Classic.

In my case, the K6-2 (non-plus) and card with USB 2.0 and NEC chip caused a noticeable drop in performance on the board with Aladdin V. I had to replace it with Opti USB 1.1.

Very nice build, congrats! 😀

Ydee wrote on 2022-06-06, 12:06:

In my case, the K6-2 (non-plus) and card with USB 2.0 and NEC chip caused a noticeable drop in performance on the board with Aladdin V. I had to replace it with Opti USB 1.1.

I was about to write that too. It doesn't matter the CPU (plus or non-plus), the performance hit can be pretty extreme.

So, two things to improve performance:
- get rid of the USB 2.0 card
- go with 128 MB of RAM instead of 384 (with a K6-2+, performance is degraded by ~5 - 10% when using more than 128 MB). And, realistically, 128MB is more than enough for a K6-2/3(+) build.

As for the PSU, not sure what "custom-rebuilt" means, but I would seriously consider going with a modern PSU + AT adapter. Those old PSUs were already very poorly designed + cheaply built, so after 20+ years they're just ticking timebombs waiting to go "KABOOM, RICO, KABOOM!". And when they do, other components (like the MB) are part of the usual collateral damage. 😀

bloodem wrote on 2022-06-06, 12:12:

As for the PSU, not sure what "custom-rebuilt" means, but I would seriously consider going with a modern PSU + AT adapter. Those old PSUs were already very poorly designed + cheaply built, so after 20+ years they're just ticking timebombs waiting to go "KABOOM, RICO, KABOOM!". And when they do, other components (like the MB) are part of the usual collateral damage. 😀

Electrically it's an ESSUN branded PSU inside, not the original ASTI, which was much more crappier.

What I have done to it:

-replace all big caps - main caps, entire secondary side also replaced, all with newer caps - Rubycon mostly, though I had to resort to using some slightly less than ideal "Yang Chun" (Saturn logo) 470uF 16v caps in about two places because of the capacitor placement being a bit of an issue.
-upgrade rectifiers
-oiled the fan using bicycle oil -
-replaced most of the crummy molex wiring with new wires from two discarded Premier LC-C400ATX units
-upgraded secondary sillicon from the puny 8A on 12v and 16A on 5v - 5v now has 20A rectifier (would have gone with 30, but the silkscreen on the mobo and the holes don't allow for it.), and 12v has a 12A fast recovery rectifier.

So all in all, while not very substantial upgrades, I guess I have given it at least 10-15 more years worth of service. The only things I haven't done is upgrade the AC filtering side - I am out of safety approved Y capacitors (the disc kind of caps that go on the AC filtering) and I'm a bit confused as to how the common mode choke is currently wired - I want to change that one primarily because it's literally a candy coloured common mode choke that I doubt is very efficent. The only thing that's been changed was replacing the polypropylene film capacitor that was used as a X2 capacitor with an ACTUAL yellow X2 cap, and nothing else besides that.

This one was in a batch of about three PSUs that I had to fix. The third one still awaits parts, but the other two (this one and a Premier LC-8500BTX) I legitimately have spent about 6 hours or so (give or take) to completely make them decent units, especially the LC-8500BTX.

Ydee wrote on 2022-06-06, 12:06:

In my case, the K6-2 (non-plus) and card with USB 2.0 and NEC chip caused a noticeable drop in performance on the board with Aladdin V. I had to replace it with Opti USB 1.1.

Mine too. I had to revert to locating a header and using the built in USB 1.1

Strange, maybe it was a issue with Aladdin V chipset? Mine runs on VIA MVP3 and I never had issues with the NEC USB 2.0 card dropping performance.

PcBytes wrote on 2022-06-06, 13:19:

Strange, maybe it was a issue with Aladdin V chipset? Mine runs on VIA MVP3 and I never had issues with the NEC USB 2.0 card dropping performance.

No, the issues I'm referring to happened to me on multiple VIA MVP3 boards.
What benchmark numbers are you getting (GLQuake, Quake 2, Quake 2 software mode)?

I haven't tried benchmarking it yet (I'm not usually the person to run benchmarks and all that, just build and have fun playing games on it) , but so far I don't see any slowdowns in the 3D games (Monster Truck Madness 2, Tank Racer, NFS IV and Porsche 2000 are a few that come to mind, but from what I recall I have a lot more installed on it) I've been playing.

That, and I absolutely and postiviely cannot ditch the NEC card. USB1.1 is absolutely painful to use to transfer, especially when I need to copy large amounts of files (e.g Windows 98 and ME CDs, and generally anything that's in ISO/MDF format) from a pendrive to the HDD.

PcBytes wrote on 2022-06-06, 13:49:

I haven't tried benchmarking it yet (I'm not usually the person to run benchmarks and all that, just build and have fun playing games on it) , but so far I don't see any slowdowns in the 3D games (Monster Truck Madness 2, Tank Racer, NFS IV and Porsche 2000 are a few that come to mind, but from what I recall I have a lot more installed on it) I've been playing.

Ah, OK, it makes sense then. 😁 Still funny that you consider NFS Porsche playable on a SS7 build, though.
I mean, I'm not very picky about framerates in general, but playing NFS Porsche on a SS7 platform is a pain for me (even on a VERY overclocked K6-3+ build).

bloodem wrote on 2022-06-06, 12:12:

Very nice build, congrats! :-) […]
Show full quote

Very nice build, congrats! 😀

Ydee wrote on 2022-06-06, 12:06:

In my case, the K6-2 (non-plus) and card with USB 2.0 and NEC chip caused a noticeable drop in performance on the board with Aladdin V. I had to replace it with Opti USB 1.1.

I was about to write that too. It doesn't matter the CPU (plus or non-plus), the performance hit can be pretty extreme.

So, two things to improve performance:
- get rid of the USB 2.0 card
- go with 128 MB of RAM instead of 384 (with a K6-2+, performance is degraded by ~5 - 10% when using more than 128 MB). And, realistically, 128MB is more than enough for a K6-2/3(+) build.

As for the PSU, not sure what "custom-rebuilt" means, but I would seriously consider going with a modern PSU + AT adapter. Those old PSUs were already very poorly designed + cheaply built, so after 20+ years they're just ticking timebombs waiting to go "KABOOM, RICO, KABOOM!". And when they do, other components (like the MB) are part of the usual collateral damage. 😀

Good advice on the RAM. Nothing that will run acceptably on a SS7 should realistically use more than 128MB. Phis's test were hit and miss with the caching performance impact but I did notice about 5% better performance in most games when I removed the second 128MB stick in my PC. Mine is a crappy PC Chips M571 though, so the SiS chipset might show some differences from a more mainstream chipset.

PcBytes wrote on 2022-06-06, 13:49:

I haven't tried benchmarking it yet (I'm not usually the person to run benchmarks and all that, just build and have fun playing games on it) ...

If I remember correctly, in Sandra the reduced memory throughput was about 1/3 and in 3DM99 the score was about 800 compared to about 1200 on the same configuration, with only different USB cards. That was worth considering.
I bought the board (Gigabyte GA-5AA) without a USB bracket, hence the use of a PCI USB controller. The USB 1.1 speed is really not stunning, but I upload games and most apps to HDDs from DVD/CD-ROM, so I only have an occasional mouse or flash drive connected via USB.

bloodem wrote on 2022-06-06, 14:08:

PcBytes wrote on 2022-06-06, 13:49:

I haven't tried benchmarking it yet (I'm not usually the person to run benchmarks and all that, just build and have fun playing games on it) , but so far I don't see any slowdowns in the 3D games (Monster Truck Madness 2, Tank Racer, NFS IV and Porsche 2000 are a few that come to mind, but from what I recall I have a lot more installed on it) I've been playing.

Ah, OK, it makes sense then. 😁 Still funny that you consider NFS Porsche playable on a SS7 build, though.
I mean, I'm not very picky about framerates in general, but playing NFS Porsche on a SS7 platform is a pain for me (even on a VERY overclocked K6-3+ build).

Mine runs fine, haven't recorded framerate but it looked smooth enough in my experience. Then again, I didn't run it very high in quality - 800x600x16 (the max that the V3 supports AFAIK), rest of the settings were done by the game by default.

I've run it on a Matrox G200 as well and it was playable. The only card I've seen it literally become a slideshow mess was the original ATI Rage IIc AGP and Rage Pro Turbo based cards (including the Rage Pro AIW.), otherwise it ran playable on about any card I've had that wasn't based on Rage.

PcBytes wrote on 2022-06-06, 14:43:

bloodem wrote on 2022-06-06, 14:08:

PcBytes wrote on 2022-06-06, 13:49:

I haven't tried benchmarking it yet (I'm not usually the person to run benchmarks and all that, just build and have fun playing games on it) , but so far I don't see any slowdowns in the 3D games (Monster Truck Madness 2, Tank Racer, NFS IV and Porsche 2000 are a few that come to mind, but from what I recall I have a lot more installed on it) I've been playing.

Ah, OK, it makes sense then. 😁 Still funny that you consider NFS Porsche playable on a SS7 build, though.
I mean, I'm not very picky about framerates in general, but playing NFS Porsche on a SS7 platform is a pain for me (even on a VERY overclocked K6-3+ build).

Mine runs fine, haven't recorded framerate but it looked smooth enough in my experience. Then again, I didn't run it very high in quality - 800x600x16 (the max that the V3 supports AFAIK), rest of the settings were done by the game by default.

I've run it on a Matrox G200 as well and it was playable. The only card I've seen it literally become a slideshow mess was the original ATI Rage IIc AGP and Rage Pro Turbo based cards (including the Rage Pro AIW.), otherwise it ran playable on about any card I've had that wasn't based on Rage.

Voodoo 3 can do higher resolutions than a Voodoo 2 (even in SLI) but there are some games that will limit the resolution, I think due to the renderer, Quake II for example.

The max it can go, at least on my Samsung 32" TV I'm using, is 1024x768. Won't let me any higher than that on either 9x or 2000.

I'm not impressed ))

Instead of RTL8139 try something like 3COM905-TX. This will help offload the processor

CPU - K6-2+ 450ACZ @ 550MHz
MB - Soltek SL-54U5
RAM - 128 Mb SDRAM PC100 (2x64Mb) 2-2-2-5 / 4 way bank interleave
Case - no name
PSU - no name
ODD - LG CD-RW CED-8080B (not in the photo / photo before upgrade)
HDD - WD 40GB (not in the photo / photo before upgrade)
GPU - GF2MX400 32MB 128bit AGP 1X (not in the photo / photo before upgrade)
LAN - 3COM905-TX (not in the photo / photo before upgrade)
USB - on board (not in the photo / photo before upgrade)
SB - Creative AWE64
OS- Win98SE

ynopot wrote on 2022-06-06, 18:03:

I'm not impressed )) […]
Show full quote

I'm not impressed ))

Instead of RTL8139 try something like 3COM905-TX. This will help offload the processor

CPU - K6-2+ 450ACZ @ 550MHz
MB - Soltek SL-54U5
RAM - 128 Mb SDRAM PC100 (2x64Mb) 2-2-2-5 / 4 way bank interleave
Case - no name
PSU - no name
ODD - LG CD-RW CED-8080B (not in the photo / photo before upgrade)
HDD - WD 40GB (not in the photo / photo before upgrade)
GPU - GF2MX400 32MB 128bit AGP 1X (not in the photo / photo before upgrade)
LAN - 3COM905-TX (not in the photo / photo before upgrade)
USB - on board (not in the photo / photo before upgrade)
SB - Creative AWE64
OS- Win98SE

K6-2_INT_2021-08-09_19-15-25-758.jpg
K6-2_2021-08-10_13-00-50-104.jpg
K6-2_2021-08-10_13-00-49-825.jpg
test_550_GF2MX_1.jpg
shot0003.jpg

Not really apples to apples as the video card is entirely different.
But that is for sure a nice performing system.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2022-06-06, 18:09:

Not really apples to apples as the video card is entirely different.
But that is for sure a nice performing system.

Before that was ATI Rage 128 16Mb AGP

ynopot wrote on 2022-06-06, 18:03:

Instead of RTL8139 try something like 3COM905-TX. This will help offload the processor

I've had the 3C905-TX in a few previous builds (not necessarily listed here).
It's absolutely atrocious in download speeds compared to any other NIC card I've tried - even an Intel Pro 100 and the current RTL8139c download faster than that 3com.

PcBytes wrote on 2022-06-06, 19:41:

I've had the 3C905-TX in a few previous builds (not necessarily listed here).
It's absolutely atrocious in download speeds compared to any other NIC card I've tried - even an Intel Pro 100 and the current RTL8139c download faster than that 3com.

Before that, I had RTL8139 in this system. This is a software card. When the download speed from FTP reached 4 Mb / s, it slowed down my system. 3C905-TX is a hardware card with its own processor that helped me achieve better performance