NEC Proserva V Plus (dual socket 7 system) (have a lead on multiple of these)

[feipoa]

Is the PSU of the standard size?

[cpushack]

Can these use a standard PSU or should I grab some spares?

Not a standard AT PSU. It has to extra connectors. A 3-pin with 2 wires (no idea what this is for) and an extra 6-pin - looks to just be 3 extra ground and 3 extra +5v.

Specs are:
+12v 12A
+5V 32A
-5v 0.5A
-12V 1A
+5vsb 0.1A

2-wire sounds like maybe the PWR Switch?

[PC Hoarder Patrol]

It's one of these isn't it - Astec SA301-3405

Think it's a standard size, but it has more connectors than P8 + P9 - presumably P10 AUX plus that 2-pin P12 which I think is to do with the front panel switch board and the custom connector (does it go in that red 2-pin socket on the board edge). Almost looks like some remote On / sense line. Here's someone trying to start it as a standard PSU. Also, anyone know why the board seems to have two AUX headers - on the edge and next to the top PCI slot?

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pl&u=https://www.elektroda.pl/rtvforum/topic574455.html&prev=search

[feipoa]

The aux near pci is likely for 3.3v pci cards, but doesn’t seem as if the PSU has a 3.3v aux. We’re 3.3v only pci cards ever popular? Seems most are keyed for 5v and 3.3v, but rarely just for 3.3
V

[cyclone3d]

It's one of these isn't it - Astec SA301-3405

SA301-3405.jpg

Think it's a standard size, but it has more connectors than P8 + P9 - presumably P10 AUX plus that 2-pin P12 which I think is to do with the front panel switch board and the custom connector (does it go in that red 2-pin socket on the board edge). Almost looks like some remote On / sense line. Here's someone trying to start it as a standard PSU. Also, anyone know why the board seems to have two AUX headers - on the edge and next to the top PCI slot?

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pl&u=https://www.elektroda.pl/rtvforum/topic574455.html&prev=search

Yeah, that looks like it.

[feipoa]

The board contains eight (8) 72-pin slots. Seems like a lot for 72-pin on a socket 5. Normally I find 4 slots, with 6 being the norm for excessive. But 8? Does the board only work with 16 MB SIMMs? Have you 32 MB SIMMs? Do you know what the max usable RAM is for this motherboard?

Could you also confirm the chipset? Its a Neptune (NX) right, not a Triton II (HX)?

[cyclone3d]

According to the documentation, the board is supposed to support 512MB RAM. I'll double check the chipset tomorrow.

[Warlord]

cool board. Id totally go for one, but because I have too many computers already.

[PC Hoarder Patrol]

According to ZDS, 512MB

[cpushack]

I did secure 20 of these, will be a week or so before they come, I will try to test and make sure they all have dual CPUs and some RAM

[Horun]

Great cpushack ! Put me on the list for a definite one and possibly a second.

[feipoa]

According to the documentation, the board is supposed to support 512MB RAM. I'll double check the chipset tomorrow.

Do you have 64 MB sticks you'd be willing to test?

[cyclone3d]

According to the documentation, the board is supposed to support 512MB RAM. I'll double check the chipset tomorrow.

Do you have 64 MB sticks you'd be willing to test?

I currently have 4x 64MB sticks. I'll stick them in real quick and then post back.

The chipset is HX.

Edit: Soooo...
My 64MB sticks will not work. The ones I have are EDO. I tried all kinds and sizes of different EDO and I couldn't get any of them to POST.

I also couldn't get any 8-chips per side RAM to POST either.

Looks like 9 or 12 chips per bank work.

I have a couple 32MB sticks that have 12 chips per side and they work.

I also have some smaller capacity ones that have 8 chips on 1 side and 4 on the other side that work.

All sticks that I tested that had 9 chips per side worked.

[feipoa]

Huh, I thought all HX based motherboards supported dual voltage. I guess not.

[cyclone3d]

Huh, I thought all HX based motherboards supported dual voltage. I guess not.

It could.. there are a bunch of "reserved" jumpers. Who knows.

[feipoa]

Does the motherboard require SIMMs with parity?

Are your 64 MB EDO SIMMs one-sided and have 8 chips on the one side? Or are they two sided with 8 chips per side?

Will 64 MB EDO SIMMs work if they are one-sided and have 9 chips (parity)?

Each bank consists of two SIMM slots, so I'm not sure how you would have 9 chips per bank,as you wrote in your previous post. Maybe you meant 9 chips per module? Or do you really mean 9 chips per bank, which would imply one SIMM is non-parity and the other SIMM is parity?

Will 16-chip EDO SIMMs work which do not have parity? Or do they need to be 16-chip w/parity (2 more chpis?)

[cyclone3d]

I mean 9 chips per side or 9 chips per stick.

Same for the 12 chips per side ones.

I did find a couple of IBM memory expansion boards with 8x 64MB parity SIMMS from one of the places I buy stuff form every once in a while. They were cheap so I bought them both.
Or at least the picture showed a board that was populated with that amount. Who knows if the other board will have the same size sticks.. I sure hope so.

I also have a couple sticks that I think are parity EDO that have 2 big chips and one small chip per stick and they also work. (They are actually FPM. I looked them up.)

My 64MB sticks that don't work have 7 chips on one side and 1 chip on the other side.

I am pretty sure at this point that the board needs parity or ECC RAM. Also pretty sure either FPM or EDO will work.

I don't have any EDO sticks with parity or ECC so I can't verify that EDO will work.

I tried a good number of different 8 and 16-chip sticks and none of them worked. I will have to double check to see if any of it was EDO or not.
Time to go to bed for the night.

Edit: Decided to go ahead and test out some 8 and 16 chip EDO sticks. None of them resulted in a POST.

So yeah.. parity or ECC is definitely the only type of sticks that will work.

[cyclone3d]

Well, got a bunch of Parity RAM today from an old IBM server. It doesn't want to POST with it.

However, mine came with the 1.00.10 WLB08 BIOS. (is the B for beta ?)

The newest BIOS from the ZDS archive is:
1.00.14 WL014

Maybe it has better support for RAM?

The BIOS I am running has these settings for the RAM
Off
Parity
ECC

Doesn't seem to make any difference what I set it to as far as 8-chip sticks go.

No documentation on what the different BIOS versions do. Just need to use an older system to make the BIOS update floppy as I don't have any SCSI HDDs to hook up to this computer.

Maybe it will fix RAM compatibility problems.. who knows.

[feipoa]

Good chance that it will. Do we have all the latest BIOS versions? Are they all from ZDS, or did NEC and Packard Bell have some as well?

[cyclone3d]

Good chance that it will. Do we have all the latest BIOS versions? Are they all from ZDS, or did NEC and Packard Bell have some as well?

I just double checked and the one that NEC used to have for download is the same version as the one I got from the PB ZDS archive.

The one that is installed on my system is not listed one either so I guess I will back it up just because.

Edit: Well, I updated to the newest BIOS.

1. 8-chip FPM still doesn't work
2. IBM (Kingston parity) RAM still doesn't work
3. EDO still doesn't work
4. The flash program automatically flashed the new BIOS without giving me any option to backup the old one first. Guess I will have to try with my spare board and a different flash program.

So for right now, I "only" have enough larg-ish RAM sticks that work for this board to give me 160MB of RAM.
(2x32MB and 6x16MB). Maybe I will try some ECC stuff I have been looking at. hmmmmmm