I used once the ST6-RAID mobo with a Pentium III-S 1.4 - probably my favourite platform.

Nice work, swaaye! 😀

Agree with GL1zdA, the ST6 Raid rocks..that board is used in my Tualatin system...rock solid with a P3 Tualatin 1.4 @ 1.6ghz 😀

@swaaye

You've used the ST6 Raid photo on the plain ST6 too 😉

I am testing a slot 1 Abit AB-BX6 (revision 1.0) mobo. (Apparently there are 2 revisions of this board: 1.0 and 2.0.) It came with a P2-266 CPU. The details written on this CPU are -

B80522P266512 SL2OB
98110791-0407 MALAY

There are 4 DIMM slots, and I think the limit of each is 128MB. There are no jumpers on this board, except for the "clear CMOS". I flashed the BIOS, from a 1998 datestamp revision to a 02/21/2000 revision. The BIOS set up area allows you to set the CPU as high as a P3-800, because a multiplier of 8x and an FSB of 100 is allowed. It also allows you to overclock the FSB to 112 or 133.

Also within the BIOS set up area, you can alter the core voltage from 1.3v to 3.2v. Wow, I don't think I've seen something like that before.

I am going to remove the P2 CPU (and its scafolding), and see if it works with a powerleap adapter..

440BX can run up to 1GB of RAM. You should be able to run 4x256MB DIMMs as long as they are 16 chip DIMMs. 440BX can't handle high-density RAM chips that came out later.

Does it depend on the mobo and also its BIOS? Before I flashed the BIOS, I tried 2 sticks of 256MB (512MB total), and I got no POST. I removed these 2 sticks, and replaced them with 2 x 128MB (256MB total), and the mobo POSTed OK. Now that I have flashed the BIOS, I could retry the 256MB sticks again..

The following 2 images are taken from the online manual, DL'd from Abit's website. It says that the total system memory is 512MB, but I think these manuals are often out of date, and either a BIOS update and/or a PCB revision update can "supercede" the technical details found in them.

I am still looking for a full size ATX with BX chipset, Slot-1 x10 and overclockers Bios. The AGP should be strong enough for a Voodoo3 3000 or better. 1xISA is a must, 2x would be nice.

Anyone knows which ABIT (or other) would qualify?

ux-3 wrote:

I am still looking for a full size ATX with BX chipset, Slot-1 x10 and overclockers Bios. The AGP should be strong enough for a Voodoo3 3000 or better. 1xISA is a must, 2x would be nice.

Anyone knows which ABIT (or other) would qualify?

You might wanna have a look at this chart.. Even though it is incomplete.

The Abit manual (2 pages seen above) must be out of date, because I retried my 2 sticks of 256MB (512MB total) in 2 of the 4 DIMM slots, and it worked OK. Memtest version 3.5 reports the speed as 192 MB/s.

I'm having a problem with this board - when the win98 desktop appears, it keeps telling me that it could not detect the mouse in the PS/2 port. Usually, if I reboot, the mouse is then detected. If I switch off power, then restart, most times the mouse is not found again. Unfortunately, I don't have a 2nd mouse to test ATM. However, I've just bought a cheap replacement on ebay for some more testing...

I ave 4 Abit boards, 3 of which are in service.
-Abit TX-5 socket 7 in my Win95 P200mmx rig
-Abit BH6 slot 1 complete like new that was in my Win98 P600 rig
-Abit BX6 r2 slot 1 in my Win98 p600 rig
-Abit IP35-E in my current rig running a E5200 @ 4.0ghz.

I guess you could say I'm a Abit fan. 😜

bushwack wrote:

I have 4 Abit boards, 3 of which are in service. -Abit TX-5 socket 7 in my Win95 P200mmx rig -Abit BH6 slot 1 complete like new […]
Show full quote

I have 4 Abit boards, 3 of which are in service.
-Abit TX-5 socket 7 in my Win95 P200mmx rig
-Abit BH6 slot 1 complete like new that was in my Win98 P600 rig
-Abit BX6 r2 slot 1 in my Win98 p600 rig
-Abit IP35-E in my current rig running a E5200 @ 3.9ghz.

I guess you could say I'm a Abit fan. 😜

Re: BX6 r2 mobo, with p600 - do you find the 600mhz hits the sweet spot with your retro games? Are you ever tempted to increase the CPU to something a bit faster, eg 800mhz, or perhaps use a Powerleap adapter?

@bushwack: Could you perhaps briefly state how your BX boards would match my criteria above? Thanks.

So none of your 256meg sticks work, RG100? And they are 16 chip DIMMs?

I suppose it's possible that the board doesn't support them... My Abit BF6 runs with 3x256MB though (it has 3 DIMM slots). More DIMMs means less overclockability though, and less tight timings usually.

swaaye wrote:

So none of your 256meg sticks work, RG100? And they are 16 chip DIMMs?

I suppose it's possible that the board doesn't support them... My Abit BF6 runs with 3x256MB though (it has 3 DIMM slots). More DIMMs means less overclockability though, and less tight timings usually.

Yep, they do now. 😀 I flashed the BIOS (from circa 1998 to circa 2000), and all systems go!

dude i shoved 512 in an old dell mobo that was rated for 384mb, but congratz i love maxing out old hardware and recycling as xp based systems.

retro games 100 wrote:

bushwack wrote:

I have 4 Abit boards, 3 of which are in service. -Abit TX-5 socket 7 in my Win95 P200mmx rig -Abit BH6 slot 1 complete like new […]
Show full quote

I have 4 Abit boards, 3 of which are in service.
-Abit TX-5 socket 7 in my Win95 P200mmx rig
-Abit BH6 slot 1 complete like new that was in my Win98 P600 rig
-Abit BX6 r2 slot 1 in my Win98 p600 rig
-Abit IP35-E in my current rig running a E5200 @ 3.9ghz.

I guess you could say I'm a Abit fan. 😜

Re: BX6 r2 mobo, with p600 - do you find the 600mhz hits the sweet spot with your retro games? Are you ever tempted to increase the CPU to something a bit faster, eg 800mhz, or perhaps use a Powerleap adapter?

I mostly just play Voodoo2 class games with it so actually the Celeron 300A @ 450 I had in it a few months ago was sufficient. I put the 600 in just for fun. I also have a 533A that will do 800 just fine from back in the day but I like to keep the system circa 1999, plus the 533a will void my warranty.

@ux-3: sorry I completely over-looked your post and was just trying to hijack another one of swaaye's threads.

In Swaaye's O.P., there's a strange looking 403 error message in the gallery link.

Well the icons seems off, but the gallery is there once you click it...

gerwin wrote:

Well the icons seems off, but the gallery is there once you click it...

Oh yes, that's good! 😁 I wanted to check something about the layout of two of the BH6 boards...

fixed. I accidentally deleted the big overview image on Imageshack. When you link to a deleted Imageshack image it gives you that 403 copyright deleted stuff.