EscapeVelocity wrote:

The EPoX boards seem to be limited to 384MB, 3 128MB SDRAM.

EscapeVelocity wrote:

256MB (double sided) to 768MB PC133 or PC100 non ECC SDRAM

You should just try out the stick in your Epox board. I think it may simply work just like in LX boards.

The LX (basically a 66Mhz BX) officially supports only 128MB DS SDRAM sticks, but works perfectly fine with 256MB DS memory sticks 😉

Recommend a Hard Drive and your thoughts on the best set up.

Dos 6.22 (most likely)

to Windows 98se

Possible dual boot/

ATA-33 support from the Motherboard

FAT 16 for Dos I guess.

2GB limitation partition size in DOS, FWIU.

Thanks!

Probably going with Asus CD Rom and Lite On CD-RW in 48x or 52x flavors. Possibly Plextor Premium.

But I need to think about what I can fit in the box.

1 3.5" Hard Drive
1 CD Rom
1 CD RW
1 3.5" Diskette
1 5.25" Floppy
1 Iomega Zip Drive

Looks like Ill need a PCI ATAPI interface card....or perhaps I should go SCSI.

PS - I might be building 2 systems.

Maybe this thread should be moved to System Specs....now that Im more familiar with teh board.

CD RW - Not really interested in serious audio and cd burning though....in Win98se or Dos.

Plextor Plexwriter Premium - Quality Build Excels at Audio CDs

Lite On 48x - 52x - Fast - Loud - Handles Lots of Different Media - Good Scratched Media including external models.

Yamaha F1 - External - Excellent for Audio CDs

CD Rom

Asus S520 - Fast - Xtra Loud - Excellent Scratched Media
Asus S500 - Ditto

Legacy CD RW

Plextor 1210
Plextor 1610
Plextor 2410

Motherboards:

*Asus P5A ATX
*EPoX MVPG2
Iwill XA100Plus

CPUs:

Pentium 133MMX, 166MMX, 200MMX, 233MMX
*AMD K6 II

RAM:

*256MB (double sided) 512MB Max PC133 or PC100 non ECC SDRAM

Case:

*ATX Case
*ATX Power Supply

Drives:

Teac 3.5" Double Density Diskette
Teac 5.25" Floppy 1.2MB Double Density

CD-R/W - Plextor, Asus, LiteOn, TDK, Teac

Nakamichi MJ-5.16

20GB or 40GB ATA 33 Hard Drive (to PATA 133) - Hitachi/IBM, Quantum, Western Digital, Seagate

*Hitachi Deskstar
Quantum Fireball

IDE to Compact Flash Adaptor

Video Cards:

Asus, Diamond, 3Dfx

*S3 Trio64+ 2MB PCI Diamond Stealth64

S3 Virge/DX 4MB PCI Diamond Stealth 3D Pro

*Tseng ET4000/W32p 2MB PCI Diamond Stealth32

*Ark 2000pv 2MB PCI Diamond Stealth64 Graphics

TNT PCI Asus V3400, Diamond Viper V550

*TNT2 AGP Asus V3800, Diamond Viper V770

GeForce2 256/MX/GTS/Pro/Ultra AGP Asus V6600 256, Asus V6800 256, Asus V7100 MX, Asus V7700 GTS

*3Dfx Voodoo2 PCI Diamond Monster 3D II

*3Dfx Voodoo Banshee PCI Diamond Moster Fusion

3Dfx Voodoo 3 3000 AGP

Matrox G400 Max 32MB AGP, G200 PCI, Mystique

Sound Cards:

Creative, Roland, Yamaha, Gravis, Ensoniq, Diamond

Ad Lib
Ad Lib Gold
Media Vision Thunder
Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum

*Sound Blaster 2.0
Sound Blaster Pro 2.0
Sound Blaster AWE32
Sound Blaster 32
*Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold

Roland MT-32
*Roland SC-7
Roland CM-32
Roland CM-64
Roland CM-500
Roland SC-55
Roland SC-88
Yamaha MU-10
Yamaha MU-50

Ensoniq AudioPCI
ESS 1688*, 1788*
Aureal Vortex 2

Monitors:

Mag Innovision CRT 17"-19"
Viewsonic CRT 17"-19"

Controllers:

*CH Gamecard III
*Gravis Eliminator Dual Game Port
*Game Port Y Adaptor
*Joyswitch

CH Flightstick
CH Flightstick Pro
Logitech Wingman
Logitech Wingman Extreme
Thrustmaster PFCS
Thrustmaster WCS
Suncom F15E Talon
Suncom WCS

Gravis Gamepad

Software:

Win 98se
Dr. Dos 5.0
MS-Dos 5.0
Norton Utilities 7.0
Norton Commander
Norton Ghost
PC Tools Utilities 7.5
QuarterDeck QEMM
QuarterDeck Desqview
QuarterDeck GameRunner
Mace Utilities
ProCom or Telix
SpinRite from Gibson
DIRmagic
Xtree Gold
debug.exe
PC Doctor
Xtree
DosCommander by Søren Kragh
4DOS
Harvard Graphics 3.0
Arachne Web Browser
PKUnzip 2.50
Ace for DOS
GeoWorks Ensemble
GEM

EscapeVelocity wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

Escape, could you please try to edit your posts instead of posting lots of tiny ones?
The edit button is the really small one on the top right of your post

Edit: Oops I did it again. Sorry.

Seriously, stop that.

EscapeVelocity wrote:

Motherboards:

Iwill XA100Plus

That's the board I use in my SS7 Retro PC!

Are these things you already have? Or are going to get? Or do you want feedback? A bit confused about these long lists...

Regarding the Iwill board:

It's terrific. It has these easy jumper system. Basically an easy visible row of jumpers right at the front for FSB and multiplier.

The layout is also very good for neat cable management.

I have the latest BIOS to support the K6+ chips as well.

It's a working list for acquisition, just keeping thoughts together, and refining and trimming and adding with more research on each category.

Yes, I would like to get an Iwill XA100Plus board.

Picked up a Diamong Monster Fusion, but lost out a SB AWE64 Gold today.

sliderider wrote:

ih8registrations wrote:

If you tried to match the fastest system available for a given period in the late 80s to mid 90s, it'd take five systems. […]
Show full quote

If you tried to match the fastest system available for a given period in the late 80s to mid 90s, it'd take five systems.

88 386 25
89-91 486 50(@25/33/50)
92 dx2 66
93-95 Pentium 133(@66/100/120/133)
95 pro 200

Which could be whittled down to the 486 50 and Pentium 133; Pentium Pro being the expensive server chip that is was, released in November, pretend you didn't upgrade for 92, and turn off cache to mimic a 386, and for pre-88, a Tandy 1000 is the best system, covering pc/xt speed, cga, cga composite, & jr/tandy output(using the 486 /w its vga for the corner case "best with ega" games.)

Which 486 50 are you talking about? A DX 50 or DX-2 50? Good luck finding a 486 board that supports the DX 50.

The DX 50, it was the fastest system available in 91. Motherboard support is easy(http://cgi.ebay.com/Shuttle-486-DX-50-Motherb … Y-/290518953502 ,) it's cards that are the issue when running at 50 MHz.

EscapeVelocity wrote:

It's a working list for acquisition, just keeping thoughts together, and refining and trimming and adding with more research on each category.

Yes, I would like to get an Iwill XA100Plus board.

Picked up a Diamong Monster Fusion, but lost out a SB AWE64 Gold today.

It doesn't REALLY matter what board you get though. Usually it'll be either Ali or VIA (Theres also SiS but those don't have AGP).
It only starts to matter if you're planning on using large amounts of ram and in some cases when you want to use one of those mobiles.

Tetrium wrote:

It doesn't REALLY matter what board you get though.

+1

I just got excited at the possibility of someone else having the same Retro mainboard 🤣

I picked up a...

Diamond Stealth 32 PCI Tseng ET4000wp/32 2MB

Diamond Stealth64 Graphics PCI ARC2000pv 2MB

Gravis Eliminator Dual Game Port

CH Gamecard III Automatic

Radio Shack Game Port Y Adaptor

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

It doesn't REALLY matter what board you get though.

+1

I just got excited at the possibility of someone else having the same Retro mainboard 🤣

Cheers!

Lol, I get the same when someone mentions the GA-5AX hehe 😁

If you "just need a SS7 board", then basically any Ali or VIA should do. Just be careful with the ECS/PCChips varieties.
Of course there are some individual boards that may be picky, but I think that's kinda unavoidable when going the SS7 route anyway.
VIA problems, AGP issues, cacheable area, yes theres enough headache for everyone! 😜

I don't own the Iwill board, but so far the GA-5AX has worked with not a single crash or lockup for me while playing the entire Unreal campaign with a Voodoo 2 + AGP TNT2 Vanta + PCI soundcard...and Windows ME. No strange PCI issues, no sound crackling, it was pretty much uneventful from a troubleshooting perspective 😁
The only very minor issue that system gave me is that apparently a memory chip on the Voodoo is defective, I get a pixelated rectangle in dark blue in the screen, which changes position whenever I change resolution (playing Unreal in Glide), but it's hardly noticable.

Really Lol, my 1st Super 7 system and it's rock solid so far 😁

Tetrium, is your Gigabyte GA-5AX SS7 mobo a revision 4.1 board? If it is, does it have the bugged >128MB RAM cache problem, like my revision 5.2 board does?

What is a good Intel chipset board for Pentium?

Sound Blaster 2.0

Diamond Viper V770 AGP TNT2 32MB

Joyswitch

on the way.

Jorpho wrote:

EscapeVelocity wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

Escape, could you please try to edit your posts instead of posting lots of tiny ones?
The edit button is the really small one on the top right of your post

Edit: Oops I did it again. Sorry.

Seriously, stop that.

You're still doing it.

Im not sure why its bothering everybody.

Im using this thread to gather information, post thoughts, plan purchases, and ask advice....not spamming up the board.

EscapeVelocity wrote:

Im not sure why its bothering everybody.

Im using this thread to gather information, post thoughts, plan purchases, and ask advice....not spamming up the board.

You don't see anyone else doing it, do you?

Consolidating your information into a smaller number of posts makes it much easier to read. By spreading it out excessively you inconsiderately transfer the burden of sorting out your information on to the people whose advice you are seeking. It also makes it harder for readers in the future to glean useful information from the advice being posted.

If you are trying to plan stuff, use Notepad.