VOGONS


Slot A thunderbirds

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Reply 40 of 60, by appiah4

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120 EUR for 2 Voodoo2s is absurd.. I only have 3 of them but I'm kinda glad I got them when I could. They only cost me 10 EUR a piece most.

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Reply 41 of 60, by sirotkaslo

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They usually go for 100€ a piece here. Most people threw pcs in the bin when they got obsolete, so not that many retro things I can get locally also in 98 Slovenia wasn't the most developed country out there (still isnt 😁 ), so not that many voodoos were purchased.

Reply 42 of 60, by bloodem

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sirotkaslo wrote on 2022-01-07, 07:25:

Found two 8MB cards by Creative for 120€ with sli bridge. Don't feel like paying that much, but prices have gone crazy in the last year. So I'll probably add them to my pc along with the medion gf3, they go for 10€.

Well, in your case SLI is really not needed. Old Glide-only games work just fine with only one Voodoo 2 card. Games that would benefit from 2 x Voodoo 2 cards will surely support either OpenGL or Direct3D and they will run much better on the GeForce 3, even at 1600 x 1200. 😀
Of course, Voodoo 2 SLI is ultra-cool, so ignore what I said above and just buy them 🤣 (if you think that you can aford the 120€).

Yes, the Medion GeForce 3 Ti 200 is a good and cheap card (usually not a good overclocker, though, and you might need to recap it).

sirotkaslo wrote on 2022-01-07, 07:25:

Judging from the looks of the sound cards, i'd say the ESS is better built. Yamaha model is the a151-a00. Will give both a try.

Your YMF719 is a Labway card (probably the most common). I also have 5 or more of these and they are decent cards. Their sound quality is very good, though they do tend to be a bit on the noisy side. But, with a bit of fine tuning, you can (almost) make the noise disappear.

appiah4 wrote on 2022-01-07, 10:34:

120 EUR for 2 Voodoo2s is absurd.. I only have 3 of them but I'm kinda glad I got them when I could. They only cost me 10 EUR a piece most.

I also stopped buying them once their price exceeded 30€. On the other hand, in my country I can still (rarely) find them for ~50€ a piece, and resisting the temptation of buying another one can be difficult sometimes (even though I already have like... eight) 😁
One thing is certain though: these are the new 'normal' prices and they're not going back to what they were 4 - 5 years ago... 🙁

1 x PLCC-68 / 2 x PGA132 / 5 x Skt 3 / 9 x Skt 7 / 12 x SS7 / 1 x Skt 8 / 14 x Slot 1 / 5 x Slot A
5 x Skt 370 / 8 x Skt A / 2 x Skt 478 / 2 x Skt 754 / 3 x Skt 939 / 7 x LGA775 / 1 x LGA1155
Current PC: Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Backup PC: Core i7 7700k

Reply 43 of 60, by sirotkaslo

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Yeah I mostly want it for the "cool" factor tbh, plus I doubt I'll ever get another chance to score a sli cards here locally, ebay prices are even crazier. Will try to get them for around 100€ and call it a day. Plus that gf3 card and we're good to go.

I am having random instabilities such as sometimes the board doesn't start, stuck at second red led "Memory detection test", but I don't think its my memory. It also won't detect single sided 256MB pc133 sticks for some reason. Is it possible that the caps are gone but haven't bulged?

Low prices are gone, us "early" pc geeks are coming into mid life crisis, I think it will only get worse 😁

Reply 44 of 60, by bloodem

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sirotkaslo wrote on 2022-01-07, 18:41:

Yeah I mostly want it for the "cool" factor tbh, plus I doubt I'll ever get another chance to score a sli cards here locally, ebay prices are even crazier. Will try to get them for around 100€ and call it a day. Plus that gf3 card and we're good to go.

Sounds good! 😀

sirotkaslo wrote on 2022-01-07, 18:41:

I am having random instabilities such as sometimes the board doesn't start, stuck at second red led "Memory detection test", but I don't think its my memory. It also won't detect single sided 256MB pc133 sticks for some reason. Is it possible that the caps are gone but haven't bulged?

Now that you mentioned it, my Gigabyte GA-7IXE boards (which are based on the AMD 751 chipset too) are also very fussy when it comes to memory. In fact, very few of my SDRAM modules work with these boards. Kingston 128MB (low density / 8 chips) or Kingston 256 MB (low density / 16 chips) work extremely well, while most other modules that I have do not.

sirotkaslo wrote on 2022-01-07, 18:41:

Low prices are gone, us "early" pc geeks are coming into mid life crisis, I think it will only get worse 😁

Amen to that, brother! 😁

1 x PLCC-68 / 2 x PGA132 / 5 x Skt 3 / 9 x Skt 7 / 12 x SS7 / 1 x Skt 8 / 14 x Slot 1 / 5 x Slot A
5 x Skt 370 / 8 x Skt A / 2 x Skt 478 / 2 x Skt 754 / 3 x Skt 939 / 7 x LGA775 / 1 x LGA1155
Current PC: Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Backup PC: Core i7 7700k

Reply 45 of 60, by sirotkaslo

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OK, then i need to get some new sticks to see if it will improve its stability. If not, I guess all that's left to do is a full recap... nightmare.

I did manage to get those voodoos for a bit lower price - 100€, not great not terrible 😀 Now I need to up the memory to 12MB, do you perhaps know if these chips will work: https://www.ebay.de/itm/393583274847?_trkparm … 6c79e%7Ciid%3A1

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Reply 46 of 60, by bloodem

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sirotkaslo wrote on 2022-01-09, 10:39:

OK, then i need to get some new sticks to see if it will improve its stability. If not, I guess all that's left to do is a full recap... nightmare.

A recap can never hurt. Depending on your soldering skills and tools you have, it can either be a pain to do or... an extremely easy 30 minute task.
I did my first racapping in 2005, when I got a job as a junior IT technician. And... it was a pain. I'm pretty sure I spent 3 or 4 hours to do it and the end result was... aesthetically not that great (the board did work, though, to my surprise). 😁

sirotkaslo wrote on 2022-01-09, 10:39:

I did manage to get those voodoos for a bit lower price - 100€, not great not terrible 😀 Now I need to up the memory to 12MB, do you perhaps know if these chips will work: https://www.ebay.de/itm/393583274847?_trkparm … 6c79e%7Ciid%3A1

Yes, I have repaired a few Voodoo 2 cards with those exact ICs, so you can buy them with confidence. 😀

sirotkaslo wrote on 2022-01-09, 10:39:

[...]not great not terrible[...]

I see what you did there! 3.6 roentgen 😁

1 x PLCC-68 / 2 x PGA132 / 5 x Skt 3 / 9 x Skt 7 / 12 x SS7 / 1 x Skt 8 / 14 x Slot 1 / 5 x Slot A
5 x Skt 370 / 8 x Skt A / 2 x Skt 478 / 2 x Skt 754 / 3 x Skt 939 / 7 x LGA775 / 1 x LGA1155
Current PC: Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Backup PC: Core i7 7700k

Reply 47 of 60, by sirotkaslo

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I have mediocre at best skills, so I'll probably order a desoldering gun and give it my best.

But so far it's mora of a hate than love relationship with this motherboard, when I install v2 drivers my pc freezes as soon as desktop loads. Will probably star a new thread about all of my problems 😁

Reply 48 of 60, by Blitz_25

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100€ for a pair of V2 is a steal these days. On ebay it's hard to find anything bellow 120€ for a single V2. I do share your pain in finding old pre 2000 pc parts localy here in Slovenia 😉 Lp iz štajrskega konca

Reply 49 of 60, by Blitz_25

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BTW, hang on to your V3 PCI as it's getting rare and worth much more than AGP. I was on a look up for one of those for my ss K6 system that lacks AGP slot but had to go for V2 + TNT pci combo as it was much cheaper this way. Did manage to find cheap V3 AGP for s478 P4 frankenstin i'm building.
I would rethink of doing a ram upgrade on V2's if you're novice at soldering as there wont' be much perormance gain and on the down side the V2's can get broken in process.
Are you installing your V2 on fresh windows install an what DX version are you using? Had similar problem on ss7 where i had to do a fresh win 98 install then instal the V2 with drivers and after that update to dx7

Reply 50 of 60, by vad4r

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I start with a 600Mhz Slot A and add a Rage Fury Maxx to it. The performance was good, but I caught an 800Mhz for only a few € - the performance got better well 😁
After this, I oc a700 with a Goldfinger Device, but there was no more room for improvement 🙁

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vae victis!

Reply 51 of 60, by sirotkaslo

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Blitz_25 wrote on 2022-01-10, 13:10:

BTW, hang on to your V3 PCI as it's getting rare and worth much more than AGP. I was on a look up for one of those for my ss K6 system that lacks AGP slot but had to go for V2 + TNT pci combo as it was much cheaper this way. Did manage to find cheap V3 AGP for s478 P4 frankenstin i'm building.
I would rethink of doing a ram upgrade on V2's if you're novice at soldering as there wont' be much perormance gain and on the down side the V2's can get broken in process.
Are you installing your V2 on fresh windows install an what DX version are you using? Had similar problem on ss7 where i had to do a fresh win 98 install then instal the V2 with drivers and after that update to dx7

Živjo 😀!

Yeah I'll probably keep it since I can use it in pretty much any machina. I got it for 10€, so no harm if it stays in a box. I wasn't planning on soldering it, I have a reflow station and i thought about hot air. I installed drivers first (chipset and agp from vogons), then dx7, then radeon and lastly v2.

Reply 52 of 60, by bloodem

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vad4r wrote on 2022-01-10, 15:41:

After this, I oc a700 with a Goldfinger Device, but there was no more room for improvement 🙁

There is probably room for improvement, but you need to change the cache divider.

The cache on the 700 MHz Athlon is running at 1/2 (350 MHz), which is actually the HIGHEST cache speed on all Plutos/Orions (and almost at the very limit of what the cache ICs can handle, without going out-of-spec).
Starting with the 750 Mhz model and up to 850 Mhz, the cache divider is set at 2/5 (so the cache on the 850 MHz Pluto will run at 340 MHz - less than the cache on the 700 MHz Pluto).
And as for the 900 / 950 / 1000 MHz Athlon Orion CPUs, their cache divider is set at 1/3 (so the cache on the 1 GHz model will run at 333 MHz, lower than on the 850 and 700 MHz models).

So, depending on how overclockable your CPU die is, you can switch the cache divider to either 2/5 (which will allow a safe cache operation for CPU clocks up to 850 MHz), or 1/3 (if you have a faster CPU die under the hood, allowing you to reach up to 1 GHz or even a bit more than that).

Some motherboards actually allow you to control the cache divider from the BIOS setup menu, but these are very rare. There are also some patches available for certain motherboard BIOS versions that can add this functionality.
Personally, these "software solutions" never worked for me, so I find it much easier to just move a couple of resistors on the PCB and be done with it.

PS: that's a very nice build, vad4r! 😀 And that Rage Fury Maxx is awesome (and, sadly, missing from my collection 😢 )

1 x PLCC-68 / 2 x PGA132 / 5 x Skt 3 / 9 x Skt 7 / 12 x SS7 / 1 x Skt 8 / 14 x Slot 1 / 5 x Slot A
5 x Skt 370 / 8 x Skt A / 2 x Skt 478 / 2 x Skt 754 / 3 x Skt 939 / 7 x LGA775 / 1 x LGA1155
Current PC: Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Backup PC: Core i7 7700k

Reply 53 of 60, by matze79

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I own a Slot A Athlon 1000Mhz Thunderbird.

It seems that there haven't been any sold on eBay in a long time, so I'm wondering if it's that rare.
Was it only produced in small quantities?

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https://www.retroianer.de - german retro computer board

Reply 55 of 60, by bogdanpaulb

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matze79 wrote on 2023-04-10, 19:42:

I own a Slot A Athlon 1000Mhz Thunderbird.

It seems that there haven't been any sold on eBay in a long time, so I'm wondering if it's that rare.
Was it only produced in small quantities?

The motherboard is not bad at all also.

Reply 56 of 60, by cyclone3d

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I have at least 1 900Mhz Slot A thunderbird and at least a couple 700Mhz.

Might have a 1Ghz as well but not 100% sure.

They Slot-A T-Bird didn't work on that many boards either when it was released if I remember correctly.

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Reply 57 of 60, by PcBytes

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I think I still have a 750MHz Thunderbird here, along with the Epox EP-7KXA mobo it came with. Both still work, even if the mobo isn't in the best shape (IIRC one of the RAM clips is missing, has had two VRM regulators replaced as I stupidly harvested the originals for a Super Socket 7 mobo that later died by again, my own sheer stupidity, and the CPU retention migh be missing, not sure on that last one) and last time it booted WinME. I have retired it in favour of a ECS K7VZA R3.0 + Palomino Duron 1600 which were even faster than the original T-Bird.

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Reply 58 of 60, by hyoenmadan

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feipoa wrote on 2020-04-23, 20:34:

Isn't the fun of running a slot A AMD Athlon to use the AMD Irongate chipset?

Wasn't the Irongate Chipset just a rebadged and "shrunk to one silicon die" DEC chipset for the Alpha, which was licensed by AMD to use it with their Athlon CPUs?
I remember reading about some Alpha boards with the AMD chipset. I dunno if these made it to the market thought.

Reply 59 of 60, by chinny22

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matze79 wrote on 2023-04-10, 19:42:

I own a Slot A Athlon 1000Mhz Thunderbird.

It seems that there haven't been any sold on eBay in a long time, so I'm wondering if it's that rare.
Was it only produced in small quantities?

Been keeping an eye on Slot A CPU's for a while now.
700Mhz are common and fair price.
900Mhz usually are on ebay but at prices I'm not willing to spend.
1Ghz You don't see many of and when you do they aren't cheap.

Does makes sense, AMD dropped Slot A and moved onto Socket A much quicker then Intel did with it's corresponding sockets.