What happens if you try short, short, open for JP8 pins 1-2, 3-4, and 5-6, respectively? The GXM datasheet lists two possible 4x modes, one as 4x (testing) and the other as 4x. I believe the undocumented jumper setting noted above may be for the regular 4x mode. However this board may be very timing sensitive such that 133 Mhz just isn't obtainable. If that jumper setting works at 133 MHz, try for 120 Mhz.

Ok strange things....

Short-Short-Open is no post just like Short-Short-Short

I was able to get it running at 120-MHz with no jumpers installed on J8 (Clock Muliplier) and on J2 (Bus Speed) with 4-6 shorted for 30-MHz and undocumented 1-3 shorted as well. The strange part is it scored a slightly higher benchmark than running with documented jumper settings at 150-MHz. The alternate jumper setting also required playing around with different RAM modules (slower) to make it post reliably and at all with L1 disabled.

I will post what I got with the documented 150-MHz setting.

3Dbench 1.0
30-MHz Bus, 5x Multiplier, 150-MHz CPU, L1 disabled, 128MB PC-100 222 SDRAM DIMM
Score = 16.6

Huh, as noted previously, we probably need to adapt a GX or GXi chip to run in this socket for proper 4x operation. This is probably more trouble than it is worth, and it may not even work without some redesign. Oh well...

Works as advertised with no issue at 150-MHz. Wouldn't a score of 16.6 be useful? With slower RAM and same settings it scored 15.1.

Edit: By slower RAM I mean a 3-2-2 stick vs a 2-2-2 stick (CAS settings) so I definitely think playing with RAM might be worth looking into.

Looks like with those settings (150-MHz, L1 disabled) and using the onboard CGA/VGA graphics it scores about equal to an AMD 386DX 40 and an Intel 486DX 33. The onboard graphics are not quite as fast as a S3 Virge (Diamond Stealth3D 2000) but I believe further slowdown could be achieved (if needed?) by a 'worse' video card. I actually think now that the onboard graphics are worthwhile pursuing, I want to try playing with UNIVBE on it when I get a chance. What would be some good tests to run for EGA/VGA/VESA resolutions and such?

Oh and feipoa, thanks for showing interest in this little project. I really like your work.

Edit: Hmmm, actually looks like it fully supports VESA 2.0.

3Dbench, pcpbench, and doom timedemo seem like popular choices. I'm not a gamer though, so others here might have better input.

Well I am done playing with this board for now. I am going to play with one of these for fun http://www.advantech.gr/products/pdf/POS-7551.pdf. I plan to ship an ECS board and CPU to Mau1wurf1977 soon for him to play with further, maybe we'll get a video out of it.

Maybe? Definitely 😀

That's a cute little GX1 Geode motherboard. The only advantage I see of it over the ECS board is the onboard Ethernet port. It is also unique in that it had the option for 16 MB of RAM onboard.

Really digging this board so far!

At 66 x 5 it is spot on the level of a 386DX 40 MHz. I haven't done anything in Windows, but in DOS it's very good. The onboard GPU has really washed out blacks and the onboard sound glitches up in some games. Using a PCI S3 and an ISA Sound Blaster 16 works great and it played all the old classics without a hitch.

I really like the form factor. Got a micro ATX case lying around so I will likely build a 386DX 40 time machine PC so to speak 😀 Silicon Image SATA PCI controller also works great.

Awesome, look forward to review! So, 166-MHz (33x5) seems to be the sweet spot?

squareguy wrote:

Awesome, look forward to review! So, 166-MHz (33x5) seems to be the sweet spot?

I think so!

I will do lots more of testing but with cache disabled it IS a 386DX 40 MHz, a machine that runs a ton of DOS games. I wasn't able however to slow it down much further. There is a bit of variation with the memory timings but it's tiny.

I still got to muck around with Windows 95 and 98. Did you try that and the driver CD?

I installed Windows 98 SE on one and it ran fine, never tried Windows 95.

Seems like I had to hunt down a few drivers on the net, I will report back. Seems like the ones I needed were found by searching for the chipset which has everything integrated into it. On mobile phone right now but will look later.

Thank you!

Don't wanna be a party pooper, but besides being newer boards and a more compact form factor what's so interesting about these systems?
With my Titanium 430TX boards i can get 386DX-25, 386DX-33, 386DX-40, 486DX-25, 486DX-40 and then a whole variety of Pentium equivalent speeds not to mention very fast K6-500 speeds. I can use slower SIMM's, 3 to 4 ISA slots...

It's another weapon in the fight against the retro bug 😀 And it's micro ATX which allows to build a small and cute Retro DOS Gaming PC.

It's interesting to me for a couple of reasons.

1. I have several complete boards and CPU's that were new-old-stock and didn't cost me a lot.

2. Most importantly, to me, it's different... well it's like drag racing. When you see all Chevrolets and Fords lined up then out of nowhere a Chrysler pulls up. Much more interesting because it's not what everyone else is using.

I'm pondering what sound card to put in that box. As always I'm leaning towards the AWE64 Gold. Or maybe a SB 16 but the cards I have are all very noisy. A S3 PCI card and a Silicon Image PCI SATA controller has been decided on.

The video review / build is online!

http://youtu.be/H60UIo5ApEA

This is a comprehensive video in which I am building a Retro DOS Windows Gaming PC based around the ECS P5GX-M motherboard featuring the Cyrix / Geode GXM-200 processor.

In case you are after something specific there are topics and time markers in the description.

Awesome! Watching it now 😀

EDIT:

Nice job, thanks for a great video Phil!