeorgeMan

Posted on 2013-10-05, 10:25

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And on the board we 'll have voltage regulators for RAM, +5v, +3.3v AND soldered the CPU (Intel BGA)?
This is too much!

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