Sphere478 wrote on 2023-02-28, 02:52:

Yay!!! No de lidding! […]
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Yay!!! No de lidding!

Okay, so I love me some scsi, I really do, but. What about a cached sata pci-x card hooked to 2.5” to sata m.2 sticks? Wouldn’t that be faster?
Here is an idea: supposedly these are among the fastest for pci. (There are ways to run cards like this in a agp port at 66mhz 32-bit btw.)
Areca ARC-1160 PCI-X 16 Port 64-Bit 133MHz10B71962-E24B-454E-AC96-7D687042BB69.jpeg

Re: AGP to PCI adapters - any PCB designers here willing to make one?

I know you don’t have agp but interesting figured I’d add.

The next system that I want to build after this one is a Pentium 4 with RDRAM, a card such as this will be excellent for that build! 😀

I've just installed the Matrox Millennium II and the two Canopus Pure3D II Voodoo 2's and it's running terribly!!!

I installed the Pure 3D II driver for Windows 2000/XP

Admittedly there's currently only 128MB of RAM installed in the system, but it still shouldn't run this badly in my opinion! (I will end up installing 4x128MB SIMMS)

I'm currently reinstalling XP, but any inputs would be welcome! (I tested it using Quake II and it did run in 3dfxgl, but badly!)

Another thing that I noticed that the two cards are assigned an IRQ of N/A in the BIOS and they don't show up in the device manager in Windows XP, but the driver picks them up properly and they initialise properly as windows starts!?

Funny enough there's little to no blurring and no loss of brightness when running 1280 x 1024 through the VGA passthrough circuitry on the Voodoo 2 setup!

As for the LED's and fans on the cards, they only come on as the cards initialise as windows starts and when the cards fire up, as you start Quake II.

A pci-x parhelia would be cool on this build?

Xp is a bit too new, imho. I'd try 2000. If you are dead set on XP, try a stripped down version.

luckybob wrote on 2023-02-28, 21:51:

Xp is a bit too new, imho. I'd try 2000. If you are dead set on XP, try a stripped down version.

Rtm. Would be a good one. Personally I hate those ‘lite’ versions they are always missing something you seem to need.

This motherboard just wouldn't play along with the Voodoo2's!!! 🙁

So I removed the Voodoo5 from my "EPIC Single Socket 8" build and inserted the Matrox G450 and the Two Voodoo2, as I needed to test them and prove to the seller that they do indeed work!

Here's theQuake II Time Demo result of this move:

So now I'm now going to try and see if I can get the Voodoo5 up and running in this build!!!!

The Voodoo5 unfortunately doesn't fire up on this motherboard at all! 🙁

SO IT'S UNFORTUNATELY NOT AN OPTION HERE EITHER!!!

I need to find something else exotic to stick into this thing!!!

Irinikus wrote on 2023-03-01, 19:37:

The Voodoo5 unfortunately doesn't fire up on this motherboard at all! 🙁

SO IT'S UNFORTUNATELY NOT AN OPTION HERE EITHER!!!

I need to find something else exotic to stick into this thing!!!

Think it might be a 3.3v problem?

Re: Adding 3.3v to pci adapter(Released)

Sphere478 wrote on 2023-03-01, 20:18:

Irinikus wrote on 2023-03-01, 19:37:

The Voodoo5 unfortunately doesn't fire up on this motherboard at all! 🙁

SO IT'S UNFORTUNATELY NOT AN OPTION HERE EITHER!!!

I need to find something else exotic to stick into this thing!!!

Think it might be a 3.3v problem?

Re: Adding 3.3v to pci adapter(Released)

Thanks for the input! 😀

This definitely needs some looking into!

The board probably needs a good recap , as it's getting pretty long in the tooth at this point!

Just for interest sake, this is how the Dynamic Pictures Oxygen 202 and the Voodoo5 5500 compare when placed side by side: (I will now plan to use the Voodoo5 in a dual PIII Xeon build in the future!)

My Corsair case, as well as the white plexiglass arrived today! (So I should hopefully have the motherboard mounted sometime next week!)

This how the setup currently looks. (I'm still waiting for the ICP RAID card to arrive from Germany and the Gravis Ultrasound to arrive from Hungary!)
I'm definitely going to have to figure something out as far as the graphics setup for this system goes!!!! (It's currently fitted with the Matrox Millennium II, which at least allows me to run XP, but without any hardware accelerated 3D! 🙁 )

I need to find some kind of exotic workstation card which will be compatible with this board (Maybe the Oxygen 202's bigger brother the 402!!!), but I would then be limited to running Windows NT4 on the system! 🙁

I'm still following this thread. I feel sorry for the P8+P9 connectors haha, that's some serious power. In terms of current and performance.
Who needs EPS-, P4-, AUX-, PCIe 4+4 connectors... 😉

And yes, hard choices have to be made when picking hardware. I'm in the same boat when choosing a sound card for my DOS rig, so I inserted three.

One thing I can say is that the Chaintech board that I'm using in the single socket 8 build is an excellent motherboard! It's far better than this ASUS setup!!! (It runs any card that I slot into it!!!)

This is a pretty rare and cool looking ASUS board, but in actual fact it's pretty crappy!!! 🙁 (I certainly wouldn't suggest it!)

At this point I have no choice but to push on and make something out of it!

Due to the issues I've encountered concerning Graphics Options for this build, I've decided to tame my expectations slightly!: ( So it will be running Windows NT4 SP6)

And hopefully consist of the following components: (As long as compatibility allows, of cause!)

ASUS P/I-P65UP5 Baseboard with a C-P6ND CPU card:

Dynamic Pictures Oxygen 202: (Workstation Graphics from 1996/7)

ICP GDT6538RD SCSI RAID Disk Array Controller: (Driving two Hitachi UltraStar 15K73 SCSI Hard Disks in RAID 0)

ASUS PCI-AS300 MediaBus card:

Gravis Ultrasound plug&play version 3:

For this build I now want to make use of a period specific case capable of housing this strange, but cool-looking motherboard! (The limiting factor is the length and position of the CPU Card!)

ANY SUGGESTIONS FOR A PERIOD SPECIFIC CASE FOR THIS BUILD ARE WELCOME! (And would be much appreciated!)

I'm considering the following cases for this build, as they'll accommodate the CPU card. (This Motherboard presents a problem when it comes to cases which can actually accommodate it! THE CPU CARD WASN'T THE BEST OF IDEAS, as most cases feature drive bays in the area where the CPU card would sit!!!!!)

It will more than likely end up by being the Gateway, as I can keep an active search going for a suitable one, as I know what it is, whereas the other case is a generic.

These are the components that will comprise this system, there is a bit of damage to one of the plastic surrounds on one of the 52-pin SCSI sockets on the ICP RAID CARD, so I may get all four of these sockets replaced with matching new ones! (I like things to be as perfect as they can be!)

I tested the RAID card in my Dual PIII system and it does work properly!

Seeing that I've had so many problems with this board concerning expansion card (especially graphics card) compatibility, I carried out a search for the latest BIOS revision for this Baseboard CPU Card combination and found this:

So the latest BIOS revision was released in 1998 and my current BIOS revision was released in 1996 according to this picture that the seller I purchased the board from originally sent me!

The system isn't currently in an assembled state, so I'll flash the BIOS once I have it in an appropriate case! (I've downloaded aflash221, if someone has a suggestion for better flash utility please let me know)

I'm really hoping that the latest BIOS revision will allow me to run the Voodoo5 5500 PCI card in this system! (As it simply refuses to initialise with the current BIOS revision!)

have you checked that v5500 in another system? quite a few of those cards are flashed with the macintosh bios. (and vise versa)

luckybob wrote on 2023-07-29, 21:35:

have you checked that v5500 in another system? quite a few of those cards are flashed with the macintosh bios. (and vise versa)

The Voodoo5 5500 works perfectly on my Pentium II overdrive system as well as in my Dual PIII Coppermine system. (So it's properly flashed for PC)

The BIOS currently installed on this board appears to be a rather early revision! (It wouldn't accept my Canopus VoodooII cards or the Matrox G450 either!)

It does accept the Oxygen 202 and the Matrox Millennium though!

I've created a bootable floppy using FreeDOS in Windows XP Professional on my "EPIC Socket 8" machine and I've copied The BIOS file "ND6I0218.AWD" and aflash221 to the disk, so all's ready for the BIOS flash from a Boot Disk point of view! (I now need to build the machine into a case!)

Here's a site featuring a wide selection of Awdflash versions, other than version 2.21, which I already have: (Which version found here would you most recommend for this job?)

https://www.wimsbios.com/awardflasher.jsp#gsc.tab=0

When the time comes, JP4 will have to be set to enable the BIOS flash:

This shows that there were indeed some crucial fixes to the BIOS for this board along the way: