VOGONS


First post, by DeathRabbit679

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So I think over time I've come to realize that I lucked the hell out when I found my uncle's old PC in my grandfather's basement last year. It was a desktop style Gateway p5-75 on the outside but inside it had an abit ab-tx5 mainboard with a pentium 166mmx and 96 megs of sdram. I threw an s3 virge, voodoo1 and ymf719 card in there and it's quickly become my favorite machine.

The ab-tx5 seems to be a really neat flexible baby AT that can take simms or dimms, an AT or ATX PSU (which I didn't know was a thing), and has a soft menu for overclocking and an all around pleasant to use BIOS. It is however approaching 30 yrs old, and I'm starting to get worried so I looked for a replacement and this exact board seems to be unobtainium. I'd like to have another roughly equivalent board on hand so I can cram all the components I've got into a new one in case of emergency.

So I'm curious, does anyone have a recommendation for a replacement board to try and score in case this one dies, be it another abit or really any other brand? For all I know I'm wrong and this board is crap compared to others, I was a little kid playing duke3d on whatever system he could when socket 7 was new, didn't really start learning about building machines until 2001, so I'm learning all this details stuff about older 90s stuff as I go. But the rarity of it makes me think it probably is a gem, atx only version is for sale on ebay for like 400 friggin bux. Anyways, thanks for reading this somewhat rambling post.

Reply 1 of 10, by Babasha

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It looks like your board is high-quality but usual 430TX AT/ATX motherboard. Pls post a photo of overclock page in your BIOS and i think what maybe spare alternative for your mobo.

Need help? Begin with photo and model of your hardware 😉

Reply 2 of 10, by Repo Man11

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Jan has a patched BIOS for using K6-2/3+ CPUs with that motherboard if you should ever want to use one: http://www.steunebrink.info/k6plus.htm

"I'd rather be rich than stupid" - Jack Handey

Reply 3 of 10, by rmay635703

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For 300mhz and lower you really can’t beat an Intel HX or TX motherboard (yes you can usually overclock and eak out 500mhz)

For pc100 things get more complex with a trade off of the higher performance boards also having janky drivers and AGP

I stayed in the Super7 era more than most and many very late boards were in the really bad cap era . I usually used the low end all in ones which oddly enough while quirky were pretty reliable despite being slow.

Reply 4 of 10, by DeathRabbit679

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Babasha wrote on 2023-10-05, 05:42:

It looks like your board is high-quality but usual 430TX AT/ATX motherboard. Pls post a photo of overclock page in your BIOS and i think what maybe spare alternative for your mobo.

Sure thing will do.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2023-10-05, 13:37:

Jan has a patched BIOS for using K6-2/3+ CPUs with that motherboard if you should ever want to use one: http://www.steunebrink.info/k6plus.htm

Oh nice, yeah I wondered about that being possible. I have never used an AMD from that era, I've used Athlons and one of their suped up 486s when I was younger but nothing from the time in between.

Reply 5 of 10, by DeathRabbit679

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Pics of the soft menu, has a number of presets you can choose, then you can go wildin with your own settings (sorry for the crappy crt photos)

20231005-223646.jpg
20231005-223639.jpg

Reply 6 of 10, by Sphere478

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The coolest socket 7 motherboard that you’ve never heard of

The soft overclocking is present but I’ve never gotten it to work well.

But this is my all time favorite socket 7 mobo

Next to the non overclockable tyan s1564D (see sig)

Sphere's PCB projects.
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Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
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SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
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Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 7 of 10, by DeathRabbit679

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I'd need ISA. That tyan board does look nice, even the single cpu version, but I suppose I'd have to "git gud" to desolder and replace that dallas/odin with a socket to add in a replacement. I suck with a desoldering pump. Or rather I don't haha

Reply 8 of 10, by Babasha

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DeathRabbit679 wrote on 2023-10-06, 03:39:
Pics of the soft menu, has a number of presets you can choose, then you can go wildin with your own settings (sorry for the crap […]
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Pics of the soft menu, has a number of presets you can choose, then you can go wildin with your own settings (sorry for the crappy crt photos)

20231005-223646.jpg
20231005-223639.jpg

Tnx! Nice OC (SoftMenu) BIOS!
If you need such possibilities... so you need to find Abit mobo
If you need just normal tested and quality mobo as reserve they are available for $30-50 usually.

Need help? Begin with photo and model of your hardware 😉

Reply 9 of 10, by Sphere478

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DeathRabbit679 wrote on 2023-10-06, 06:11:

I'd need ISA. That tyan board does look nice, even the single cpu version, but I suppose I'd have to "git gud" to desolder and replace that dallas/odin with a socket to add in a replacement. I suck with a desoldering pump. Or rather I don't haha

I’m recalling it was socketed on all mine

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 10 of 10, by DeathRabbit679

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Sphere478 wrote on 2023-10-06, 15:04:
DeathRabbit679 wrote on 2023-10-06, 06:11:

I'd need ISA. That tyan board does look nice, even the single cpu version, but I suppose I'd have to "git gud" to desolder and replace that dallas/odin with a socket to add in a replacement. I suck with a desoldering pump. Or rather I don't haha

I’m recalling it was socketed on all mine

Oh wow, that's nice. A lot more sensical of a design that way