Looks like the overclocking option suggested by @ShovelKnight might be worth a look

https://www.neoseeker.com/forums/17/t7530-ove … -with-my-specs/

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote:

Looks like the overclocking option suggested by @ShovelKnight might be worth a look

https://www.neoseeker.com/forums/17/t7530-ove … -with-my-specs/

That would be a nice speed boost indeed - but to really use it you'd need a Celeron with a lower multiplier; although there are exceptions, most Mendocino cores can handle 550-600MHz max, and some not even that. So to hit 100MHz FSB you're generally best off with Celeron 300A or 333. Some people get lucky with 366 or even 400, but I certainly didn't back in the day. There's almost no chance of getting a C466 to run at 700MHz or more. Then again, no harm in trying...

pics first

1st note: 440 Z x, not a 440BX.
2nd note; ram has been upgraded, are either of these a problem?
3rd note: removed all cards. added 30gb HDD, still having same problems as in my other thread. I tried not to muck up separate topics, but its hard all on the same machine.
Ill apologize and reiterate if that doesnt belong here.
4th note: board has more unpopulated areas than ive ever seen. 1371audiopci chip area, unpopulated. 20pin bus settings, there but unpopulated with pins. had a weird modem-based sound with a riser card (like a detached daughter board) for the audio jacks.

most Mendocino cores can handle 550-600MHz max

Depends on a production date. Early production date usually scores 500Mhz tops.

1st note: 440 Z x, not a 440BX.

440ZX = 440BX with 512Mb RAM limit and without dual CPU support. So in all fairness, it's almost the same thing.

bios date

Asus boards with model numbers ending in "-VM" are OEM boards that are extensively costed-down.
Tricks that work on mainstream boards often don't on OEM boards because they aren't intended to be upgradable (or are intended not to be which is enforced by deliberate BIOS limitations).
Components that make upgrades possible on retail boards get left out in the costing-down.

As some other guys said, you might have some luck with forcing a higher FSB but on an OEM board there could be the same roadblock of missing parts (or properly rated parts) to support it.

If the goal is a better system then IMHO you are better off with a different board.
It will probably be faster to a running machine, cost less in the end and actually work.

The OP seemed more interested in the end result than 'saving' the board and that's why I recommended that option.
Now the OP seems to have changed his mind.

That's fine if the goal is learning and tinkering then go for it because that's just fun and you'll get something out of it.
But even with that. You would probably have more fun and learn more using a mainstream retail board simply because they have more options.
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Anyone that has seen enough knows this already and I wouldn't have to mention it.
Publically released information from Intel is often wrong or plain BS just like any other major corporation.
What gets released is skewed by marketing and liability concerns and corporate suits with an agenda.
A list of all the Intel examples would take all day.

The update SSTV2 used is the same one used by all the info-repeating references online.
It's all shallow researchers ever see so that's what gets published.

In THAT ONE Intel says the "Initial" specification was 05-1998.
That makes no sense.

The chip was already in production in 1997, the year before 05-1998. (Pic below.)
(Not my photo. Anyone can find it.)
BX boards were already shipping by 04-1998. Possibly earlier. (Wayback pic below.)
Some were already past their first BIOS revision by 04-1998. (Same pic below.)

BX datasheets dated earlier than the so-called "Initial" from 05-1998 show a BX with RID 00h.
That makes them Rev 1.

00h is missing in the 05-1998 and later documentation.
It is only partially deleted in the 04-1998 (pre 05-1998) version, but whoever did it didn't finish. (Pic below.)
That is why I told SSTV2 to look at older datasheets. He didn't.
The one from 04-1998 is still online so anyone that isn't too lazy can go find it.

I don't know if 00h disappeared from Intel docs by way of some agenda or basic incompetence but it did.
That sort of thing isn't uncommon with any major corporation.
[Speculation] Perhaps they were embarrassed about some defect and did a recall pre-BX sales to hide its existence from the public. That would be a typical corporate strategy.
In 1997 they had just been embarrassed by the "P5 FDIV bug" in '94 and the "P5 F00F bug" in '97.
Pretty sure Intel's corporate suits would do anything they could to avoid public awareness of a third bug in their latest-greatest processor in 1997.

I haven't seen everything either but I'm not so overconfident or too lazy to at least look when someone tells me I missed something.

I have little time for vogons anymore.
I am done with this one and I probably won't be back around for months anyway.
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SSTV2 wrote:

This is the first time I see someone claiming that there were early revisions of 440BX chips, that did not support PIII CPUs at […]
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This is the first time I see someone claiming that there were early revisions of 440BX chips, that did not support PIII CPUs at all. Honestly, I had never enountered such case, where a PIII CPU wouldn't work in a 440BX based motherboard, that got me interested and I did a little research on this matter.

There were 2 steppings of 440BX B1 and C1, C1 stepping fixed 4 bugs (erratas), that B1 had and each bug had a software workaround pg. 7 and 22, also, those erratas have nothing to do with PIII being incompatible with B1 stepping of a 440BX in any possible way. Both chip steppings had an identical signal pinout.

PCBONEZ wrote:

I still have a dual Slot-1 Intel server board from 1998 with a 440BX chipset.
It doesn't support P3 at all.

I have a 440EX based motherboard from 1998, that accepts PIII coppermines without any modifications. Seriously I don't know how you could come up with such an idea of a 440BX being incompatible with PIIIs, because every P6 based CPU and their chipsets, intentionally or unintentionally, were made compatible with each other. You can make a Coppermine based CPU work in a 440LX based motherboard, it wouldn't even surprise me at all if such CPU would work in a 440FX based motherboard (S8 PPro). Did PIII CPU heat up in that server board of yours and what core type/FSB of PIII have you tried in that system?

You guys are actually both wrong. The early BX Boards came out before P3 was invented. P3 didn't launch until late 1999 and It wasn't untill 2000 that the compermine became a thing and it was the 1st compermines.

The issue isn't with the chipeset the problem is many early BX boards lacked the VRM, Multipliers, and BIOS to support PIII. If they did it and it was one of the shitty boards like this they often time maybe only supported the very 1st PIII model or somthing or becasue of bad VRM or somthing like 66mhz bus max only would work with celeron or somthing like that.

That is the problem BX started off as a PII chipset before PIII existed and consequently early Boards had bad implementations or OEMs made cheap boards. There is also somthing called a 440LX which is a pretty bad BX sold to be cheap and i heard that there were boards being passed off as BX were using LX southbridges. so that could be the case with some boards.

Some people know that BX could use 4 ram slots and 1gb of ram. It been demonstrated on some boards even though You see boards with 2 and 3 ram slots and being picky about ram and not taking 256 mb sticks. There are plenty shitty boards like this, later BX boards didn't have these limitations.

I've been around long enough and physically had in my hands on old boards enough that I know this.

The OEM Asus/HP MEB-VM is a kick-ass cheapy OEM board. I have one in a Pavilion 4450 system. Through creative BIOS flashing after a lot of work and hot-flashes, I was able to install the actual Asus AWARD BIOS in the HP version. I then soldered on jumper pins for FSB speed and am running a Mendocino Celeron 366 @ 566MHz (103MHz FSB) with a single 256MB Hynix PC-133 DIMM so I can run tight memory timings. Currently using a Geforce 2 GTS and a SB Live PCI, the system is good enough that I just played through Max Payne and GTA 3 on it with no complaints. I did glue a heatsink on the northbridge chip after my overclocking efforts. This board does only support Mendocino Celerons, nothing else will work on it.

Did find like my post below that AGP aperture has to be set at 16/32MB in BIOS and I then use RivaTuner to force AGP 1X mode when Windows 98 boots for ultimate stability. I use Nvidia 12.41 drivers. Newer drivers have stability issues. I'm thinking I'd like to try a Radeon 7200 or 8500 at some point and see if ATI cards work better. I suspect something funny in the Asus BIOS that is causing board to be fussy about Nvidia cards?

I posted a little a while back about my experiences. Windows ME crashes turning off display?

Warlord wrote:

Some people know that BX could use 4 ram slots and 1gb of ram. It been demonstrated on some boards even though You see boards with 2 and 3 ram slots and being picky about ram and not taking 256 mb sticks. There are plenty shitty boards like this, later BX boards didn't have these limitations.

I've been around long enough and physically had in my hands on old boards enough that I know this.

[1 gb RAM] Thanks for the update. You're 21 years late.
I "demonstrated" that in 1998 on a pair of N440BX based servers.
That 1GB works is stated right in the TPS but if going over 512Mb it specifies using Registered RAM to reduce loading on the MCH and regulators.
These people using 1GB of UDIMMs on a BX boards that aren't spec'ed for it are slowly burning out their chipsets.
Manufacturers can makes special provisions for it but that would be stated in the board's manual or specs.
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PCBONEZ wrote:

The OP seemed more interested in the end result than 'saving' the board and that's why I recommended that option. Now the OP se […]
Show full quote

The OP seemed more interested in the end result than 'saving' the board and that's why I recommended that option.
Now the OP seems to have changed his mind.

That's fine if the goal is learning and tinkering then go for it because that's just fun and you'll get something out of it.
But even with that. You would probably have more fun and learn more using a mainstream retail board simply because they have more options.
.

A few things:

1) I got his pc for nothing. I have no big emotional investment in it. if it has limitations, I'm cool with that.

2) most would hate the arguing, but im learning from it. the minutia are fascinating, since we're doing things all over the site that were never considered when these were new.

3) this is a 440zx, but it's socket 370, so unfortunately all the slotkets and katmai solutions don't work the same as if it were slot 1.

4). I tried win98se and winme on this system. none of the pre-built drivers worked on first install. I haven't exhausted them all, but I'll get to it soon. The problem is the video drivers. Its Ati Rage IIc (common), but AGP (less.common than PCI), and after research, its 2mb not 4mb (very uncommon)?
I didn't even realize there were AGP graphics with 2mb.
How big a problem is this? I just assumed with the "built for Windows 98" that either win98se or winme would work right out of the box with onboard video.

5) my idea for this pc is to use it as a base for running nascar racing (with isa sounds). is the graphics board so bad I should look into installing something different? I have a PCI rage pro (4mb i assume, i may check after all this). Would it make a difference in a DOS game like that?

6) after a lot of looking around, i think "the ultimate" solution would be a g7-600;to g7-850? ( I think? someone please correct me?) Gateway type system. Gateway appears to have been using p3/ISA boards in that range. Are there others similar? Slot1 computing is an era in the middle I unfortunately didn't get to experience much, so if there are other slot1/ISA boards, it fits a niche for me.

Try this driver. - It's from Asus and specifically for that board. It's given as for W95 and W98.
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/misc/vga/rage_w9x.zip

If that one doesn't at least function you may have a bad onboard video.
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PCBONEZ, thanks a bunch.

Got a chance to try the drivers today. Installed the drivers into the winME install i had, and i was shocked at how nice the video is from such a cheap setup.
Then I installed my SB vibra 16c, and reinstalled Win98se. video drivers worked there too.
installed nascar racing, loaded the hi-res version, maxed out the graphics setttings and tried it.
Low res: everything is flawless, asuch as it can be in this mode. great.
Hi res: the in car view is also flawless. the two wider views do slow down a bit, but that's not really a problem. it never slows down that bad, and I could reduce textures a little if i cared. inlike the in car view anyway.

keep in mind I upped the vehicles displayed from 8 ahead, 3 behind, to 20/10. i really wanted to see how far i could push it.

final specs:

HP 4450z
466mhz Celeron
440zx Web-vm asus MB with
2mb Rage IIc AGP onboard
64mb ram
30gb samsung spin point hdd
SB Vibra 16c
Win98se
Nascar racing 1994 version.

Verdict:
If there is a faster ISA system, I'll still try it, but this works great. The system does have some flakiness to it in that it sometimes has a lag doing basic things inside win98, but it doesn't BSOD, and everything works. Dos gaming was also a crashless experience thus far.

Given the low shelf graphics a d Celeron/66bus, I'd say its probably equivalent to a PII400/100mhz bus with a 4mb PCI card. Not bad for free.

Congrats!