Try memory bandwidth with Sandra...
You will have more efficient

Some more progress:

- Placed the side door fan on the lower grille and set it to take warm air out, now the Voodoo 3 can breathe easier 😊

- Got some round floppy and IDE cables from an old high school buddy with mixed results. The round floppy cables work great, but the IDE round cables appear to be defective (only one hard drive is detected, sometimes none); he took the IDE cables back and will let me know if he has any more.

- Found a 256mb PC133 SDRAM DIMM at my sister's home hidden in a shoebox ^^

Installed it in the last ram slot and now have 512mb (max amount the CUSL2-C can take). It's CAS3 ram though, so now memory timings have slowed down a bit.

Also found SiSoft Sandra 2001, ran the same benchmarks I did with Sandra 99 and got more realistic results.

At least now SiSoft Sandra knows what CPU I really have 😀

- Got some game timedemo results, all ran at 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768 16 bit color.

Quake

Quake 2

Unreal Gold

Also ran Doom and Doom 2 timedemos from DOS.

Doom
Timed 1710 gametics in 409 realtics = 146.33fps
Doom 2
Timed 1205 gametics in 324 realtics = 130.17fps

And just for fun I also ran this intense Doom 2 benchmark demo posted by noshutdown.

Doom 2 (128 sprite limit removed)
Timed 16726 gametics in 9742 realtics = 60.09fps

Now to continue installing some more games/applications and probably try out that 512mb SDRAM DIMM I found earlier.

This is a good build-- nice selection of parts too.
One quick note however regarding the motherboard-- ASUS decided to pull a Creative Labs and have a variety bin of capacitor selections (which is surprising since ASUS generally doesn't do that), near the CPU's regulation you'll see some OST capacitors (copper w/ black). Keep an eye on those as they could be problematic down the road. The Rubycons and Sanyos are A+.

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

- Got some game timedemo results, all ran at 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768 16 bit color.

...where's Quake 3? You do know Pentium3 + Voodoo3 + Quake3 = THE HOLY TRINITY, right? 😀

raymangold wrote:

This is a good build-- nice selection of parts too.
One quick note however regarding the motherboard-- ASUS decided to pull a Creative Labs and have a variety bin of capacitor selections (which is surprising since ASUS generally doesn't do that), near the CPU's regulation you'll see some OST capacitors (copper w/ black). Keep an eye on those as they could be problematic down the road. The Rubycons and Sanyos are A+.

Yes, I noticed that too. When I asked the seller about them, he told me they were original to the board and that it had never been recapped or modified in any way; the amount of dust in between the capacitors when I first looked at it seems to confirm this. Nevertheless, I will keep track of how the OST caps look and how the ASUS board behaves over time; if anything changes drastically, I'll take it out and have it serviced - unfortunately I lack the tools, skills and experience to do the recapping myself.

jwt27 wrote:

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

- Got some game timedemo results, all ran at 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768 16 bit color.

...where's Quake 3? You do know Pentium3 + Voodoo3 + Quake3 = THE HOLY TRINITY, right? 😀

I did hear that phrase mentioned before. And while the Pentium 3 and Voodoo 3 sit well with me, Quake 3 does not - finding out in late 1999 that id Software had chosen multiplayer-focused gameplay for Q3 was (and still is) a big turnoff for me 😒 . I'm just not into multiplayer gaming (I vastly prefer single player), and buying Quake 3 just to play against bots hardly seems worth it. Had id done something like the single-player campaign of Return to Castle Wolfenstein then I probably would have bought Quake 3 (maybe there is a total conversion mod out there that I don't know about, I haven't really looked for one 😊 ).

jwt27 wrote:

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

- Got some game timedemo results, all ran at 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768 16 bit color.

...where's Quake 3? You do know Pentium3 + Voodoo3 + Quake3 = THE HOLY TRINITY, right? 😀

You forgot the most important thing 😀 You need MesaFX to unleash the power!
All the OpenGL needs to be translated into plain glide for the Voodoo, because that is what she is "fluent" the most with 😁

Arctic wrote:

You need MesaFX to unleash the power!

Voodoo3 just installs 3dfxogl.dll as the system OGL driver ("HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\OpenGLDrivers" in the Xp). As the result all OGL calls are translated to glide calls. 3rd-party software isn't needed.

Gamecollector wrote:

Arctic wrote:

You need MesaFX to unleash the power!

Voodoo3 just installs 3dfxogl.dll as the system OGL driver ("HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\OpenGLDrivers" in the Xp). As the result all OGL calls are translated to glide calls. 3rd-party software isn't needed.

AFAIK the chip is capable of rendering OpenGL, Direct3D and Glide. Yes it is not "needed". But it greatly improves performance!
If you use MesaFX as a wrapper you will be getting about 30-40% more frames than with the standard 3dfx OpenGL driver. Benchmark it and you will see. I couldnt believe it myself.
I am using AmigaMerlin 2.9 on Windows98SE with the latest MesaFX from 3dfxzone.it.

It is really easy, you basically have to put the glide3x.dll (I think that was the right name) into C:\Windows\System32 and then the MesaFX "OpenGL.dll" into the directory of your OpenGL game.

You can tell by the framerate or if the "driver info" in the options menu (of quake 3 and quake 3 games) says "MesaFX 6.02, brian paul etc"

IIRC there wasn't much difference between Mesa and the official opengl32.dll in Quake3, but I may be mistaken. Mesa did allow me to play UT2004 on a lan party once...

Got word yesterday that my Soyo P4 board is fixed and making its way back home, and now have to find another ATX case for the ASUS CUSL2-C; looks like it's time to bring out the "ugly duckling" Enermax CS-A1QX-02 from storage and get another PSU (maybe a second Seasonic SS400-ET 😁 ).

Now that my Soyo P4 board is back and ready to go, I've dug up the Enermax case from storage:

Not as bad-looking as I expected, but still an "ugly duckling" 😊 . I don't remember leaving a PSU with it, though; time to open it up and see.

Oh great, it's the $19.00 "el cheapo" special 😵 . I was sure I let Mr. Baseball Bat have its way with it, but I must have taken the other cheap PSU, a Powmax 400-watt unit, to an early grave (not that the Powmax deserved any less 😈 ). No matter, I'll take it out and set it aside for another "useful" purpose ^^.

Now to clean this case up (it's dusty inside) and transfer the CUSL2-C, Voodoo 3, TB Santa Cruz, Belkin USB2 card and both Seagate hard drives in it. I already have a spare 3.5 floppy drive and Sony DVD-ROM on hand, and will order another Seasonic PSU. The Soyo P4 board will go back inside the Elite 330U with different PC hardware than before (most likely).

While digging out the Enermax case I found this old Socket A CPU cooler:

I vaguely remember using it with my Athlon T-Bird and Abit KT7A build, and turns out to be a Fanner/Spire 5E34B3-H; the copper surface is also heavily scratched and worn. Still, I'll see if it fits the CUSL2-C and works any better than the original Intel CPU cooler.

Finished the transfer, now the CUSL2-C and its buddies are sitting comfortably in their new home ^^.

Here's a comparison of the Intel Socket 370 and Fanner/Spire Socket A CPU coolers. The size difference is very evident:

Available space for the Fanner/Spire was tight, but I managed to clip it in place with some room to spare 😊 :

I also replaced the three PC-133 SDRAM sticks with one 512mb PC-133 DIMM I had found earlier, just to see if it works and how it performs.

With that done, the CUSL2-C board and all related parts were placed inside the Enermax case, along with a new Seasonic SS-350ET PSU (and yes, even with round floppy and hard drive cables my cable management skills still suck 😒 ):

The case front and side panels don't look too bad, but the interior and back looks ugly - faded, rusty, stained in places. But it's the only ATX case I have at present, so it will have to do until I can get a better one. Overall cooling is also marginal, so I'll probably run it with the component side panel removed (a vain attempt, I know, but it's better than closing it all up 😜 ).

Of course, since a Voodoo 3 is installed an appropriate case badge has to be in place as well 😁 :

EDIT - Just finished a quick test run. The Fanner/Spire Socket A cooler works, and CPU temp now hovers around 32-33 C when idle. The Sony DVD-ROM and floppy work as well, and all voltages look normal with the Seasonic 350 watt PSU. The 512mb PC-133 stick did not work as expected, only 256mb is recognized (a sign that the CUSL2-C doesn't like this particular high density DIMM); the previous 128mb & 256mb DIMMs went back in the slots. Will do some more CPU temp checks with the case fully closed next.

Nice System!!
I think I have the same Spire Cooler lying around. My CPU currently has 40°C in idle with the crappy P3 866 cooler.

I have 2x256MB PC133 CL2 2-3-2 (the memory is actually PC133 CL3) running on a TUSL2-C. I don't know if a 512MB module works.
My system has issues with some games and win98. That's why I am going to downgrade to BIOS 1012

I hope those infos are helpful 😀

I don't think the Enermax looks bad,from design point of view, I've seen far uglier .
I have kept away from Spire coolers, since back in 2004, i chiped a Duron 1300 and scratched a brand new Epox nforce 2 ultra 400 motherboard , rendering both useless, while trying to take the cpu off to replace thermal paste on it, that retention clip was so unflexible u had a hard time pushing it down to unlock it, also combined with the fact that u had tight space inside the case, my screwdriver sliped, end of story.

Arctic wrote:

I think I have the same Spire Cooler lying around. My CPU currently has 40°C in idle with the crappy P3 866 cooler.

Mine was about the same with the P3 800 and stock Intel cooler. I almost forgot I had the Fanner/Spire cooler in my spare parts bin, it's been soooo long since I last saw it 😅

I have 2x256MB PC133 CL2 2-3-2 (the memory is actually PC133 CL3) running on a TUSL2-C. I don't know if a 512MB module works.
My system has issues with some games and win98. That's why I am going to downgrade to BIOS 1012

Something tells me a 512mb DIMM may not work, since the TUSL2-C has almost the same i815 chipset (it just lacks integrated graphics). I haven't had any issues with games so far, but still have quite a few to install and configure (memory timings are also kept at defaults, I prefer not to tweak them).

Nahkri wrote:

I don't think the Enermax looks bad,from design point of view, I've seen far uglier .

You're probably right, it does look decent overall (and has quite a bit more room inside than I remember ^^)

I have kept away from Spire coolers, since back in 2004, i chiped a Duron 1300 and scratched a brand new Epox nforce 2 ultra 400 motherboard , rendering both useless, while trying to take the cpu off to replace thermal paste on it, that retention clip was so unflexible u had a hard time pushing it down to unlock it, also combined with the fact that u had tight space inside the case, my screwdriver sliped, end of story.

It is difficult to clip the Fanner/Spire cooler properly inside the case and have seen others damage their CPUs/motherboards the same way, so I did it the safe way - outside the case and with memory slots empty. If I have to remove it I'll just take the CUSL2-C out of the case (a pain in the neck, I know, but also the only way to avoid a potential disaster).

The tweaking of the timings gave me around 10-15% more memory bandwith.
I will make a test with the FSB cranked up to 166 😀 (with good RAM)

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

http://i.imgur.com/oP1KOmVm.png […]
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That bigger socket-A heatsink with side slots and larger fan will also cool better that bunch of caps to the left, making their life easier. In fact replacing that slim fan with a fatter 80 or 92mm wouldn't harm. 😀

Some DIY heatsinks laid on those two VRMs to the south of the light blue toroid inductor wouldn't harm either.

TELVM wrote:

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

http://i.imgur.com/oP1KOmVm.png […]
Show full quote

That bigger socket-A heatsink with side slots and larger fan will also cool better that bunch of caps to the left, making their life easier. In fact replacing that slim fan with a fatter 80 or 92mm wouldn't harm. 😀

Some DIY heatsinks laid on those two VRMs to the south of the light blue toroid inductor wouldn't harm either.

You read my mind, I've been looking at my collection of fans and found a couple of 80mm that might work. Time to give them a shot ^^

And those DIY heatsinks do look nice; I'll see what I can come up with.

Tried to replace the original Spire cooler fan with either of the two 80mm fans I found and couldn't do it; the fans are just too big. Even a jerry-rig attempt with tie wires failed - the fan hangs too precariously loose for comfort. I'll have to rethink this idea.

On top of that, the Seagate 80gb Barracuda hard drive failed as well (it won't read anything anymore, it just tries over and over). At least it wasn't a surprise since I noticed odd behavior for the past 2 days, so I made a backup while it still worked. I did find some small heatsinks here that could fit on top of the VRMs; I'll probably order a few to try out.

With the 80gb Seagate drive failure I've made the decision to end this phase of the Understudy. While I couldn't test all the games I wanted with the Voodoo 3, the ones I did manage to play (Quake, Quake 2, Half-Life, Opposing Force, Blue Shift, Unreal, RTCW, Diablo 2, Doom Legacy) showed me that, while it does work well enough, it's just not a good match for this build; I'll replace it with a GF2 GTS I got from eBay a while back. The P3 800EB will also be replaced with a P3 1GHz, and there will be a 3dfx card in there as well - two of them, in fact 😊 . The Voodoo 3 will not sit idle for too long either - I have a future Slot 1 build in the planning stages that will be its new home.

For now, I'll briefly reconfigure this build for a quick Doom 3 timedemo run, then rebuild it with the new set of hardware. I'll create a new thread once I'm done 😀

I hope you didn't pay that much to fix your board. Whoever fixed it did not replace all the caps that need replacing.