Socket 8 systems are interesting IMO, you could throw in a Pentium 2 overdrive to get a 333mhz system on a 66mhz fsb that's what Ive done with mine, if its working clean the case and resell it you should be able to get $50 for it I'd imagine.

It's working but there is no HDD so I'm not sure if absolutely everything is hunky dory. It fires up and counts all the ram up then asks for a bootable medium.

People pay bananas money for Pentium Pro chips. They're the CPU equivalent of GUS's.

Also they're worth $50+ for their gold content.

Btw, some compaq systems had BIOS-like system on their HDD, you get what I mean... Such things won't start unless they have HDD with the right software.

People pay a lot for PPro systems in Russia, on par with P60.

Yeah I think that might be the case here since it doesn't give me the option to go into BIOS and doesn't seem to give me the usual logo screen while it locates all it's bits and peices.

That is a really neat find!

I managed to find BIOS setup disks for my Compaq deskpro board, the disks for your system are probably out there somewhere 😀

DON'T THROW IT AWAY!!! Pentium Pro machines are quite interesting to mess around with; you'd probably get at least $50-60 from selling that system alone, if not more since the CPUs themselves are quite valuable.

EDIT: Also, I'd try booting that thing up to a boot floppy.

For some reason I've found Pentium Pro systems to be pretty neat. I have a couple of motherboards and CPUs of it myself. One being a work-in-progress Windows 95 system.

I say either revive it or find a good home for it. 😀

Maybe I'll do both. 🤣

I should ask around and see if someone wants it near me. I really don't want to ship it. 😜

SquallStrife wrote:

They're the CPU equivalent of GUS's.

In a similar relation one could say they're a reverse Cyrix6x86 😀

What motherboard is in that machine? The port configuration looks the same as the Intel "Performance/AU" which I think is also called "Aurora". If so, it's a 450KX chipset which is certainly unusual.

Not even sure how I would go about identifying the mobo so since I saved it and the CPU I'll take some pics of it later and post them here.
I ended up trashing the Compaq case since this is not a weird OEM mobo, it's actually a full ATX motherboard and should fit in any old case.

Pentium Pro CPUs & systems are worth quite a bit from what Ive seen, They weren't too popular with consumers obviously, so you are less likely to find one sitting in someone's basement.

I considered getting a Pentium Pro system at one point but opted for a normal Pentium just due to the Pro not really being any better ( and being worse it seems from what Ive read) at running DOS games and such.

you could easily sell the CPU and use the money to get parts you will actually use.

Single CPU boards are more rare than dual Pentium Pro boards. I think we have quite a few Intel PR440FX smp systems among the members on this forum.

I have 2 duel PPro boards I've been dying to test for some time now but I cant stomach the $40-$50 asking price for the CPU's, especially the 1mb black top ones. that's not even considering the $20 on top of that for a heatsink/fan 🙁

I have two dual boards but only two CPUs.
Both from dumpsters, found one Pentium Pro 200 256kb with each board.
Im not sure they are the same stepping but they do work well together.

Even if you junk it, it's worth the time to pull the CPU and heatsink in case you ever want to upgrade a SMP machine. Like said above they fetch dumb prices and they aren't going to get any more common so long as it stays that way.
That reminds me. I still need to barter with a store in Vancouver for their ALR 6x6 machine.

I did end up keeping the motherboard, the CPU and the heatsink. I also grabbed the RAM, the Graphics card, the Sound card and the Pentium Pro sticker (Which is now on my Core 2 Duo sleeper).