Great now test the motherboard outside the case with two identical memory modules and a video card. Remove the Power Supply from the case and connect it to the motherboard (black wires next to eachother) and connect a HDD to the PSU only to get some extra 12V load. The P100 can run for 1m or so without a heatsink but I see no reason to test without it so I would remount the cooler.

Connect a monitor and a keyboard and turn on the PSU.

If it dosnt work double check the jumper settings, perhaps the previous owner had the system overclocked, also test remounting the CPU, perhaps there is some corrosion in the socket.

It could also be that the RTC is busted. Hopefully it is compatible with the Dallas RTCs you can still get new.

gdjacobs wrote:

I think I may have found it.
https://th99.bl4ckb0x.de/m/C-D/33825.htm

So, can you confirm that my board is the one in the link?

On that page it says 'Reset Switch' next to jumper JP15 ('reset' as in 'Reset the BIOS', right?). In the first picture in my last post, jumper JP15 is to the bottom right of the CPU socket, right above JP16. The top yellow jumper obscures the text 'JP15' from view. If the board in the link is, in fact, the board I have, how would I go about resetting the board through JP15? The yellow jumper is placed over just one pin, while there is a second pin for JP15. Do I place the jumper over both pins, then power on the system?

Skyscraper wrote:

The P100 can run for 1m or so without a heatsink but I see no reason to test without it so I would remount the cooler.

I was wondering about the heatsink and the fan. I want to place both on the cpu, but I see no screw holes or clips to fasten these on top of the cpu.

In the two pictures in my last post where you have a view on the cpu socket, do you see what looks like dried glue on top of the cpu? I think the previous owner had the heatsink glued on the cpu. I don't like this method, though. How can I fix the heatsink on there?

alexanrs wrote:

It could also be that the RTC is busted. Hopefully it is compatible with the Dallas RTCs you can still get new.

In the document in the link below, it says that bq3287 and bq3287A are "Functionally compatible with the DS1287/DS1287A". My RTC chip seems to be a variation, as the model number is bq3287AMT. Does that extra 'MT' (T-Type module, according to the document) mean my RTC chip is much different from a standard bq3287(A) chip? My impression is that the difference is negligible, but I just wanted to check here.

http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/bq3287.pdf

Odiseo wrote:

So, can you confirm that my board is the one in the link? […]
Show full quote

gdjacobs wrote:

I think I may have found it.
https://th99.bl4ckb0x.de/m/C-D/33825.htm

So, can you confirm that my board is the one in the link?

On that page it says 'Reset Switch' next to jumper JP15 ('reset' as in 'Reset the BIOS', right?). In the first picture in my last post, jumper JP15 is to the bottom right of the CPU socket, right above JP16. The top yellow jumper obscures the text 'JP15' from view. If the board in the link is, in fact, the board I have, how would I go about resetting the board through JP15? The yellow jumper is placed over just one pin, while there is a second pin for JP15. Do I place the jumper over both pins, then power on the system?

Skyscraper wrote:

The P100 can run for 1m or so without a heatsink but I see no reason to test without it so I would remount the cooler.

I was wondering about the heatsink and the fan. I want to place both on the cpu, but I see no screw holes or clips to fasten these on top of the cpu.

In the two pictures in my last post where you have a view on the cpu socket, do you see what looks like dried glue on top of the cpu? I think the previous owner had the heatsink glued on the cpu. I don't like this method, though. How can I fix the heatsink on there?

alexanrs wrote:

It could also be that the RTC is busted. Hopefully it is compatible with the Dallas RTCs you can still get new.

In the document in the link below, it says that bq3287 and bq3287A are "Functionally compatible with the DS1287/DS1287A". My RTC chip seems to be a variation, as the model number is bq3287AMT. Does that extra 'MT' (T-Type module, according to the document) mean my RTC chip is much different from a standard bq3287(A) chip? My impression is that the difference is negligible, but I just wanted to check here.

http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/bq3287.pdf

When testing the motherboard outside the case its enough to just place the heatsink on the CPU, as your CPU isnt perfectly flast because of the glue use some cooling paste. Just to make sure the heatsink dosnt move when the power is on the coloer fasten it with some tape. I would worry about getting a heat sink properly mounted with a clip after you have got the motherboard running as its not worth to waste time on it if the board is dead.

If you have to get a new motherboard there is a good chance another CPU and a proper CPU cooler will be included with the new board.

Odiseo wrote:

Apparently, my digital camera is not as good as I thought.

I made new pictures with my mobile phone, but this time every photo is just one segment of the motherboard.

You can never get good photos with a flash, you've always got to have a light source off to the side.

It looks like there isn't a CMOS reset method, which is a little unusual, but then bad CMOS rarely if ever will stop the board from POSTing. The reset connector is for the reset switch on the front of the case, to reboot the computer.

The next step is to plug the memory, PC speaker and power supply back in and switch on. You should hear a series of beeps complaining that there's no video card. You can then plug the video card in and you will hopefully see something on the screen. If not, try moving the RAM into different slots, and if even that doesn't work, you'll probably have to get a POST card to figure out exactly where in the boot process it's getting stuck. Fortunately these are very cheap, if you don't mind waiting for a couple of weeks for a delivery from China.

My own P100 has a little metal lever between the fan and the heatsink that is used to lock it into position on top of the CPU. Your CPU doesn't appear to have a black plastic cover around it for this method to lock on to, so I'm not sure whether that's missing or it just wasn't a standard feature.

Odiseo wrote:

gdjacobs wrote:

I think I may have found it.
https://th99.bl4ckb0x.de/m/C-D/33825.htm

So, can you confirm that my board is the one in the link?

On that page it says 'Reset Switch' next to jumper JP15 ('reset' as in 'Reset the BIOS', right?). In the first picture in my last post, jumper JP15 is to the bottom right of the CPU socket, right above JP16. The top yellow jumper obscures the text 'JP15' from view. If the board in the link is, in fact, the board I have, how would I go about resetting the board through JP15? The yellow jumper is placed over just one pin, while there is a second pin for JP15. Do I place the jumper over both pins, then power on the system?

Your shot of the PCI slots actually identifies it. It's a 5IEM, although there could be minor revision differences.

TH99 isn't always 100% correct, but I believe it's fine here. J15 is the reset switch header whereas JP15 is part of the multiplier settings and is located close to JP16. This all matches as far as I can see.

I did the test bench setup and the system booted!

I turned it back off, and took out the hard drive. Two of the pins on the back of the drive were bent. No wonder the board would not detect the drive.

I bent them upright again, and installed the drive. After I powered on the system, it did 'see' the drive on POSTing. Yet, there was this error: "Hard disk fail (80)". I entered the BIOS, which would not detect the hard drive. What could be causing this?

Eventually, I got the motherboard to detect the hard drive. I started the installation of Windows 2000, but a bluescreen error came up when it was near the end. Same error immediately after I rebooted the system to let it continue the installation.

So I thought the RAM might be bad, and I took out two of the four RAM sticks. I formatted the hard drive, started a new installation of Windows 2000, and this time it was succesful. Yet, when I logged into Windows the first time a message popped up that said there was a memory error (it was not a bluescreen; rather, this typical Windows error popup that you can click 'OK' on).

So, maybe, (one of) the two remaining RAM sticks is (are) bad too. I'll need to run memory tests to find out which of the four RAM stick is bad.

If I'm not mistaken, installing an operating system on a machine that has bad RAM sticks might (or almost definitely will) cause the OS installation to be corrupted. Bad RAM might corrupt a hard drive too, right? I hope my RAM tests will be good...

On another note, I fixed the problem I had with the heatsink. I took the heatsink plus fan that came with a Spectra 400 CPU upgrade I have lying around, and installed it on top of the original CPU by fastening the metal clip on that heatsink to the CPU socket. When I got everything working well, I'll install the CPU upgrade itself too. It would mean an upgrade from 100MHz to 400MHz.

And thanks everyone for helping out!!!

Trying to run Windows 2000 with a Pentium 100 and 32? MB memory must be a pain. 😁

Windows 98 SE is a much better choice, Windows 2000 really needs 128MB memory to run well.

Skyscraper wrote:

Trying to run Windows 2000 with a Pentium 100 and 32? MB memory must be a pain. 😁

Windows 98 SE is a much better choice, Windows 2000 really needs 128MB memory to run well.

After I took out those two RAM chips, the system had 64MB memory left. Initially, it was 72MB, I believe.

I know the requirements for Windows 2000 are a bit high for this system. The thing is Windows 98 can be unstable, and so I opted for Windows 2000.

It occurs to me only now, but Windows NT would be a good choice. I read it's very stable; yet, its requirements are low enough.

EDIT: 64MB memory

While 2000 might be more stable, it is also a much worse platform to run anything you'd wanna run on a P100. It is specially bad at running DOS games which were the norm when the P100 was a relevant processor.

NT4 it's a better match, but for gaming it is even worse at DOS than Windows 2000

You are lucky that board is working at all 🤣 but just keep at it and you will work out all the little bugs.

I strongly recommend running 98 Se over anything else for this system even though you can get 2K running but it will be very slow. Don't try XP, did that on a system like this just to see how slow it would be and it took hours just to install.

nforce4max wrote:

Don't try XP, did that on a system like this just to see how slow it would be and it took hours just to install.

What chipset did it have? I ran XP on a Luckytech P5MVP3 board with a K6-2 450MHz and 128MB of RAM and it ran fine. I used a 8GB HDD and an Geforce FX5200 with TV out on AGP.

BTW,the Shuttle HOT-591P and the Luckytech P5MVP3 look almost the same.

alexanrs wrote:

While 2000 might be more stable, it is also a much worse platform to run anything you'd wanna run on a P100. It is specially bad at running DOS games which were the norm when the P100 was a relevant processor.

NT4 it's a better match, but for gaming it is even worse at DOS than Windows 2000

I don't plan on running old games on this system. I got another old system (Pentium 3; this one does have Windows 98 installed) that I play old games on.

I will use this Pentium 1 for Word processing. Think of it as an electronic typewriter. One without games and internet, and, therefore, less prone to distract me.

I have a few Voodoo 2 cards that I'll briefly test in this system before I sell them.

I'll buy a replacement RTC chip to resolve the CMOS error.

Odiseo wrote:

I don't plan on running old games on this system. I got another old system (Pentium 3; this one does have Windows 98 installed) […]
Show full quote

alexanrs wrote:

While 2000 might be more stable, it is also a much worse platform to run anything you'd wanna run on a P100. It is specially bad at running DOS games which were the norm when the P100 was a relevant processor.

NT4 it's a better match, but for gaming it is even worse at DOS than Windows 2000

I don't plan on running old games on this system. I got another old system (Pentium 3; this one does have Windows 98 installed) that I play old games on.

I will use this Pentium 1 for Word processing. Think of it as an electronic typewriter. One without games and internet, and, therefore, less prone to distract me.

I have a few Voodoo 2 cards that I'll briefly test in this system before I sell them.

I'll buy a replacement RTC chip to resolve the CMOS error.

Odiseo wrote:

After I took out those two RAM chips, the system had 64MB memory left. Initially, it was 72MB, I believe. […]
Show full quote

Skyscraper wrote:

Trying to run Windows 2000 with a Pentium 100 and 32? MB memory must be a pain. 😁

Windows 98 SE is a much better choice, Windows 2000 really needs 128MB memory to run well.

After I took out those two RAM chips, the system had 64MB memory left. Initially, it was 72MB, I believe.

I know the requirements for Windows 2000 are a bit high for this system. The thing is Windows 98 can be unstable, and so I opted for Windows 2000.

It occurs to me only now, but Windows NT would be a good choice. I read it's very stable; yet, its requirements are low enough.

EDIT: 64MB memory

You can modify the RTC you already got if you want to save some money. There are alot of guides describing what to do, they are mostly for the Dallas RTC but they are all more or less the same.

I think 64MB is the maxium cacheable memory amount for your board so if you would get more memory some of it will be uncached,

Go NT4 then... Just check what was the last version of Word that supported it.

If you need more recent office versions you could try is get an nLited XP SP1a install. nLite is an old program that was able to trim a bunch of stuff from a XP install disk and cut a bunch of optional features. That slims it down considerably and you might be able to get away with a 64MB machine. I believe nLite works with Windows 2000 too (but it has been quite some time I read about it - so don't assume I'm right) so you could also trim that one to get it a bit faster/leaner.

You could go Wordstar / WPDOS for really old school typing.

PcBytes wrote:

nforce4max wrote:

Don't try XP, did that on a system like this just to see how slow it would be and it took hours just to install.

What chipset did it have? I ran XP on a Luckytech P5MVP3 board with a K6-2 450MHz and 128MB of RAM and it ran fine. I used a 8GB HDD and an Geforce FX5200 with TV out on AGP.

BTW,the Shuttle HOT-591P and the Luckytech P5MVP3 look almost the same.

Try a VX era board that is a good few years older than anything MVP3 based and with only 64mb ram.

nforce4max wrote:

PcBytes wrote:

nforce4max wrote:

Don't try XP, did that on a system like this just to see how slow it would be and it took hours just to install.

What chipset did it have? I ran XP on a Luckytech P5MVP3 board with a K6-2 450MHz and 128MB of RAM and it ran fine. I used a 8GB HDD and an Geforce FX5200 with TV out on AGP.

BTW,the Shuttle HOT-591P and the Luckytech P5MVP3 look almost the same.

Try a VX era board that is a good few years older than anything MVP3 based and with only 64mb ram.

I did that with bunch of pre-MVP3 era boards (Soyo SY-5TF (i430HX),Acorp 5VIA3P (VIA Apollo VPX - also rebranded as EFA P5V580) and a MSI MS-5146 (SiS 5571) ) and they ran fine. I have to admit though,I had about 96MB of EDO RAM (2x16MB and 2x32MB sticks). But still,XP ran decently on those. I scrapped all of those unfortunately,since back then I didn't have the soldering skills I have now. Shame I got rid of the Soyo...I'd run XP on a 430HX again,just for fun.

alexanrs wrote:

Go NT4 then... Just check what was the last version of Word that supported it.

I agree with this. NT4 is my favorite OS for a classic Pentium that's being used for a practical application. In fact, even if I were playing games on it, I'd probably set up a dual boot so that NT4 was still available.

NT4 actually has a faster UI than Win98, due to the enhancements/IE integration that were added starting with 98. Those enhancements are nice to have (particularly for the start menu) but they noticeably slow down a classic Pentium.
Those enhancements can be added to NT4 with some of the IE installers, but it causes the same slowdown so I prefer to keep the standard NT4 interface.