So, I was browsing the drawers of stuff at my go-to computer spot and saw a Gold-Top Pentium in there.

As I dug for it, something was off. I flipped it over once I had it, and revealed the truth: Socket 4 Pentium!! What??!

Where did the board go?! Most frustrating part of shopping there. Everything gets taken apart and scattered to the wind. I feel lucky anyway, I didn't even consider adding a socket 4 Pentium to my collection, due to rarity.

I find myself now stuck in a new place:

The fun part is that after spending many years and the last shreds of your sanity finding the motherboard, you realise that those are easier to find than good condition heatsink-fans for them. 🤣

Though you might get lucky sooner eyeballing "486" PCI motherboard listing for mis-IDed socket 4 boards.

BitWrangler wrote on 2025-09-14, 23:20:

those are easier to find than good condition heatsink-fans for them. 🤣

Oh really? I did not know that. I still have the Intel heatsink + fan that came with my P4b, brand new in its original box. I'd never thought these things were difficult to find these days.

Major Jackyl wrote on 2025-09-14, 22:02:

So, I was browsing the drawers of stuff at my go-to computer spot and saw a Gold-Top Pentium in there. […]
Show full quote

So, I was browsing the drawers of stuff at my go-to computer spot and saw a Gold-Top Pentium in there.

The attachment 20250914_164813.jpg is no longer available

As I dug for it, something was off. I flipped it over once I had it, and revealed the truth: Socket 4 Pentium!! What??!

The attachment 20250914_164847.jpg is no longer available

And in great looking condition as well, congratulations! But yeah, the caveat is the Socket 4 - those boards aren't excactly plentyful

PD2JK wrote on 2025-09-13, 08:54:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-09-12, 04:05:

PD2JK wrote on 2025-09-10, 18:35:

Two 366 Celly's. Yes guess which mainboards they're going on to and the clock speed.

The attachment DSC_5924.JPG is no longer available

Oh, you bought a pair of 550s for your BP6? 😁

Been binning some 400s for mine, hoping to find a pair capable of 600. Out of 9, none would do 600 stable 🙁 366@550 is a lot more plausible success.

That's right! I'm planning to conduct a lot of benchmarks with 550 MHz CPU's and I think a 366@550 must be included.

That's funny, I'm looking into the same thing, just at 450 🤣

Celeron Covington 300@450
Celeron Mendocino 300A@450A
Pentium II Deschutes 450
Pentium III Katmai 450
Pentium III Coppermine 600EB@450E

Should about cover that.

Personally, I'm pretty proud of the smartness that is underclocking a Coppermine so all run at same both speed and FSB. A pity though, that I can't get a CuMine based Celeron in it as well .. 😉

Got myself a pair couple of 12MiB Voodoo2s. Unkown brands, though, without brackets.

Reasonably cheap to risk it, especially since they allegedly worked according to seller, who promised a refund if not.

Now, they don't. They detect in Win98, install driver - driver gets angry if I boot without them - but can't start neither DxDiag (fails D3D) nor 3DMark 1999 or 2001.

With one of them, Mojo reports "No Voodoo card found" (or whatever the exact words are) with one of them, the other one reports only 1 MiB for TMU0.

Reached out to seller, who refunded half of the purchase price, without me needing to return them. Hopefully I can get at least one working card from them (fingers crossed, waiting for Witchery to release) 😀

I continue to add "that's strange" things to my collection, and today it's yet another odd 486...

...an effective 486 on Socket 5. Yeah. A first generation IDT Win Chip 200. I'll probably never use it seriously, but I'm happy to have it regardless.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-09-17, 13:52:

Got myself a pair couple of 12MiB Voodoo2s. Unkown brands, though, without brackets. […]
Show full quote

Got myself a pair couple of 12MiB Voodoo2s. Unkown brands, though, without brackets.

Reasonably cheap to risk it, especially since they allegedly worked according to seller, who promised a refund if not.

Now, they don't. They detect in Win98, install driver - driver gets angry if I boot without them - but can't start neither DxDiag (fails D3D) nor 3DMark 1999 or 2001.

With one of them, Mojo reports "No Voodoo card found" (or whatever the exact words are) with one of them, the other one reports only 1 MiB for TMU0.

Reached out to seller, who refunded half of the purchase price, without me needing to return them. Hopefully I can get at least one working card from them (fingers crossed, waiting for Witchery to release) 😀

Check the usual.
Broken caps, resistors, and its almost everytime bend pins or not soldred pins in the chips.
use a magnify glass

It's very common for the legs on these very hot chips to have cracked solder joints from years of thermal expansion and cooling. Very easy fix with the right tools and expertise.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-09-17, 13:52:

Got myself a pair couple of 12MiB Voodoo2s. Unkown brands, though, without brackets. […]
Show full quote

Got myself a pair couple of 12MiB Voodoo2s. Unkown brands, though, without brackets.

Reasonably cheap to risk it, especially since they allegedly worked according to seller, who promised a refund if not.

Now, they don't. They detect in Win98, install driver - driver gets angry if I boot without them - but can't start neither DxDiag (fails D3D) nor 3DMark 1999 or 2001.

With one of them, Mojo reports "No Voodoo card found" (or whatever the exact words are) with one of them, the other one reports only 1 MiB for TMU0.

Reached out to seller, who refunded half of the purchase price, without me needing to return them. Hopefully I can get at least one working card from them (fingers crossed, waiting for Witchery to release) 😀

Have a look at this post for some hints as to what to look for Jaton Voodoo 2 - 12MB not working [REPAIRED]. I’m sure you’ll be able to get them working. If you create a dedicated post for the cards I’m sure plenty of people will jump in to help you diagnose the issues.

zuldan wrote on 2025-09-18, 21:29:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-09-17, 13:52:

Got myself a pair couple of 12MiB Voodoo2s. Unkown brands, though, without brackets. […]
Show full quote

Got myself a pair couple of 12MiB Voodoo2s. Unkown brands, though, without brackets.

Reasonably cheap to risk it, especially since they allegedly worked according to seller, who promised a refund if not.

Now, they don't. They detect in Win98, install driver - driver gets angry if I boot without them - but can't start neither DxDiag (fails D3D) nor 3DMark 1999 or 2001.

With one of them, Mojo reports "No Voodoo card found" (or whatever the exact words are) with one of them, the other one reports only 1 MiB for TMU0.

Reached out to seller, who refunded half of the purchase price, without me needing to return them. Hopefully I can get at least one working card from them (fingers crossed, waiting for Witchery to release) 😀

Have a look at this post for some hints as to what to look for Jaton Voodoo 2 - 12MB not working [REPAIRED]. I’m sure you’ll be able to get them working. If you create a dedicated post for the cards I’m sure plenty of people will jump in to help you diagnose the issues.

Great work! And great with the extra info from Mojo!
I started measuring every single connection from TMU0 to memory chips as Mojo reported only one Meg. Found some dry solder joints, that I wasn't able to see in the microscope before. So now, that corner has been reflowed, looking forward to see if it solved it, when I get back home

BetaC wrote on 2025-09-17, 19:27:

I continue to add "that's strange" things to my collection, and today it's yet another odd 486...

The attachment IMG_5418.jpg is no longer available

...an effective 486 on Socket 5. Yeah. A first generation IDT Win Chip 200. I'll probably never use it seriously, but I'm happy to have it regardless.

200MHz for a socket 5 is crazy high 🤯. Please do some benchmarks and compare this to an i486 100MHz for integer performance if you can.

BetaC wrote on 2025-09-17, 19:27:

I continue to add "that's strange" things to my collection, and today it's yet another odd 486...

The attachment IMG_5418.jpg is no longer available

...an effective 486 on Socket 5. Yeah. A first generation IDT Win Chip 200. I'll probably never use it seriously, but I'm happy to have it regardless.

Does it have correct multiplier mapping to select x3 on socket 5? Iirc Socket 5 only did 1.5 and 2?

[Edit] doesn't look so https://www.pchardwarelinks.com/cpuspeed.htm

BitWrangler wrote on 2025-09-14, 23:20:

The fun part is that after spending many years and the last shreds of your sanity finding the motherboard, you realise that those are easier to find than good condition heatsink-fans for them. 🤣

Though you might get lucky sooner eyeballing "486" PCI motherboard listing for mis-IDed socket 4 boards.

Is there something I'm missing here that makes finding a good heatsink harder than taking any random heatsink of the correct size and some thermal epoxy? Granted you end up with a permanently mounted heatsink (and possibly processor, depending on the release mechanism).

You can do better like that than the "stock" heatsinks of the day, which were maybe 1/4" tall and had a whole 4cfm of fan on them. So yes, absolutely do that if originality is second to function. I think though some of the concern was being low profile to enable fuller length cards to be installed, as most of the time the CPU was between the slots and the front of the machine.

Bought these today. The Tandy seems to be completely stock, with no 5.25 drives, no soundcard, and what's probably the original 130MB HDD. Does have a bit of rust though, might try some automotive rust remover on the case and see how that goes. EDIT wow the rust just wiped off very easily and the inside is very clean, that's lucky

My recent purchases:
A second Hammerhead P233 tablet
Compaq MSN Companion IA-1 (Have wanted one of these to mess with for years)
Poqet Prime. These are risky to restore, so might end up sad.
A TRS-80 Model 100 (actually my third one) This one, I intend to heavily mod and use as a wireless 80s robot controller.

Retroplayer wrote on 2025-09-21, 00:43:

Compaq MSN Companion IA-1 (Have wanted one of these to mess with for years)

That's the white version, right?

lolo799 wrote on 2025-09-21, 08:57:

That's the white version, right?

Yes. The one with Windows CE.

266mhz K62
32mb of RAM
16MB flash
Compactflash card slot (bootable)
Terrible 800x600 LCD display
Modem (no ethernet built in)
4 USB ports. No legacy ports

Information out there about modding is a bit sparse now after 25 years, so I am probably going to have to figure out a bunch on my own now.

I am also not really sure what I want to do with it. Way back then, I wanted to turn it into a nice little system for running graphic adventure games. But I ended up with a Virgin Webplayer instead for that purpose.

Reason for buying: Bit of nostalgia and the form factor is just cool IMO.

Is there a sftware version of this thread? Because I regularly buy old pc software (games yes) on flea markets.