VOGONS


First post, by CaelThunderwing

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long story short to why i had sought out a new machine ( i need to hunt for a case for it atm...) , i was evicted from old home, thought i had packed up my 486 only to realize after the time cutoff it was NOT in storage.

i found a nice local place where i am now (Morganton, NC) "Discerner Computers" w/ a Huuuge stash of vintage parts. (ranging from stuff for the 8088 into P4+) cobbled together just about all i need for a new system. (MSI MS5156 TX4 Rev 1.2 Motherboard, Pentium 166 MMX, 64MB Ram, HP CD Writer model'd CD-Burner, trident TVGA8900D-R based ISA GPU if i chose to go with Win 3.xx, GeForce2 mx200 PCI GPU for if i go w/ 98., an 3COM 3C905-TX NIC for network functionality, and an Opti 82c930 based ISA Soundcard for a SB16 clone card, and 20 GB HDD (would haveto be partitioned properly to work w/ Win 3.xx oitherwise should work out the getgo w/ 98)

This is the Manual for this board showing what CPU's are compatible, https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1478810/Msi … ?page=11#manual among whats usable, whats the overall Best CPU supported? and is there a BIOS tyhats patched to deal w/ Larger HDDs? ( among sadly what was in that 486 was an XT-IDE enabled card)

Reply 1 of 3, by Repo Man11

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The Intel TX chipset was one of the best for Socket 7, so you're good there. Since it supports the K6, it will probably work with a K6-2. And since it gives the setting for 75 MHz frontside bus, you could probably run a K6-2 at 450 MHz (6x75). Depending on the type of voltage regulator used, you might need to provide extra cooling to it (the voltage regulator) with a CPU that fast.

There may be an undocumented setting for 83 MHz FSB, which would allow for a 500 MHz CPU. It's also possible the board would work with a K6-2+, which would bring a host of benefits. See Oldie Tuning for more details: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/oldie-tuning,216.html

The board in that article worked with the plus series CPU with the original BIOS from Asus, but that can be hit and miss - some Socket 7 motherboards worked with them even without BIOS support, others wouldn't even POST, so you'd be taking a chance there.

Ideally you'd have a BIOS patched to support both a K6-2+ and larger hard drives, but there doesn't seem to be one available for download. There is a thread on that very subject: DIY Bios Modding guide Jan Steunebrink k6-2+/3+ 128gb

A lot of times when you first start out on a project you think, This is never going to be finished. But then it is, and you think, Wow, it wasn't even worth it. - Jack Handey

Reply 2 of 3, by Repo Man11

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I have an Asus TXP4 (same chipset) with a K6-3+ 450 @ 500 MHz, 256 megs of SDRAM, and a SIL 3114 PCI SATA controller with a 120 gigabyte SSD running windows 98.

A lot of times when you first start out on a project you think, This is never going to be finished. But then it is, and you think, Wow, it wasn't even worth it. - Jack Handey

Reply 3 of 3, by Repo Man11

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And that vintage computer hardware store sounds like a great place! I wish there was something like that here.

A lot of times when you first start out on a project you think, This is never going to be finished. But then it is, and you think, Wow, it wasn't even worth it. - Jack Handey