2002 was late AthlonXP / Pentium 4 Northwood era. None of the stuff you had will play games from that era well. I'd suggest either narrowing it down to at latest 2001 games (which would be doable on the Athlon 1000 only) or getting newer hardware for the 2002 stuff.

If you really want to do it all on a single system, the Athlon 1000 seems by far the best bet:
+ highest performance where you need it
+ ISA slot for DOS sound
+ Works fine with Win9x/ME, just don't forget the Via 4-in-1/Hyperion chipset drivers *before* you intall other drivers (VGA!)
+ DOS requirement is only late DOS games, so fast CPU isn't so much of an issue. Disabling L1 and/or L2 cache in BIOS is a viable strategy to slow it down if necessary after all.
- Bit fast, bit boring (subjective)

The other options are patently too slow for the 2000-2002 gaming requirement. If you drop that, the P2-450 might be an option, although still a bit slow for late Win9x stuff IMHO. As for upgrades, with Slot 1, the multiplier is the least relevant factor, as almost all production CPUs are multipliers locked as you state; motherboard settings for anything else will be ignored. What isn't irrelevant is FSB selection, voltage support and BIOS support. Looking at the manual of the M6TBA, I see one jumper (JP4 1-2) that selects FSB between 66 and 100MHz - but in BIOS there's an override that lets you choose options between 66MHz and 148MHz. If it's your first build from this era, keep it simple and stay in-spec with 66 or 100MHz FSB, once you're more confident consider overclocking chipset, VGA and/or CPU if that's your thing. No sign of voltage support though. That's the biggie - if it can handle Coppermine voltages, you're probably good on any Slot 1 100MHz FSB CPU. If not, you're limited to P3 Katmai, available up to 600MHz. Note that you want the P3-600 without any additional letters and with 512kB L2 cache. The -B is a Katmai with 133MHz FSB and only a 4.5x multiplier, which will only do 450MHz without OC on this board, the -E is Coppermine, which needs those low voltages and -EB is 133MHz FSB Coppermine. If you can find the PLL chip on the board, its datasheet will show which voltages it can support. Finally BIOS support for P3 is nice-to-have, but usually not an issue other than cosmetic "unknown CPU" if not supported.

As for RAM, the i440BX supports 128Mb (note case) chips for up to max 256MB (note case) per DIMM provided they have 16 chips (and not 8). Depending on motherboard the third DIMM slot may not support double-sided DIMMs in which case it's limited to 128MB. The Via KT133 from the GA-7ZX supports 256Mb chips for max 512MB per DIMM and is far more forgiving of odd DIMMs too. Basically if an SDRAM DIMM is not actually dead and can run at the speed configured, the KT133 can use it.

As for your other questions:
- Max RAM isn't that relevant. DOS basically maxes out at 64MB (can't use anything over that), Win9x/ME at 512MB (crashes over that, unless you patch it) and no game will work better with anything over 256MB. In fact, some DOS games fail memory autodetect if RAM is too big (i.e. over 8MB in some cases...)
- Gf3Ti200 and Voodoo2 is a common combination (I have it too on my P3-1400S system). V2 does native GLide, the GF3 does DirectX and OpenGL, i.e. everything else. The Gf3Ti will not be the bottleneck in these systems, the CPU will. Any V2 game will be fast enough on the Athlon 1000, most will on a P2-450 as well. Voodoo SLI is pretty independent of the main GPU as you're using them for different SW. SLI will boost framerates at higher resolutions in GLide.

The question you don't ask is the DOS sound question. That's the massive rabbit-hole you can go down. Basically ISA is the way to go. But limiting consideration to the cards you have, it's not so clear. The CT4170 is not great, it's a low-end SB16 Vibra card with typical Vibra clipping and hissing, and tinny CQM FM synthesis instead of real Yamaha OPL3. Unfortunately your alternatives are worse, with an SBLive card (DOS support needs nasty TSR drivers) and an onboard SB64 PCI on the GA-7ZX. IMHO getting a cheap SBPro2 compatible ISA card with real OPL3 and good MIDI would be a good investment. Again, this is a massive rabbit-hole, but something with OPTi 929/930, Crystal CS4232 or Aztech AZT2316A would work fine. Particularly those OPTi cards are cheap, common and bullet-proof.

And tbh, with your requirements so diverse, I'd almost recommend two separate systems, the Athlon 1000 for WinME and games up to 2001 pushing 2002, with Gf3Ti, Voodoo2 and 256MB RAM or so, and the P133 for DOS with 8MB of RAM and whatever PCI card you have (the Trident is slow but should be nicely compatible).

Hi! And wow thanks for your answer!

That answered a lot of my questions. 😀
Games from 2001-2002 seems a bit to much then with this hardware, thats noproblem, I can live with that.

So from what I understand the easy route is the Athlon 1000.
But if the PLL chip in the 440BX supports the lower voltages that would be the more interesting build with an CPU upgrade (a Coppermine with 100MHz fsb).

I intentionally omitted the DOS sound question becouse I felt there where quite a few already. 😉
But I'm not looking for the "Best of the best" sound wise, just enough to get by really.
But for win9x the SoundBlaster Live should suffice right?
And the SB16 card I have will have to do until I get everything else up and running.
I appriciate the suggestions! I will add them to my list. 😀

Is there any mods you can do to the 440BX to add support for the low voltages?
I've seen that there are Slockets you can use but will they also be restricted by the PLL?

Thanks again!

Slotkets are not universal as well, unfortunately. Compatibility depends on the motherboard.

The better ones have their own voltage regulator and can be put into a board that does not support the required voltage. Some even let you force the fsb setting on the slotket as override to the motherboard.
Cheaper ones (almost no components) won't handle voltages that are not supported by the board. My P3B-f board (also 440BX) had about the same "issue": supports Coppermine voltages, runs with the cheapest slotket at 150MHz fsb (heavily overclocked!). No tualatin voltage support and no tualatin bios support, so they are of the grid with this slotket.

I guess you could solder in a PLL that does support the recommended voltages (does it need bios/logic support?), but I've never looked into this kind of mod. I simply have to learn a lot more about electronics before I can do that without f-ing things up

KT133 boards paired with Athlon are roughly PIII equivalent for DOS games and early Win9x games. It makes little sense to have both. To handle later Windows games you either need at least Athlon XP 2500+ or better Athlon 64 3200+ (socket 754 with AGP is ok). Athlon 1Ghz is not fast enough for sure.

I also have KT133 boards but no build. For me PIII (DOS, Windows 98) + Athlon 64 (socket 754, Windows XP) works fine as they are mutually exclusive.

If it was me I'd recommend

The P2 450 (plenty fast for dos, ok-ish for Win9x)
Gf3 (may be held back a bit but may hide the weaker CPU a little)
Voodoo 2 SLI (Youll need the fastvoodoo drivers for mismatched cards but will work fine)
SB16 (for dos)
SBLive (for Win9x)

This gives you a really good starting point fro both Dos and Windows gaming. The BX motherboard is famous for stability and good driver support so should be easier to setup then the Athlon
Once you get a feel for the hobby you can then decide where you need to spend your money.

alternatively you could go with 2 builds.

Dos PC
P133
Trident - TGUI9440-1
SB16
This would make for a great SVGA dos rig as is.

Win9x PC
Athlon 1000
Gf3
Voodoo 2 SLI
SBLive!
1 Ghz is fine for 9x gaming, and good match for the graphics cards especially the voodoo's.
You could put the SB16 here as well and achieve everything the P2 does as just about anything dos related that is speed sensitive at 1Ghz is already broken at 450Mhz. you just loose that stability of the BX board. I'd maybe save that as your next project

filurkatten wrote on 2021-12-08, 23:33:

Hi! […]
Show full quote

Hi!

I have been lurking around this forum on and off the last couple of weeks and i must say I really love it!

So, I have quite alot of questions and in need of suggestions/advice.
I recently helped my parents go throu a bunch of old stuff, this is when I found my and my family's old computers and some hardware.
I collected video games for a hobby so I thought maybe there is enough stuff to build an versitile late DOS win9x machine.
I dont really want to put alot of money into this project but I'm willing to make some upgrades if they would improve the setup.

My goal with the machine is;
Playing late DOS games
Playing win9x games
Play 2000-2002 games if possible
Have a fun and interesting build

This is some of the components I have to build with:
---
Mobo and CPU:
---
Intel CA 639893-001
Socket 7
Pentium 133

M6TBA V 1.2
Pentium II 450Mhz

GA-7ZX
Athlon 1000
---
GPU
---
Geforce4 MX 460
Monster II 12MB
Righteous 3D II 12MB
Trident - TGUI9440-1
Geforce2 MX
Rage Pro Turbo AGP
Geforce3 TI 200
---
Sound Cards
---
Sound Blaster CT4170
Sound Blaster Live! CT4670
---

From my research It seems like I have two options;
The Athlon or the Pentium II for a base.

Operating system I would like to go for Windows ME, I really like that OS when it came out.
I got good memories from it and only bad ones from Win98 (from what I have read I seems to be in the minority on this one!).

The Pentium seems like the more fun build to go for but I have some questions about the motherboard.
It seems to only support a cpu ratio of 5.5, and a 550MHz CPU.
But do this matter? I read that the intel CPU's ratio are locked into the chip.
There is a V 1.3 of this motherboard that supports ratio up to 8.0 and 800MHz CPU.
The FSB seems to be 100.
Also, it has 3x RAM slots supporting max 128mb per slot. Is this locked in BIOS, if so can this be changed?

If I go the Athlon route, will this affect DOS gaming?
My motherboard has 1x ISA slot.

For GPU I'm leaning towards the Geforce3 TI 200 and Voodoo2 for the Glide support.
I've read that you can put the Voodoo2 cards in SLI, this seems like a fun thing to try.
Will it matter that they are two different brands?

More questions.
Pentium:
Is Geforce3 TI 200 and Voodoo2 SLI overkill and kinda pointless? (will they bottleneck)
Should I upgrade the CPU? (Pentium 3 550MHz or more if possible)

Athlon:
Is Voodoo2 SLI redundant if I pick a beefier GPU?

I'm sorry if it's to many questions but I hope that I can get answer to atleast a few!
The build itself is in it's planning stages, I need to make some room in my house first. 😜
Hopefully I can start putting everything together later this year and I will ofcourse try to
update everyone how it goes!

Thanks in advance!

Hello and welcome!

I would build 2 systems out of those parts of yours:

System 1 - DOS + 1996-1998 Windows games:

OS --> Windows 98Se (+ "embedded" DOS 7.1)
Motherboard --> M6TBA V 1.2
CPU --> Pentium II 450Mhz
Main GPU --> Geforce2 MX
Secondary graphics --> Voodoo 2 Sli (Monster II 12MB + Righteous 3D II 12MB)
Sound--> Sound Blaster Live! CT4670

System 2- 1999-2001 Windows games:

OS--> Windows ME (or 98se, in case you also planned to play DOS games in this, overpowered, system)
Motherboard --> GA-7ZX
CPU --> Athlon Thunderbird 1000
GPU --> Geforce3 TI 200
Sound--> would give the onboard Creative CT5880 a chance (if it is not up to the task then you have an ISA slot to experiment with other cards)

You could even build a third system, with that socket 7 board, if you wanted too. Would suit speed sensitive DOS games (in case you played any of those) :

OS --> DOS 6.22/7.1 + Windows 3.11/ Windows95
Motherboard --> Intel CA 639893-001
CPU --> Pentium 133
GPU --> Trident - TGUI9440-1
Sound--> Sound Blaster CT4170

Hi again!

Thanks for all the answers and suggestions again. 😀
I just got the computers and parts home and looked at them a bit closer.
The P133 seems to have a vibra16 chip on the mother board and a card that just routs audio to the back panel.

The M6TBA, I tried to look for the PLL but got a bit unsure what to look for.
The two mosfets that are beside the cpu slot are L3103s, they seems to be able to handle low enough voltages.
Then I found the LX1664CD chip, according to the datasheet it can output 1.5 - 3.6v.
Is this the component I should be looking at?
And if it is this would suggest the motherboard will be able to handle any 100Mhz fsb cpu?

So what I'm thinking, I only really have room for one computer.
If the M6TBA can handle better CPU then I will go with that one, it seems like the more fun option.
If it can't I'll go with the Athlon.

Either way it will be the Gefore3 ti200 and Voodoo2 SLI for GPU.
And the two sound cards I have.

I'll probably sell either the 440bx or the kt133 and give away the p133 to a friend.

Here are a picture of the 440bx
https://ibb.co/7Xf2fgz

More questions will most likely come when I'll start the building process.

Thanks again everyone!

The p133 board is the same as this one:
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Intel_Advanced/EV
With the optional sound chips but not the graphics.
The brown slot by the cpu is occupied. Is this extra cache?

With some investigation I saw that the 440bx board had 5 unsoldered pinheaders by the voltageregulator chip.
One row goes to gnd the other to vid 0-4 on the regulator.
Using this without a cpu installed I should be able to check if it supports the lower voltages right?
Or is it not that simple?

Will post more pictures soon.

Here are some pictures.

https://ibb.co/9yC3MHX
https://ibb.co/LkJYMpG
https://ibb.co/Y8BgfxD
https://ibb.co/4wL5c3J

One of all the boards just after they had been cleaned.
Then of the headers I was asking about above.
Then two of the chassis I have to choose from.
I think I will go with the tall one with the grey floppy part for my win9x machine and the p133 will stay in its chassi.
I like that the fujitsu chassi is smaller but I really do dislike the front of it. It makes it so much bulkier than it needs to. Also the front lid is broke so it doesnt stay closed.

So I did some experimenting, starting the board with no cpu gives 0 voltage on the LX1664CD.
And with the cpu it still gave 0 voltage but I didnt have any RAM or gpu plugged in.
Should that matter?

Got some new hardware from a relative, a motherboard with cpu, a sound card and a graphics card.

Motherboard:
AB-BX6 rev2
CPU:
Pentium III 450MHz
GPU:
Trio64V2/DX
Sound Card:
CT4810

From what I can gather this motherboard do support voltages down to 1.4V in bios with 0.05 increments.
I might be able to get a Pentium III 850MHz 100fsb from a friend if he kept the cpu from a old computer. (He was quite sure he still kept the cpu for some reason)

I saw that a cap on the BX6 board had started to lift and swell so I think I need to recap, is it really necessery to recap evertything? From my experience with old videogames recapping everything is usually a waste because the old caps more often than not are just fine. (I have measured quite a few)
I got a desoldering station so it will be easy work either way.
Do you guys have any cap recommendations? And supplier with decent prices in EU?

By the way, how does it work if I OC the fsb to 133, will it then be able to run CPUs that are 133 fsb?
I guess the AGP will then also be faster 2/3 with this board but from what I read the GF3ti200 might be able to handle that.
133fsb cpus seems to be alot more easy to find. (Keeping my options open if my friend cant find the p3 850. 😉 )

If you can't find PIII at 100Mhz FSB, you could just buy Celeron 566-633 and overclock it to 100Mhz FSB. To be sure you would have to buy a few of them, however they tend to be very cheap. Another alternative is PIII 1Ghz downclocked to 750Mhz.

filurkatten wrote on 2021-12-26, 23:37:

Got some new hardware from a relative, a motherboard with cpu, a sound card and a graphics card. […]
Show full quote

Got some new hardware from a relative, a motherboard with cpu, a sound card and a graphics card.

Motherboard:
AB-BX6 rev2
CPU:
Pentium III 450MHz
GPU:
Trio64V2/DX
Sound Card:
CT4810

From what I can gather this motherboard do support voltages down to 1.4V in bios with 0.05 increments.
I might be able to get a Pentium III 850MHz 100fsb from a friend if he kept the cpu from a old computer. (He was quite sure he still kept the cpu for some reason)

I saw that a cap on the BX6 board had started to lift and swell so I think I need to recap, is it really necessery to recap evertything? From my experience with old videogames recapping everything is usually a waste because the old caps more often than not are just fine. (I have measured quite a few)
I got a desoldering station so it will be easy work either way.
Do you guys have any cap recommendations? And supplier with decent prices in EU?

By the way, how does it work if I OC the fsb to 133, will it then be able to run CPUs that are 133 fsb?
I guess the AGP will then also be faster 2/3 with this board but from what I read the GF3ti200 might be able to handle that.
133fsb cpus seems to be alot more easy to find. (Keeping my options open if my friend cant find the p3 850. 😉 )

You certainly need to replace all of the voltage/brand that are failing - if you don't, you'll use it for a while only to see that the other caps of that brand/voltage are now visibly failing.

I looked around for caps but had some trouble lokating the right physical size.
The onces I need to replace are 8mm diameter and 16mm high and right by the cpu slot.
I found panasonic fr and fm caps that whre the right height but they where 10mm in diameter and that will be a really tight squeeze.

Do you guys have any other brand that you recommend?

6.3v 1500uF 105 degrees.
Ø/H 8mm/ 16mm

https://au.rs-online.com/web/p/aluminium-capacitors/7083469

Hmm, Panasonic FR at 8mm Diam x 20mm Height

https://au.rs-online.com/web/p/aluminium-capacitors/1458470

Pansonic FS series would also work fine. 8mm Diam x 15mm Height.

Thanks!
I have placed an order so I can replace all 6.3v and 10v caps.

filurkatten wrote on 2021-12-21, 17:47:

With some investigation I saw that the 440bx board had 5 unsoldered pinheaders by the voltageregulator chip.
One row goes to gnd the other to vid 0-4 on the regulator.
Using this without a cpu installed I should be able to check if it supports the lower voltages right?

Those jumpers to Ground would be for manually forcing a VID.
Yes, you might be able to use it to test voltages without a CPU - not sure if any other signal is required from the CPU to activate the VRM, but I think not.
They could also be useful in the future if you want to tweak Vcore for any reason.

From the LX1664 datasheet:

The five VID pins on the LX166x series are designed to interface directly with a Pentium Pro or Pentium II processor. Therefore, […]
Show full quote

The five VID pins on the LX166x series are designed to interface
directly with a Pentium Pro or Pentium II processor. Therefore, all
inputs are expected to be either ground or floating. Any floating
input will be pulled high by internal connections.

To be super cautious though - if you want to install those pins then I'd double check that description with Intel's P2 datasheets, just in case there's a reason the pins were omitted from factory. It's probably correct but better to be sure. Wouldn't want the CPU to put a strong connection to +5V (or whatever it is) while you short the same line to GND. But if it's correct that Intel leaves the "high" lines floating then these jumpers should work as intended.

filurkatten wrote on 2021-12-25, 16:02:

So I did some experimenting, starting the board with no cpu gives 0 voltage on the LX1664CD.
And with the cpu it still gave 0 voltage but I didnt have any RAM or gpu plugged in.
Should that matter?

If a CPU is installed then it should be putting out Vcore. It shouldn't need RAM or video card. If it's at 0V then it might need to be reseated. Slot-1 is finicky that way.

For clarity, the LX1664CD is an LX1664 - the "D" refers to the packaging style and I presume the "C" means commercial temperature range (datasheet doesn't show any options for that, they're all "C"s).
According to the datasheet, this chip supports down to 1.30V with 5-bit VID so it should work with Coppermine voltages.
Since it's not an "A" version, they recommend it for up to a max of 10A. The "A" version (LX1664ACD) was recommended for going over 10A. That might be an issue, and BIOS support could be another.
Vcore should be at pin 3 of the LX1664CD, but you can probably find an easier place to measure it on the attached MOSFETs or maybe at an inductor.

==
I'd probably rather use the ABit board though, as it sounds like you intend to do. They do have bad caps but once you replace those, ABit boards are generally awesome.
But if you get them both going, it might be worth testing them both for how well they handle FSB overclocking. I'm guessing the ABit will handle more powerful CPUs, but samples can vary.

Many years ago I had a couple 440BX machines that ran P3-600E (Coppermine 100FSB) cB0 stepping CPUs at 800/133 long term, and passed testing at 840/140 without issue. But both of those motherboards were cherry picked based on testing, not all boards will be equal, even from the same brand and model. Despite the legends of "all 440BX easily run 133FSB", I've found plenty that don't, and many that just barely manage it with no safety margin.

Thanks for the info. 😀

I have recapped the abit board and it starts up but shows both my 450MHz cpus as 300MHz. Guessing the fsb is set to 66?

Now I couldnt get any further due to my ps2 keyboard didnt work. I need to look for another one.
I read that the abit bios had usb keyboard support but maybe I need to activate it to work.
Also, it didnt have the newest bios version that supports faster cpus. So I need to update it.
Is it just a regular eeprom that can be flashed with a Minipro programmer?

Also, my friend foud his old Pentium 3, it was a 850MHz one.
Will get it next time I see him, hopefullt it still works. 😀

I'll focus my limited time on the abit board, and if I get ut up and running with the 850MHz cpu that will be my choice to build with.
I'll do some more experimenting with the m6tba when I got some more time to spare, curious if the jumpers can change the voltage.

Also, CT4810 or CT4670 for windows pci audio?