Next one I made is a Pentium 200MMX. This is my favourite, we had a Cyrix pentium 166 through most of my childhood so I am most familiar with the games of this era. (I actually have a pentium 166 in my collection too, but this p200MMX is also the very first retro pc I bought so of course I wanted to include it. I might use the 166 for another project later). The mainboard is called 586ITXD, made by DFI, based on the Intel 82430TX chipset. I installed 64Mb of SDRAM. For this PC I have an Ati 3D RAGE II+DVD gfx card with a whopping 8MB which came with the pc originally. I think it was upgraded to continue using it for AutoCAD. I paired it with a 3DFX Voodoo2 w/8MB from lack of a voodoo1, which I still hope to buy someday. For sound I have a soundblaster 16 paired with a roland SCC-1. I never had a roland when I was a child and I am very excited to have one installed and working now 😀 . I also installed a 3com network card just in case. I am running windows 98SE from a 20GB IDE HDD. I have tried to install windows 95 but I just couldn't get the USB ports to work and any other way of transferring files is too much a chore for me nowadays 🙁 . I want to install as much games as I can remember on this PC, preferable ones supporting the SCC-1.

PS. The case is something I'd like to replace too!!

Up next is a PII-333. I'm not sure if I have anything that I want to do with this PC that I can't do with my p200, or the pentium III after this one but what the heck. Mainboard is an A-Trend ATC-6120 based on the LX chipset. I think I put in 128 or 256 megs of SDRAM. Can't remember which for sure. For graphics I am using a combination Diamond Stealth S220 + Voodoo2 12MB (which I hope to add another one to in SLI later on). Soundcard is a Soundblaster AWE64 Gold. Has a network card too for good measure. OS is windows 98SE again.

And lastly I have a pIII-500 with 512MB RAM. Mainboard is a SOYO SY-6BA+III with the venerable BX chipset. graphics are handled by a Voodoo3 3000 and for sound I have a yamaha waveforce 192XG which I like very much. I missed this period completely when I was little, still being stuck with our aging pentium 166 at this time. (or maybe we had already received a p233 + voodoo1 upgrade by then)

Hope you enjoyed the view.

The first PCs case is really, really nice. I like Baby AT PCs and yours 386 is exactly this, what i wish to have / to build. Keep it up.

You have a nice mix of PC's therefor Dos. 386 for the old games, P3 for anything else and some in the middle just because. Your just missing a 486 to complete the group although there isn't much use for it really.

Thanks. I like the 386 best too. The other cases are all very standard and bland. I'd like to do some casemodding perhaps but I have no experience and no inspiration either at the moment 😀
By change I just got two 486 mainboards with processors from a coworker! One of the CPU's is clearly identifiable (sx, ugh), but the other is covered with a heatsink which is quite unusual I think? The white label on the mobo reads "MB 486-50 ISA".

They're only mainboards though, no AT cases, no PSU's. I don't have any to spare at home and don't think I'll find any, so I ordered a few ATX to AT power cable converters from ebay and just hope some of the ATX cases I have left over can mount these.
... Provided the mobo's still work ofcourse. The batteries are leaking... Damage from corrosion doesn't look extensive yet though. I've never tried replacing those barrel CMOS batteries before. I will try to replace them with a coin style battery holder from a modern mainboard. It will be good practice for my 386 board which will eventually start leaking too, but at the moment it is still working great and I don't want to touch it! 😀

I got some other stuff too, two Trident ISA gfx cards, some I/O cards, a 5" floppy drive (didn't have one yet), some cool serial trackball mice and also a panel for the Power&turbo buttons + LED readout which might fit in a regular floppy bay? Would be nice to have to spice up the boring ATX cases.

Hello,

Your pentium II 333mhz system is really to slow for voodoo 2 in SLI. Some guy(s) here attended my on the same fact that running an SLI config on a pentium II 400mhz would be bottlenecked by the processor.
If you really want to have full performances out of your SLI setup, you really need a Pentium III 600mhz processor at maxium. So SLI scales a lot better with a faster cpu.

And the other point..

Whats the sense of using an Pentium II 333 mhz?? Back in the days the 400mhz or 450 mhz sold much better and where the most famous.. But if you want to sli that system, its recommend to use a faster cpu.

Ill see you are from the netherlands? Would it be possible to upload those Soundstorm soundcard drivers to http://www.vogonsdrivers.com ?

Robin4 wrote:

Whats the sense of using an Pentium II 333 mhz?? Back in the days the 400mhz or 450 mhz sold much better and where the most famous.. But if you want to sli that system, its recommend to use a faster cpu.

His board has the 440LX chipset, which doesn't support 100MHz FSB.
The only faster CPUs that might work would be Mendocino Celerons up to 533MHz with a slocket adapter.
If he's really lucky, maybe it's possible to get a Coppermine running in that board but at that point it wouldn't really fit the age of the system anymore.

Thanks for the advice about the SLI setup. I realize the processor speeds are all pretty close together and there's probably is a lot of overlap. Unfortunately I don't have any better pentium II CPUs. They do have different sound setups and with the diamond stealth s220 on the pentium2 I have support for rendition games too... Maybe it's a better idea to combine the pentium 1 & 2? I'm thinking p200MMX with diamond stealth + voodoo2 and soundblaster AWE64 + roland SCC-1? Sounds delightful. 😀

I can upload the drivers, I'll be glad to help. It comes with a floppy and a CD, do you want both? And I'm from Belgium actually.

j'ordos wrote:

I can upload the drivers, I'll be glad to help. It comes with a floppy and a CD, do you want both? And I'm from Belgium actually.

Yes, we want the whole package. Also please scan the floppy and CD so we have pictures of the design 😀 I try to do that on all my uploads like these two:
CD: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=549
Floppy: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=551

j'ordos wrote:

Thanks for the advice about the SLI setup. I realize the processor speeds are all pretty close together and there's probably is a lot of overlap. Unfortunately I don't have any better pentium II CPUs. They do have different sound setups and with the diamond stealth s220 on the pentium2 I have support for rendition games too... Maybe it's a better idea to combine the pentium 1 & 2? I'm thinking p200MMX with diamond stealth + voodoo2 and soundblaster AWE64 + roland SCC-1? Sounds delightful. 😀

I can upload the drivers, I'll be glad to help. It comes with a floppy and a CD, do you want both? And I'm from Belgium actually.

If you want you can imaging the cd to ISO file, and floppy also try to get a image with winimage.. Both you can upload them to vogonsdrivers.com so other people can also have a benefit to can download those drivers.

I need some help. I want to use my 486 boards in an ATX case with an ATX power supply. I bought this converter cable from ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/270818956893?ssPageNa … 984.m1497.l2649 but I don't know how I can attach the power button. I take it that 3pin power cable is somehow needed for it. Can anyone help me out? Thanks a lot!

Does nobody know?

Robin4 wrote:

Hello,

Your pentium II 333mhz system is really to slow for voodoo 2 in SLI. Some guy(s) here attended my on the same fact that running an SLI config on a pentium II 400mhz would be bottlenecked by the processor.

Can see your point if running 640x480 (maybe 800x600) or lower. But if he uses upwards of 1024x768 or higher, I don't see the 333mhz pentium ii really bottlenecking. If he uses a 160-180hz monitor and games at 640x480, then you're probably right.

j'ordos wrote:

I need some help. I want to use my 486 boards in an ATX case with an ATX power supply. I bought this converter cable from ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/270818956893?ssPageNa … 984.m1497.l2649 but I don't know how I can attach the power button. I take it that 3pin power cable is somehow needed for it. Can anyone help me out? Thanks a lot!

The ATX PSU powers up when the green wire (PS_ON) is connected to the ground... Just locate which wire is connected to PS_ON and which is grounded, than connect those two to a button.

There is always an easy solution: permanently connect PS-ON and GND on ATX part of the adapter and plug the computer throught one of these:

This way whenever you supply the voltage, the PC starts. More like a real AT, I would say 😀

Considering V2 SLI on PII-333... Whatever makes you happy 😀 When it comes to 3D stuff there will always be games that require some extra 100MHz to run perfectly. It's equally true for Pentium 166MMX, PII-233, PIII-600, PIIIs-1400. So just have fun and forget about all these guys saying you're wasting your Voodoo power.

Take a look at my 65 page Voodoo 2 (and SLI) processor scaling project: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/94628483/ … g%20project.pdf

Even at 1024 x 768 a lot frames are lost with a slow Pentium II.

However a Dechutes Pentium II would be quite decent.

I'm pretty sure it is about the 100 MHz FSB. Make sure your CPU has this.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Take a look at my 65 page Voodoo 2 (and SLI) processor scaling project: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/94628483/ … g%20proj […]
Show full quote

Take a look at my 65 page Voodoo 2 (and SLI) processor scaling project: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/94628483/ … g%20project.pdf

Even at 1024 x 768 a lot frames are lost with a slow Pentium II.

However a Dechutes Pentium II would be quite decent.

I'm pretty sure it is about the 100 MHz FSB. Make sure your CPU has this.

Well, PII-333 is a Deschutes core to start with.

RacoonRider wrote:

Well, PII-333 is a Deschutes core to start with.

It seems it runs on 66 MHz front side bus. This will reduce performance quite a bit 😢