Well over the weekend I built my Athlon 500 as listed in my signiture, it was quite a... heartbreaking journey really.

First I put the cpu, board and ram together and into the case then as I was hunting for a direct 3d card to pair with the voodoo 2's I found a TNT2 Ultra 32MB that I didn't know I had.
Installed the rest of the hardware and installed windows 98SE and thats where the problems started...

Firstly once the latest voodoo 2 reference drivers were installed the machine started locking up once it got to the desktop.
After quite some time of troubleshooting I found the following issues:
- I had forgotten about the issues with greater than 512mb of ram in win9x, I had installed 768mb.
- One of my three voodoo 2 cards had failed, one of them turned out to be an 8mb card and I didnt know it.
- Driver issues with the voodoo reference drivers caused instability.

So first thing was to resolve the memory issues, easy done.. took out 265mb of ram to bring it down to 512mb.

Second issue was a little bit more heartbreaking, I have 3 voodoo 2's of which 2 are 12mb versions and one I found was only an 8mb verstion.
The failed card is a bit unusual, when in the system on its own it is detected by windows and shows up in the device manager, but the tab under display properties for voodoo is not there and it is not available as a 3d accelerator. When paired with one of the other cards the tab under display properties appears but it errors out when you try to go to the tab.
So with the 12mb card and the 8mb card I was able to set up sli but found the performance is only marginally higher with sli over a single 12mb card.
3d Mark99 Max
8mb card - 2400ish
12mb card - 2750ish
12mb+8mb - 2850ish
Found that in SLI is drops the 12mb card back to an 8mb card.
I also replaced the reference drivers with the fastvoodoo2 4.6 drivers which appear to be faster and more stable.
The last thing I did with the system once I worked out all the issues I was having was to reinstall with Windows ME as it appeared to be more stable.
I am in the process of making a video of the build to upload to youtube.

i486_inside wrote:

a 387sx-25.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251383579986?_trksid= … K%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Awesome thanks! Just got myself one too.

jmannik wrote:

Well over the weekend I built my Athlon 500 as listed in my signiture, it was quite a... heartbreaking journey really. […]
Show full quote

Well over the weekend I built my Athlon 500 as listed in my signiture, it was quite a... heartbreaking journey really.

First I put the cpu, board and ram together and into the case then as I was hunting for a direct 3d card to pair with the voodoo 2's I found a TNT2 Ultra 32MB that I didn't know I had.
Installed the rest of the hardware and installed windows 98SE and thats where the problems started...

Firstly once the latest voodoo 2 reference drivers were installed the machine started locking up once it got to the desktop.
After quite some time of troubleshooting I found the following issues:
- I had forgotten about the issues with greater than 512mb of ram in win9x, I had installed 768mb.
- One of my three voodoo 2 cards had failed, one of them turned out to be an 8mb card and I didnt know it.
- Driver issues with the voodoo reference drivers caused instability.

So first thing was to resolve the memory issues, easy done.. took out 265mb of ram to bring it down to 512mb.

Second issue was a little bit more heartbreaking, I have 3 voodoo 2's of which 2 are 12mb versions and one I found was only an 8mb verstion.
The failed card is a bit unusual, when in the system on its own it is detected by windows and shows up in the device manager, but the tab under display properties for voodoo is not there and it is not available as a 3d accelerator. When paired with one of the other cards the tab under display properties appears but it errors out when you try to go to the tab.
So with the 12mb card and the 8mb card I was able to set up sli but found the performance is only marginally higher with sli over a single 12mb card.
3d Mark99 Max
8mb card - 2400ish
12mb card - 2750ish
12mb+8mb - 2850ish
Found that in SLI is drops the 12mb card back to an 8mb card.
I also replaced the reference drivers with the fastvoodoo2 4.6 drivers which appear to be faster and more stable.
The last thing I did with the system once I worked out all the issues I was having was to reinstall with Windows ME as it appeared to be more stable.
I am in the process of making a video of the build to upload to youtube.

That's a sad story - although that's the first time I've ever heard of someone installing Me and finding it to be more stable! You *can* get Windows 98SE to work stably with 768MB of RAM in some systems; my Vaio PCG-FX601 doesn't blink at all with such a memory level under Windows 98. Real shame about the Voodoo though, guess it'll just have to be a display piece or something. You tried it in another machine, just to check it isn't some kind of weird glitch?

Lukeno94 wrote:

That's a sad story - although that's the first time I've ever heard of someone installing Me and finding it to be more stable! You *can* get Windows 98SE to work stably with 768MB of RAM in some systems; my Vaio PCG-FX601 doesn't blink at all with such a memory level under Windows 98. Real shame about the Voodoo though, guess it'll just have to be a display piece or something. You tried it in another machine, just to check it isn't some kind of weird glitch?

Yep, tried it in the P2-350 and the behaviour is the same unfortunately. I have a feeling it may be an issue of dry/cracked solder joints, so when I get the time I am going to try the oven trick with it and see if it can be revived, if not then it will be a wall mount job. On the plus side I have put a network card in the machine instead.

The ram issue I am happy to knock it back to 512mb as none of the games I will be playing on it will really care about extra ram anyway.

jmannik wrote:

Lukeno94 wrote:

That's a sad story - although that's the first time I've ever heard of someone installing Me and finding it to be more stable! You *can* get Windows 98SE to work stably with 768MB of RAM in some systems; my Vaio PCG-FX601 doesn't blink at all with such a memory level under Windows 98. Real shame about the Voodoo though, guess it'll just have to be a display piece or something. You tried it in another machine, just to check it isn't some kind of weird glitch?

Yep, tried it in the P2-350 and the behaviour is the same unfortunately. I have a feeling it may be an issue of dry/cracked solder joints, so when I get the time I am going to try the oven trick with it and see if it can be revived, if not then it will be a wall mount job. On the plus side I have put a network card in the machine instead.

The ram issue I am happy to knock it back to 512mb as none of the games I will be playing on it will really care about extra ram anyway.

Yeah, most Windows 98 games aren't going to care about much more than 256MB. The only reason the Vaio has so much memory is that it dual-boots XP, and XP SP3 doesn't like having as little as 512MB that much on an older system!

Thanks for the compliments everyone! It's fun to uncover this stuff once in a while and just gaze away... Such bright colors and such wonderful memories!

PeterLI wrote:

I hope you took out insurance for it.

Thanks! Yes, covered there... 😀

badmojo wrote:

That's amazing! You should give Guinness Book of Records a call.

I personally couldn't live with that much vintage hardware weighing on my soul - I'd end up sleeping down there, shotgun in one hand an fire extinguisher in the other 😀

Funny you said that! I was kind of half-teasing my wife about doing that. To your second point, I do feel a little vulnerable with this stuff but I feel its safer here than in some storage container. I guess that's why its insured.

smeezekitty wrote:

A little bit of hoarding there 😉

Admittedly, yes, I do have dupes now of some of these things and I will probably sell them off at some point.`

smeezekitty wrote:

Are all those cards boxed and WRAPPED?

Some are sealed (New-Old-Stock), some are just boxed. I try to find sealed items when I can.

smeezekitty wrote:

Hopefully you addressed the CMOS battery in the Packard Bell.

Yep! It was the first thing to go on my Packard Bell systems. I'm using a battery pack on each now.

feipoa wrote:

Artex, do you live alone? My wife would not allow such consumption of space, even in a basement.

Nope, I'm happily married but my wife definitely dislikes this hobby. In fact, this weekend I tried bringing one of the tables up from the basement to use as a test bench in my office - just so I don't have to run up and down the stairs when building, benching, taking pictures etc. She got home from running some errands, gave it one look and said "Nope... not gonna happen."

She basically gives me 1/2 half of the basement to use (the crappier half of course). I keep everything covered to keep dust/light away. I also have a dehumidifer in there to keep moisture out.

Nope, I'm happily married but

🤣

jmannik wrote:

Lukeno94 wrote:

That's a sad story - although that's the first time I've ever heard of someone installing Me and finding it to be more stable! You *can* get Windows 98SE to work stably with 768MB of RAM in some systems; my Vaio PCG-FX601 doesn't blink at all with such a memory level under Windows 98. Real shame about the Voodoo though, guess it'll just have to be a display piece or something. You tried it in another machine, just to check it isn't some kind of weird glitch?

Yep, tried it in the P2-350 and the behaviour is the same unfortunately. I have a feeling it may be an issue of dry/cracked solder joints, so when I get the time I am going to try the oven trick with it and see if it can be revived, if not then it will be a wall mount job. On the plus side I have put a network card in the machine instead.

The ram issue I am happy to knock it back to 512mb as none of the games I will be playing on it will really care about extra ram anyway.

Did you check all the little legs on the chips? They are very tiny and bend easily and create a short (can be bend back with a very tiny needle and some patience). Had this on 2 of my v2's (i bought them like that) and the behaviour was very similar. Work great now...

Artex wrote:

Thanks for the compliments everyone! It's fun to uncover this stuff once in a while and just gaze away... Such bright colors and such wonderful memories!

No, thank you for posting that retro porn 😉

Some more rare XP era hardware.

I thought I bought a 2x1GB DDR2 Crucial Ballistix Tracers kit for 7 Euro, a bargain they usually cost 25 Euro or more.
When I got the kit it turned out to be a 2x2GB DDR2800 4,4,4,12 Crucial Ballistix Tracers kit, these are really hens teeth, you never see these kits for sale.

One of my test systems is Priming "Blend" with the memory right now @900 MHz 4,4,4,12 @ 2.0 V which is the only speed except stock I have tried so far, it seems to be a great 4GB kit.

A mint condition Gigabyte PCI 486 motherboard - GA486AM/S version 2.21. It contains what appears to be a 5-pin solder pad for [hopefully] a PS/2 mouse header. It also contains solder pads for the inverter IC and the needed PS/2 capacitors. This board contains an AWARD BIOS, so it can be easily modified using MODBIN to enable PS/2 mouse support. This motherboard does not contain a dedicated keyboard controller though, however the UM8881/8886 series of chipset does contain a built-in keyboard controller. I have only seen examples of the B-series of UM8881/8886 chipsets with built-in PS/2 mouse control. This motherboard contains the A-series chipset, and as such, I am undertain as to if my plans to modify the board for native PS/2 mouse support will be successful.

feipoa wrote:

A mint condition Gigabyte PCI 486 motherboard - GA486AM/S version 2.21.

That's a really nice looking board, congrats. Regarding your motivation for adding PS/2 mouse support - is this just a case of "because you can" (perfectly valid!) or are PS/2 mice that much better? I've never really noticed a difference b/w a good serial mouse and a PS/2 one.

Is there something wrong with me?

I'm with Badmojo, Mr Feipoa. I don't think I could justify breaking a mint PCI 486 class board just for a PS/2 mouse.

As am I. The risk is too great for such a small reward.

@feipoa

go for the mod! I believe you'll succeed in adding ps2 mouse support 😀

feipoa wrote:

A mint condition Gigabyte PCI 486 motherboard - GA486AM/S version 2.21. It contains what appears to be a 5-pin solder pad for [hopefully] a PS/2 mouse header. It also contains solder pads for the inverter IC and the needed PS/2 capacitors. This board contains an AWARD BIOS, so it can be easily modified using MODBIN to enable PS/2 mouse support. This motherboard does not contain a dedicated keyboard controller though, however the UM8881/8886 series of chipset does contain a built-in keyboard controller. I have only seen examples of the B-series of UM8881/8886 chipsets with built-in PS/2 mouse control. This motherboard contains the A-series chipset, and as such, I am undertain as to if my plans to modify the board for native PS/2 mouse support will be successful.

GA486AMS-v2.21.jpg

Nice, I have that motherboard, if per chance that board has bios support for the amd 133 cpu I don't suppose you could do a bios dump for me? I have had no luck in finding an updated bios for mine...

jmannik, when I get around to testing the board, I will be sure to make a copy of the BIOS and post it to Vogons somewhere.

badmojo & luckybob, I will only perform the mod if I am certain that I will not break the board. I am fairly certain that J12 was intended to be a PS/2 mouse header. The J12 pads are right next to the keyboard connector. I will perform several hours worth of tests to probe the keyboard/mouse/inverter circuit to determine what is required for the mod before proceeding. Once I have formulated a plan, I may try this mod on some junky HOT-433 v1-3 board first as the HOT-433 boards also have the A-revision chipset . This Gigabyte board cost $35 USD shipped.

A month ago I landed a mint MSI MS-4144 v2.1 motherboard based on the SiS chipset. It too had solder pads for what appeared to be a PS/2 mouse header. After probing the board, I determined that all I had to do was to solder on 2 capacitors, 2 inductors, a jumper header (IRQ 12), and a PS/2 mouse header to existing solder pads. The 2 resistors normally required were already in place. The mouse worked fine and you would not even notice that modifications had been made. Of course, I had to add PS/2 support to the BIOS, but that work is taken care of seamlessly using Modbin.

For my interests, the desire for PS/2 mouse support is so that I can use my retro systems on a PS/2 KVM without the need for a second serial mouse on the desk.

@feipoa - I have no doubt you can do it, I've seen your work! Just wondering at your preference of PS/2 over serial mouse.

badmojo, I have also noticed that the PS/2 version of the same trackball serial mouse tracks more smoothly.

Just bought these;

For Interlink, because my old one has been repaired so many times it's now only a few inches long (Started at about 1.5M) and one end looks like a cheerleader's pom pom if it was covered in lead... Copious amounts of tape in different colors hold it together - long story short, time for a new one and I can't be botherd to make it myself this time.

Need another Stereo Covox. Actually bought two chips, so I might make an extra one for the lulz, still have a whole bag of LM324's that I'll never use, and besides cables/connectors, there really isn't much else in the construction of one.