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Hello - Resurrected an old compaq Deskpro EP 6350/4.3

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First post, by biohazardx9

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HI all

Been lurking in Vogons but now registered.

recently rescued the compaq Deskpro EP 6350, well shall we say the motherboard part since the case was nowhere to be seen.
Luckily as this board is ATX form factor (minus the IO sheild), I have successfully transplanted it into another case. The front panel works as it should too.

The only thing I need to find its the utility floppies and drivers for it (I have the bios setup ones), which are a little tricky. it uses the intel 440BX chipset, and has a nice PII 350 slotted in. seeing as it has isa slots, my plan is to make it a DOS PC. Been watching a youtube channel called 'phils computer lab' (I believe he lurks in these forums). His site has helped me with the chipset driver at least. That script kit to practically get dos up for gaming was a nice touch too.

this board uses the Compaq Restore CD version 2.6 (or earlier?), that's a hard one to locate. If I ever see it I'll dump it to the internet archive or somewhere. Would Vogons drivers allow such a CD? (I did read the rules but wasn't sure on drivers)

Interestingly the BIOS boots my HDD but actually doesn't show its cyl/head etc... Windows sees it as a generic Disk...

Ideal platform for dos games though, my live card is currently doing the sound.

Any tips/pointers for this build?

Reply 1 of 3, by chinny22

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Looks like a good start to a nice fast SVGA dos rig. What you thinking for dos and video?
Don't think you need to worry about the Compaq utilities, You have the bios that's the important one. The restore CD for example will just have boat and things like the same chipset drivers as what you got from Phil's page just an older version

Reply 3 of 3, by biohazardx9

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Many thanks guys! much appreciated.
I have an old fanless (Don't know the brand) Geforce MX440 (low profile, fanfless and purple) it works fine and despite it being an AGP8x card, it has the groves to allow it to slot in backwards compatiable AGP 2x, and does operate in such manner.
This is until I get something more around that time.

the HDD is too new for this PC so, going to put in a 4GB drive for now until I get one that does work properly.

Plan is to stick with 98 for DOS and windows for the early win games. Although I wouldn't mind another HDD for Dos 6.22 though.

when I have completed it I will upload pictures for you all.

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