Which RAM sticks did the system come with? Were they EDO or FPM? I'm guessing FPM with parity. And the 2x32 MB sticks you tried are FPM with parity? Was the non-working IBM server RAM w/parity of the FPM or EDO variety?

Very interesting , in spain very rare , dual socket 7 , but is true socket 7 or pemtium pro 200 ?¿

anyway socket 7 , may be u can put a 233mmx , but what OS install on it ? win 9X NOT, ms DOS NOT , windows NT ?¿ may be , but really it usefully 2 CPU? , what aplicacion could be powered with this config?¿

feipoa wrote:

Which RAM sticks did the system come with? Were they EDO or FPM? I'm guessing FPM with parity. And the 2x32 MB sticks you tried are FPM with parity? Was the non-working IBM server RAM w/parity of the FPM or EDO variety?

Came with parity fpm. Pretty sure all the others I put in there that work are parity fpm but some could be ecc I guess.. I will need to double check by looking up the datasheets.

The IBM stuff is parity fpm but with 10 chips and it is x40 instead of x36.

I went ahead and ordered a couple more 32MB parity fpm sticks (9 chip) and hopefully they work as well.

aljares wrote:

Very interesting , in spain very rare , dual socket 7 , but is true socket 7 or pemtium pro 200 ?¿

anyway socket 7 , may be u can put a 233mmx , but what OS install on it ? win 9X NOT, ms DOS NOT , windows NT ?¿ may be , but really it usefully 2 CPU? , what aplicacion could be powered with this config?¿

It's actually socket 5.... But socket 7 CPUs should work with an interposer... Probably put NT4 on there... In theory even when running a single threaded game, the background OS stuff would run on the second CPU and provide a performance boost.

I plan to triple boot Win98SE, NT4, and W2K.

Some people have asked about shipping these overseas, Thats not a problem for me to do, either USPS or sometimes cheaper to use courier service through parcelmonkey

Also I as of yet don't have enough post count to reply to PMs so if you sent me one I'll eventually get to it
I have 20 of these coming, some spare parts (mostly to make sure I can build all 20 to a decent spec for ya'll though)
I did get a couple spare boards, bezels, and PSUs

what kind of pricing are we talking about? shipped to 23230

For those wondering, the Dallas chip is basically a 1287 plus some battery backed RAM to store the EISA configuration. Almost all EISA (and some MCA) boards come with one. Many times the battery pins are not present on the DS1x87 packages as its a "module".

For those unfamiliar with EISA, cards are configured using an "EISA Configuration Tool", which is generally a DOS program. It requires CFG files for the motherboard and installed cards and needs to be run to setup new cards and assign their resources (IRQ/Base Address/DMA).

An extensive collection can be found here: http://66.113.161.23/~mR_Slug/EISA/

The only thing that would be of concern for this board is what CFG file does that motherboard use? The above site doesn't have any Pentium boards listed under Zenith or NEC.

Oh, I didn't realise that the motherboard needs its own config file as well; I thought just the expansion card needed a config file to add the RTC's NVRAM. The RTC's RAM doesn't already contain the motherboard's config information? [yes, I'm new to EISA]

In this case I'd guess that the EISA files (cfg + ovl?) are included with the Zenith / NEC SCU utility downloads that we've already located.

*EDIT*: Think I'm right on this - neither the ZDS / NEC guides we have give much detail, but here is a quote from the Intel ALTServer Baseboard & Platform TPS, which has a strikingly similar hardware setup

SYSTEM CONFIGURATION UTILITY (SCU) The System Configuration Utility (SCU) is stored in the BIOS FLASH ROM and is a combination o […]
Show full quote

SYSTEM CONFIGURATION UTILITY (SCU)
The System Configuration Utility (SCU) is stored in the BIOS FLASH ROM and is a combination of the functionality previously contained in the EISA Configuration Utility (ECU) and the BIOS Setup utility.

The SCU, system configuration (CFG), and overlay (OVL) files are compressed and stored in the system BIOS ROM. Up to 256 KB of ROM is available for storage of the SCU and CFG/OVL files. Any additional files are maintained on floppy disk in DOS format. The SCU is decompressed into RAM and executed during POST if the user elects to reconfigure the system. This is activated by the user when the F1 key is typed in response to the BIOS prompt.

The SCU conforms to the version 3.12 of the EISA standard and version 1.1 of the ISA Plug and Play Specification. It can be used with any compliant CFG or OVL files that are supplied by an add-in peripheral device manufacturer. The ALTServer platform contains the PCI overlay (OVL) and PCI configuration (CFG) files for the embedded controllers on the system baseboard.

The SCU modifies the ISA CMOS and EISA NVRAM, under direction of the user. The actual hardware configuration is accomplished by the BIOS Power-On-Self-Test routines and the ISA Plug and Play Auto Configuration Manager.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote:

In this case I'd guess that the EISA files (cfg + ovl?) are included with the Zenith / NEC SCU utility downloads that we've already located.

*EDIT*: Think I'm right on this - neither the ZDS / NEC guides we have give much detail, but here is a quote from the Intel ALTServer Baseboard & Platform TPS, which has a strikingly similar hardware setup

SYSTEM CONFIGURATION UTILITY (SCU) The System Configuration Utility (SCU) is stored in the BIOS FLASH ROM and is a combination o […]
Show full quote

SYSTEM CONFIGURATION UTILITY (SCU)
The System Configuration Utility (SCU) is stored in the BIOS FLASH ROM and is a combination of the functionality previously contained in the EISA Configuration Utility (ECU) and the BIOS Setup utility.

The SCU, system configuration (CFG), and overlay (OVL) files are compressed and stored in the system BIOS ROM. Up to 256 KB of ROM is available for storage of the SCU and CFG/OVL files. Any additional files are maintained on floppy disk in DOS format. The SCU is decompressed into RAM and executed during POST if the user elects to reconfigure the system. This is activated by the user when the F1 key is typed in response to the BIOS prompt.

The SCU conforms to the version 3.12 of the EISA standard and version 1.1 of the ISA Plug and Play Specification. It can be used with any compliant CFG or OVL files that are supplied by an add-in peripheral device manufacturer. The ALTServer platform contains the PCI overlay (OVL) and PCI configuration (CFG) files for the embedded controllers on the system baseboard.

The SCU modifies the ISA CMOS and EISA NVRAM, under direction of the user. The actual hardware configuration is accomplished by the BIOS Power-On-Self-Test routines and the ISA Plug and Play Auto Configuration Manager.

I don't have any EISA experience, but was wondering if the Zenith SCU will work when if it sees a non-Zenith BIOS, in this case, an NEC BIOS? Would be a shame to flash the NEC with a Zenith BIOS.

I sent an email to NEC support about their broken download links, but I haven't heard back.

From what @cyclone3d says, I don't think it is an NEC SCU or bios - although the Zenith (actual) & NEC (broken) filenames don't match they would appear to be exactly the same files just named & packaged slightly differently, so I'd expect them to work no problem.

As far as I can tell, for the relatively short time these units were sold as NEC ProServa V+ instead of Zenith Z-Server WL, all NEC did was change the badge on the front of the case.

More generally with these types of system, what is important is that the SCU & bios are at the same release level, so we seem to have matched SCU & bios for v06 & v14 but no SCU for the vB08 which the boards shipped to @cyclone3d with.

PC Hoarder, thanks for this information.

Cyclone3d: Is there a photo of the start-up screen and inside the BIOS that I missed? Would you be willing to provide one?

Have you at attempted to save BIOS vB08 and update to v14?

20 of these showed up at my house, I need to go through them and see what they have in the cases, hopefully all of them will POST
a few bezels didnt survive shipping but could be worse

Huh, I guess they didn't update tracking information:
11/22/2019 06:00 PM Trailer unloaded at terminal in PORTLAND, OR

Did the shipper wrap the outside of the cases with cardboard before wrapping the pallet in plastic? This is really unfortunate about the damage. How many extra bezels did the shipper send, if any?

feipoa wrote:

Huh, I guess they didn't update tracking information:
11/22/2019 06:00 PM Trailer unloaded at terminal in PORTLAND, OR

Did the shipper wrap the outside of the cases with cardboard before wrapping the pallet in plastic? This is really unfortunate about the damage. How many extra bezels did the shipper send, if any?

Cardboard between them but one row of bezels was facing out, they are brittle so break easy

He didnt include extras, though I know he has some, will contact him again once I go through the rest of stuff

feipoa wrote:

PC Hoarder, thanks for this information.

Cyclone3d: Is there a photo of the start-up screen and inside the BIOS that I missed? Would you be willing to provide one?

Have you at attempted to save BIOS vB08 and update to v14?

I haven't posted startup or BIOS pics.

I also haven't tried to backup the B08 BIOS yet either. I'll have to try that on the board I haven't updated yet. Just haven't had a chance to mess with stuff lately.

Here they be

I will take the 5th from left on top if you saved the broken grill parts. Easy fix if you did and am betting it has both cpu's and ram.