Well if Stability is your main goal the motherboard is a very good choice.

Your graphics card is already a very good choice For those games I don't think you'll see any benefit from upgrading.
However if you just want upgrade to get that warm happy feeling then that's fair enough.
A GeForce 4Ti or high end FX cards would be the top level cards you could go. CPU will become your bottleneck but it does allow you to enable driver enhancements like AA, AF, etc
As you say ATI cards are less desirable due to dropping backwards compatibility.

I think pure dos the FX will output to VGA and DVI by default. Later cards definitely did. So your CRT/LCD setup should work out of the box.
Not sure about composite, worst case this would enabling in windows but a P2/3 would have enough power to run such games from within a windows session.

Your PII should be enough for the games in your list, It could start to struggle on later games, Say Quake 3.
I find a P3 600 (My VRM isn't upgraded) plays all my 9x era games just fine and anything that struggles is getting into XP era anyway.
Getting a 1GHz+ cpu will probably get 1 or 2 more years out of the rig. Think something like GTA3

Personally I recommend networking over USB for file transfers but if you really want USB 2.0 NEC based cards are what you want.

Any IDE to (CF, SD, SSD) I always recommend finding one that has a primary/slave jumper. I've had better luck with adapters that have the jumper over ones that don't.

Case cooling, I would just see how it goes. It's a period correct setup so you may be ok. It may just need a fan somewhere to encourage airflow. Just monitor and see what you think as a first step.

Thanks. I lucked into the motherboard at a yard sale.

I did a dry run with the mobo, ram and graphics card. Got it to POST without issue. Turns out the processor is actually a P-III 450 and NOT a P-II as was told to me by the original owner.

Have you had any experience with Slot-1 / Socket 370 "slocket" adapters. Seems opinions are varied on setup and reliability. But getting a 1ghz Coppermine socket 370 is WAY cheaper than slot-1 of the same speed.

You think it best to get a dedicated card both Win 98 and a separate one for DOS? Currently I don't have any inclination toward most DOS software, but that may change in the future.

I was thinking this Monoprice CF / IDE adapter. I like that it has convenient case-slot mounting. Also has jumper settings for primary / slave drive. I would then add a SD / CF card adapter to use in it.

https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=2785

As for the USB 2.0 card, I found these. They all look to be NEC chip based:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/233573461623

https://www.ebay.com/itm/233520825359

https://www.ebay.com/itm/124658545585

I don't have much experience with slocket adapters myself, I like the looks of the cartridge style CPU's but think for the most part you should be ok.
Think the major problems people run into it voltage support but you say our ok in that regard and bios support.
P2B does support Coppermine but you'll need to update bios to either 1013A or 1014.003 Beta
https://www.asus.com/supportonly/P2B-F/HelpDesk_BIOS/

Doom, Quake and some of the Zork games are Dos but if your just getting a feel for the hobby and more focused on Windows games you can get something like a SBLive or Audigy or Aural Vortex card which is more aimed at the Windows side of gaming but does give some basic dos support.
If you find yourself becoming more interested in dos or the above cards don't live up to your expectations you can always get an ISA card for dos later down the track.

Personally I keep CF/SD cards for dos only pc's but others seem happy with this same setup. IDE to CF to SD seems a bit overly complicated.
It may be better just getting a IDE to SD? Not really sure I've never used SD.

All those USB cards are fine

aroneox wrote on 2021-06-24, 07:54:

Have you had any experience with Slot-1 / Socket 370 "slocket" adapters. Seems opinions are varied on setup and reliability. But getting a 1ghz Coppermine socket 370 is WAY cheaper than slot-1 of the same speed.

In principle they work fine. Two of my retro's are permanently dressed up with slotkets; one with PIII 1.0Ghz/100 and another with 1100/100 Celeron. I would prefer original slot 1 but they are hard to find - if you can score an 800/100 or 850/100 in your neighbourhood I would go for that solution.
Take note that the majority of slotkets on offer on Ebay are only supporting Mendocino Celerons and do not work with Coppermines without hardware modification. The date codes on the rear are a good indication; the ones dated later than 1999 are usually ok.

Good slotkets are, btw, not really cheap anymore these days and neither are the socket 370 PIII 1.0GHz or 1.1GHz cpu's.
Also take note that you need a proper heatsink+fan for the high-end Coppermines because of their TDP's around or over 30w.

There is surplus of PIII CPUs as motherboards break down while CPUs last forever. So you may be able to upgrade very cheap if you keep looking. Still it looks like a good rig.

That is a pretty stable base for a battle station.

Do you mind overclocking? Because the P2B is capable of running the fsb at 133MHz without any problem. If I remember the P2B series also support the 1/4 PCI divider.

My P3B-f (also 450BX) runs with a 933MHz CPU at a fsb of 140, stable and fast. So any 133MHz coppermine should be ok. Besides, the real world difference between a 866 and 1000 MHz isn't that big.

For the slotket I use a cheap ass "370cpu" named one, and I've had no trouble at all. I've posted it with a big socket A sink to ensure the heat can be handled when oc'ing.

The AGP bus speed will be oc'd to 89MHz, but don't be afraid of that. None of my geforce based graphics cards had any problem with that: from the gf2 mx400 to the Ti4200 and Gf4 mx440. (Forget ATI there). Just make sure the graphics card does AGP 2x ofc.

For AGP that's another limit: current. I'm not sure what's the limit, but there might be a chance top end fx series draw to much. Can anybody reject or confirm this? At least I know the Ti 4x00 won't be a problem 😀

waterbeesje wrote on 2021-06-24, 22:36:

For the slotket I use a cheap ass "370cpu" named one, and I've had no trouble at all. I've posted it with a big socket A sink to ensure the heat can be handled when oc'ing.

Think I've got one of them kicking around. So that one does coppermines, good to know.

chinny22 wrote on 2021-06-24, 09:44:

...update bios to either 1013A or 1014.003 Beta https://www.asus.com/supportonly/P2B-F/HelpDesk_BIOS/ […]
Show full quote

...update bios to either 1013A or 1014.003 Beta
https://www.asus.com/supportonly/P2B-F/HelpDesk_BIOS/

...If you find yourself becoming more interested in dos or the above cards don't live up to your expectations you can always get an ISA card for dos later down the track.

Personally I keep CF/SD cards for dos only pc's but others seem happy with this same setup. IDE to CF to SD seems a bit overly complicated.
It may be better just getting a IDE to SD? Not really sure I've never used SD.

All those USB cards are fine

Thanks for the BIOS link. Grabbed it, the flash utility and the Mobo drivers for Win 98.

If I go deep into DOS on this machine, I may source out a couple more hardcore cards that play better. Is nice to have those ISA slots available for that.

I agree it's a bit complicated with the IDE > CF > SD. But I haven't been able to find a case-slot mounting IDE/SD direct card. I would prefer a more direct solution, to make any troubleshooting easier.

And I'll pull the trigger on one of those USB cards now.

PARKE wrote on 2021-06-24, 10:57:

If you can score an 800/100 or 850/100 in your neighbourhood I would go for that solution. Take note that the majority of slotke […]
Show full quote

If you can score an 800/100 or 850/100 in your neighbourhood I would go for that solution.
Take note that the majority of slotkets on offer on Ebay are only supporting Mendocino Celerons ...ones dated later than 1999 are usually ok.
Good slotkets are, btw, not really cheap anymore these days and neither are the socket 370 PIII 1.0GHz or 1.1GHz cpu's.
Also take note that you need a proper heatsink+fan for the high-end Coppermines because of their TDP's around or over 30w.

Thanks for the good info. I'll keep that in mind with the slocket if I go that route. I don't think you're wrong about a 800 or 850 / 100. That would probably be a more realistic choice from a heat dissipation perspective.

AlexZ wrote on 2021-06-24, 21:25:

There is surplus of PIII CPUs as motherboards break down while CPUs last forever. So you may be able to upgrade very cheap if you keep looking. Still it looks like a good rig.

Yeah, with the current P-III 450 in play and the use case as it stand right now. I think I can wait out for the right CPU and the right price.

waterbeesje wrote on 2021-06-24, 22:36:

That is a pretty stable base for a battle station. […]
Show full quote

That is a pretty stable base for a battle station.

Do you mind overclocking? Because the P2B is capable of running the fsb at 133MHz without any problem. If I remember the P2B series also support the 1/4 PCI divider.

My P3B-f (also 450BX) runs with a 933MHz CPU at a fsb of 140, stable and fast. So any 133MHz coppermine should be ok. Besides, the real world difference between a 866 and 1000 MHz isn't that big.

For the slotket I use a cheap ass "370cpu" named one, and I've had no trouble at all. I've posted it with a big socket A sink to ensure the heat can be handled when oc'ing.

The AGP bus speed will be oc'd to 89MHz, but don't be afraid of that. None of my geforce based graphics cards had any problem with that: from the gf2 mx400 to the Ti4200 and Gf4 mx440. (Forget ATI there). Just make sure the graphics card does AGP 2x ofc.

For AGP that's another limit: current. I'm not sure what's the limit, but there might be a chance top end fx series draw to much. Can anybody reject or confirm this? At least I know the Ti 4x00 won't be a problem 😀

Thanks for the confirmation.

I'm not at all against overclocking. As chinny22 pointed out, with the BIOS update I would be set to explore that option. Some of the reading I've done seems to confirm what your putting forward about voltage and dividers.

I do think the slot-1 feels more like the posh version of the processor, compared to the to the slocket, which has a little bit of "I hacked this together" vibe for me in this particular build.

Part of the attraction for me with this project is the lulz factor (which started with the case & its sticker). To have ironic bragging rights about a 1ghz slot-1 P-III in this budget eMachines case, is sort of like jamming a monster V8 engine into a Ford Escort. There's no real world application that I can think of (especially in retro) for Win 98 and a 1ghz P-III , but it would be fun to know it's in there.

That said, this IS a budget build. Right now, I'm floating around the $25 mark on all the parts I've gathered up so far. Regardless of how silly it would be to have the 1ghz P-III big-boy slot-1 being under utilized in this build, real world finances, and potentially more important, real world heat dissipation may force that choice to be otherwise.

But I'm always open to options.

And I do appreciate the confirmation on graphics cards.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-06-25, 00:44:

waterbeesje wrote on 2021-06-24, 22:36:

For the slotket I use a cheap ass "370cpu" named one, and I've had no trouble at all. I've posted it with a big socket A sink to ensure the heat can be handled when oc'ing.

Think I've got one of them kicking around. So that one does coppermines, good to know.

Here some documentation:

and:
http://www.oocities.org/_lunchbox/articles.html

PARKE wrote on 2021-06-25, 11:06:

Here some documentation: Evercool.pdf […]
Show full quote

Here some documentation:
Evercool.pdf

and:
http://www.oocities.org/_lunchbox/articles.html

Awesome, thank you very much.

aroneox wrote on 2021-06-25, 05:33:

PARKE wrote on 2021-06-24, 10:57:

If you can score an 800/100 or 850/100 in your neighbourhood I would go for that solution. Take note that the majority of slotke […]
Show full quote

If you can score an 800/100 or 850/100 in your neighbourhood I would go for that solution.
Take note that the majority of slotkets on offer on Ebay are only supporting Mendocino Celerons ...ones dated later than 1999 are usually ok.
Good slotkets are, btw, not really cheap anymore these days and neither are the socket 370 PIII 1.0GHz or 1.1GHz cpu's.
Also take note that you need a proper heatsink+fan for the high-end Coppermines because of their TDP's around or over 30w.

Thanks for the good info. I'll keep that in mind with the slocket if I go that route. I don't think you're wrong about a 800 or 850 / 100. That would probably be a more realistic choice from a heat dissipation perspective.

Not to mention the powerdraw that the high-end PIII's throw at the VRM.
Also keep in mind that you have to invest in PC133 RAM when you go for an fsb 133 cpu.

PARKE wrote on 2021-06-25, 14:40:

Not to mention the powerdraw that the high-end PIII's throw at the VRM.
Also keep in mind that you have to invest in PC133 RAM when you go for an fsb 133 cpu.

Ah. Yes. Also, didn't even remember about having to get correct spec ram when jumping to fsb133.

Even though PC133 is relatively cheap, I know I've got 512mb of WORKING PC100 on board right now. It seems getting working ram is often a crap shoot. I think this confirms the direction on this build for me.

Now the search for the right 800/100 or 850/100 P-III begins.

You have a very nice motherboard there (especially because it seems to be a Pentium III upgrade version - the first version was dedicated to Pentium II) and many people here, including myself, would choose to take it to the max just for the heck of it. But there are some considerations and there is a price tag involved.
Just out of curiosity, what is the type/number indication on the clock generator chip ?

Here's a photo of the area:

Thanks. That is a proper chip for Coppermine 66/100/133 so you can always upgrade in the future.

I use SD cards for my Windows 98 SE PC so that I can have one SD card dedicated for Windows games from the 90s and another for DOS games (which has 98 on it as well). Windows 98 SE as far as I know is unable to have partitions above 137 GB, just so you know.

As for the sound card, you should consider looking for an ISA sound card, such as a Soundblaster 16 (I have a SB16 Vibra but I also have a PCI Soundblaster 128 in there too).

Your processor might be a bottleneck for the graphics card; does the motherboard support pentium III processors? I'm not too familiar with how bad of a bottleneck some processors can be.

Lastly, I flashed my slot 1 motherboard to the latest BIOS for that board, which I recommend doing.

Your current Katmai 450MHz CPU already draws more power than most Coppermines. If you don't need a ton of speed then a P3-600E is a good option for a system like this, in fact it's pretty much ideal for cost and power/heat. They've always been cheap on eBay (haven't looked recently) and run very cool. Faster Coppermines in Slot-1 style are less common and quickly get much more expensive, so then you're more likely to have to fiddle with S370 adapters.

It's very likely to handle 133FSB but don't get too invested into that idea until you know it works. I've run into plenty of 440BX boards that couldn't pass tests beyond 124MHz or even 112MHz in one case (a P2B-D). A fair number of boards will max out at 133FSB in stress tests which I wouldn't qualify as reliable but technically you could say they ran it. I'd want to see at least 137MHz (+3%) in a test to call it reliable.
I believe the universal 133FSB overclockability of BX boards was exaggerated on the internet back then, though it became increasingly accurate as the chips and boards got revised. Back in those days not many people tested thoroughly when they overclocked, if the tools for doing so even existed yet, and crashes were always blamed on Win98 back then. It took a while after the popularization of WinXP for people to start trusting the OS and consider they could have faults in their hardware. By then the 440BX was a retired legend.
Despite how cynical I might sound though, I do love the 440BX at 133FSB. I ran 3 systems like that long term with no issues. It really is an awesome setup, but don't be too surprised if it has issues on a particular board.

I've had around 6-7 P2B-F v1.0 boards over the years. It's the only revision I've seen, actually. I think all but one of them had Coppermine VRMs. I think their production aligns more with P2B rev1.10 or so. I'm not sure the P2B-F was even available back when base P2B rev1.02 was being made because I haven't seen one whose date codes lines up with them.

PARKE wrote on 2021-06-29, 13:14:

Thanks. That is a proper chip for Coppermine 66/100/133 so you can always upgrade in the future.

👍 Thanks for the confirmation on that. Nice to know should I want to attempt a 133mhz jump in the future.

shamino wrote on 2021-06-29, 22:59:

Your current Katmai 450MHz CPU already draws more power than most Coppermines. If you don't need a ton of speed then a P3-600E is a good option for a system like this, in fact it's pretty much ideal for cost and power/heat. They've always been cheap on eBay (haven't looked recently) and run very cool.

It's very likely to handle 133FSB but don't get too invested into that idea until you know it works.

...Despite how cynical I might sound though, I do love the 440BX at 133FSB. I ran 3 systems like that long term with no issues. It really is an awesome setup, but don't be too surprised if it has issues on a particular board.

Reading through the advice and experiences in this thread, I've decided that keeping the CPU at the 100mhz is best for one of my major goals in this project -- stability.

I think there could be some fun in tinkering with pumping it up to 133mhz, but I think that also has the potential to open a very wiggly can of troubleshooting worms. As it stands now, I've got a motherboard that is recognized at being very solid in its "stock" configuration, a good video card compatible with stock AGP bus speed, and known working memory. Changing the bus speed in pursuit of lulz and ironic bragging rights is a fun idea. But not only would I need to source new components to work with the increased bus speed, that would also add to the list of things when it comes to working through troubleshooting issues. And while I might be able to eventually sort those out, there's also the strong possibility that it might never be stable at the increased bus speed and I'd just end up back at the 100mhz anyway.

Looking over the Coppermine/100 slot-1 CPUs, the difference in TDP between the 600mhz and the 800mhz is a smidge over 1 watt. I think that pretty acceptable for the speed bump between the two. The 850mhz does take it up a noticeable notch in TDP at 25.7 watt. And if I were still pursuing the lulz for absolute bananas and completely unnecessary amount of speed in this build, it looks like the last native slot-1/100 is the 1000mhz which is 29 watts, and I imagine that would start to get a bit toasty.

The 800mhz I think would have plenty of headroom juice to take on whatever was the bleeding edge of Win 98 gaming in the era. And if I want to nerd out and run specs with someone who cares, 800mhz is still a very respectable speed for the era.

Yeh I don't get the point of overclocking anymore. I understand some people simply like the challenge and that's fine but the fact is you could simply get say a P4 based system for almost nothing and it'll be faster then even most extreme P3 overclock.

Stability is much more preferable in my book