Bought a FIC VA 503+ (Rev 1.2) with K6 III 400, 256mb of ram + all port cables from the US, board looks to be in good shape but will be checking all the caps when it arrives. IIRC this was one of the best Super 7 boards of its time, I didnt need another Super 7 board 😁 but it was a great price seeing as all the other FIC boards are priced stupidly high.

Brawndo wrote on 2022-01-07, 23:10:

retrogamerguy1997 wrote on 2022-01-07, 18:04:

My cpu cooler finally arrived. the instructions tell me I need a 4mm flathead so I'm going to borrow one later today and get it […]
Show full quote

My cpu cooler finally arrived. the instructions tell me I need a 4mm flathead so I'm going to borrow one later today and get it installed. Should be quieter than the super orb and allow me to enjoy my athlon system more.

20220107_115410.jpg
20220107_115422.jpg
20220107_115656.jpg
20220107_115705.jpg

Pro tip: replace that stock fan with a 60mm Noctua and it will probably be even more quiet and definitely cool better.

Anything specific to look for?

retrogamerguy1997 wrote on 2022-01-08, 03:11:

Brawndo wrote on 2022-01-07, 23:10:

retrogamerguy1997 wrote on 2022-01-07, 18:04:

My cpu cooler finally arrived. the instructions tell me I need a 4mm flathead so I'm going to borrow one later today and get it […]
Show full quote

My cpu cooler finally arrived. the instructions tell me I need a 4mm flathead so I'm going to borrow one later today and get it installed. Should be quieter than the super orb and allow me to enjoy my athlon system more.

20220107_115410.jpg
20220107_115422.jpg
20220107_115656.jpg
20220107_115705.jpg

Pro tip: replace that stock fan with a 60mm Noctua and it will probably be even more quiet and definitely cool better.

Anything specific to look for?

I bought a Noctua NF-A6x25 FLX for one of my socket A heatsinks. Don't know what country you're in but it's $16.99 at Newegg right now. Note though, it is thick compared to most 60mm heatsink fans, so you'll likely need longer screws to attach it.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-08, 03:11:

Bought a FIC VA 503+ (Rev 1.2) with K6 III 400, 256mb of ram + all port cables from the US, board looks to be in good shape but will be checking all the caps when it arrives. IIRC this was one of the best Super 7 boards of its time, I didnt need another Super 7 board 😁 but it was a great price seeing as all the other FIC boards are priced stupidly high.

I'm buying that board and a P5A-B (wanted a P5A, but they are harder to find), as they are two very good SS7 boards with different chipsets, among the best in their class. The P5A-B is rev 1.04, so possibly the best, and the VA 503+ is rev 1.2A. I think (hope) both support K6-3+ CPUs. The FIC board also has all cables 😀

There is a P5A Rev 1.06 up on eBay right now @60ish AUD auction and a Rev 1.04 too for a whopping 250 USD ..

The 1.06 looks like it might have some fierce competition tho with 16 bidders and 1 day left. (Loads sniper rifle ...looks like it needs a last second crazy bid)

I would have gone with an ATX format board but I lack the cases for another ATX build right now ...or in my case the room to store another 🤣.

I think v 1.05 and 1.06 have some sort of bug that makes them work worse with K6+ CPUs, and that 1.04 is the best. Pretty sure I have read that here somewhere

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-08, 04:31:

There is a P5A Rev 1.06 up on eBay right now @60ish AUD auction and a Rev 1.04 too for a whopping 250 USD ..

The 1.06 looks like it might have some fierce competition tho with 16 bidders and 1 day left. (Loads sniper rifle ...looks like it needs a last second crazy bid)

I would have gone with an ATX format board but I lack the cases for another ATX build right now ...or in my case the room to store another 🤣.

Dang, can we take a foot off the crazy prices pedal for a bit, or I'll be getting too nervous to screw around with stuff and I don't wanna have to have two AH-64 Apaches circling my house 24/7 as an insurance requirement.

But yeah, you know you've been into retrocomputing too long when, #4 .... https://www.landley.net/history/mirror/ ... ong%20when

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-01-08, 15:01:

Dang, can we take a foot off the crazy prices pedal for a bit, or I'll be getting too nervous to screw around with stuff and I d […]
Show full quote

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-08, 04:31:

There is a P5A Rev 1.06 up on eBay right now @60ish AUD auction and a Rev 1.04 too for a whopping 250 USD ..

The 1.06 looks like it might have some fierce competition tho with 16 bidders and 1 day left. (Loads sniper rifle ...looks like it needs a last second crazy bid)

I would have gone with an ATX format board but I lack the cases for another ATX build right now ...or in my case the room to store another 🤣.

Dang, can we take a foot off the crazy prices pedal for a bit, or I'll be getting too nervous to screw around with stuff and I don't wanna have to have two AH-64 Apaches circling my house 24/7 as an insurance requirement.

But yeah, you know you've been into retrocomputing too long when, #4 .... https://www.landley.net/history/mirror/ ... ong%20when

Spoiler

Not sure that link working right, it's supposed to jump to entry...
You know you've been hacking too long when

The set-up line for a genre of one-liners told by hackers about themselves. These include the following:

not only do you check your email more often than your paper mail, but you remember your network address faster than your postal one.
your SO kisses you on the neck and the first thing you think is "Uh, oh, priority interrupt."
you go to balance your checkbook and discover that you're doing it in octal.
your computers have a higher street value than your car.
in your universe, `round numbers' are powers of 2, not 10.
more than once, you have woken up recalling a dream in some programming language.
you see the word "Oxford" and mentally trip over the fact that `r' is not a hex digit.
you realize you have never seen half of your best friends.

A list of these can be found by searching for this phrase on the web.

[An early version of this entry said "All but one of these have been reliably reported as hacker traits (some of them quite often). Even hackers may have trouble spotting the ringer." The ringer was balancing one's checkbook in octal, which I made up out of whole cloth. Although more respondents picked that one out as fiction than any of the others, I also received multiple independent reports of its actually happening, most famously to Grace Hopper while she was working with BINAC in 1949. --ESR]

When you have people hoarding retro stuff just so they can flip it for more later you get stupid pricing for old junk.

And lets be honest here .. it really is old junk, that said I decided to just let this auction go ...I found a ASUS P2B-DS that is selling for a far more reasonable price, pair it with dual P3 500s and 1gb of CL2 memory and it will run circles around a P5a setup. (I wonder if I can find a 15k scsi drive that will work with the controller on this board, I have 5 70gb 15k Ultrawide 320 drives sitting in storage)

As for #4 ...This is already true for me, I dont know if I should be upset about that or not, my gaming rig alone is worth a very nice second hand car.

Edit - Its an Ultra 2 Adaptec controller so thats no for the drives if I understand the support correctly. (SCSI confuses me with its crazy standards)

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-08, 15:35:

When you have people hoarding retro stuff just so they can flip it for more later you get stupid pricing for old junk. […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-01-08, 15:01:

Dang, can we take a foot off the crazy prices pedal for a bit, or I'll be getting too nervous to screw around with stuff and I d […]
Show full quote

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-08, 04:31:

There is a P5A Rev 1.06 up on eBay right now @60ish AUD auction and a Rev 1.04 too for a whopping 250 USD ..

The 1.06 looks like it might have some fierce competition tho with 16 bidders and 1 day left. (Loads sniper rifle ...looks like it needs a last second crazy bid)

I would have gone with an ATX format board but I lack the cases for another ATX build right now ...or in my case the room to store another 🤣.

Dang, can we take a foot off the crazy prices pedal for a bit, or I'll be getting too nervous to screw around with stuff and I don't wanna have to have two AH-64 Apaches circling my house 24/7 as an insurance requirement.

But yeah, you know you've been into retrocomputing too long when, #4 .... https://www.landley.net/history/mirror/ ... ong%20when

Spoiler

Not sure that link working right, it's supposed to jump to entry...
You know you've been hacking too long when

The set-up line for a genre of one-liners told by hackers about themselves. These include the following:

not only do you check your email more often than your paper mail, but you remember your network address faster than your postal one.
your SO kisses you on the neck and the first thing you think is "Uh, oh, priority interrupt."
you go to balance your checkbook and discover that you're doing it in octal.
your computers have a higher street value than your car.
in your universe, `round numbers' are powers of 2, not 10.
more than once, you have woken up recalling a dream in some programming language.
you see the word "Oxford" and mentally trip over the fact that `r' is not a hex digit.
you realize you have never seen half of your best friends.

A list of these can be found by searching for this phrase on the web.

[An early version of this entry said "All but one of these have been reliably reported as hacker traits (some of them quite often). Even hackers may have trouble spotting the ringer." The ringer was balancing one's checkbook in octal, which I made up out of whole cloth. Although more respondents picked that one out as fiction than any of the others, I also received multiple independent reports of its actually happening, most famously to Grace Hopper while she was working with BINAC in 1949. --ESR]

When you have people hoarding retro stuff just so they can flip it for more later you get stupid pricing for old junk.

And lets be honest here .. it really is old junk, that said I decided to just let this auction go ...I found a ASUS P2B-DS that is selling for a far more reasonable price, pair it with dual P3 500s and 1gb of CL2 memory and it will run circles around a P5a setup. (I wonder if I can find a 15k scsi drive that will work with the controller on this board, I have 5 70gb 15k Ultrawide 320 drives sitting in storage)

As for #4 ...This is already true for me, I dont know if I should be upset about that or not, my gaming rig alone is worth a very nice second hand car.

Edit - Its an Ultra 2 Adaptec controller so thats no for the drives if I understand the support correctly.

^^^ this.
To be honest P5A(-B) is not and never was all that great. I do have boxed 1.04 from the "old times" and I never really liked this board as much as I liked VA-503+ - it was stable, but not as fast as VA-503+. Also it's true that K6-2+/III is not that interesting platform if you are CPU collector then it's a must to have them, but usability wise it falls behind Slot-A Athlons (of the same era), Pentium III and even fast Pentium IIs are a better choice... I don't really see much point in spending crazy amount of money to build such machine, especially if it's gonna be in ATX format...

HanJammer wrote on 2022-01-08, 15:45:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-08, 15:35:

When you have people hoarding retro stuff just so they can flip it for more later you get stupid pricing for old junk. […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-01-08, 15:01:

Dang, can we take a foot off the crazy prices pedal for a bit, or I'll be getting too nervous to screw around with stuff and I don't wanna have to have two AH-64 Apaches circling my house 24/7 as an insurance requirement.

But yeah, you know you've been into retrocomputing too long when, #4 .... https://www.landley.net/history/mirror/ ... ong%20when

Spoiler

Not sure that link working right, it's supposed to jump to entry...
You know you've been hacking too long when

The set-up line for a genre of one-liners told by hackers about themselves. These include the following:

not only do you check your email more often than your paper mail, but you remember your network address faster than your postal one.
your SO kisses you on the neck and the first thing you think is "Uh, oh, priority interrupt."
you go to balance your checkbook and discover that you're doing it in octal.
your computers have a higher street value than your car.
in your universe, `round numbers' are powers of 2, not 10.
more than once, you have woken up recalling a dream in some programming language.
you see the word "Oxford" and mentally trip over the fact that `r' is not a hex digit.
you realize you have never seen half of your best friends.

A list of these can be found by searching for this phrase on the web.

[An early version of this entry said "All but one of these have been reliably reported as hacker traits (some of them quite often). Even hackers may have trouble spotting the ringer." The ringer was balancing one's checkbook in octal, which I made up out of whole cloth. Although more respondents picked that one out as fiction than any of the others, I also received multiple independent reports of its actually happening, most famously to Grace Hopper while she was working with BINAC in 1949. --ESR]

When you have people hoarding retro stuff just so they can flip it for more later you get stupid pricing for old junk.

And lets be honest here .. it really is old junk, that said I decided to just let this auction go ...I found a ASUS P2B-DS that is selling for a far more reasonable price, pair it with dual P3 500s and 1gb of CL2 memory and it will run circles around a P5a setup. (I wonder if I can find a 15k scsi drive that will work with the controller on this board, I have 5 70gb 15k Ultrawide 320 drives sitting in storage)

As for #4 ...This is already true for me, I dont know if I should be upset about that or not, my gaming rig alone is worth a very nice second hand car.

Edit - Its an Ultra 2 Adaptec controller so thats no for the drives if I understand the support correctly.

^^^ this.
To be honest P5A(-B) is not and never was all that great. I do have boxed 1.04 from the "old times" and I never really liked this board as much as I liked VA-503+ - it was stable, but not as fast as VA-503+. Also it's true that K6-2+/III is not that interesting platform if you are CPU collector then it's a must to have them, but usability wise it falls behind Slot-A Athlons (of the same era), Pentium III and even fast Pentium IIs are a better choice... I don't really see much point in spending crazy amount of money to build such machine, especially if it's gonna be in ATX format...

I have a SiS 635t based P3 machine so I have ignored ATX based socket 7 and PII boards simply because the P3 machine covers that area nicely, socket 7 in AT format is more interesting to me and I bought a Rev 2 FIC VA 503+ today simply so I can overclock the snot out of a K6 III+.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-08, 15:50:

I have a SiS 635t based P3 machine so I have ignored ATX based socket 7 and PII boards simply because the P3 machine covers that area nicely, socket 7 in AT format is more interesting to me and I bought a Rev 2 FIC VA 503+ today simply so I can overclock the snot out of a K6 III+.

Super Socket 7 was a nice thing for people who couldn't spend more money on Slot 1 CPU and motherboard and ability to reuse SIMM memory modules and AT case was an advantage too... Nowadays it's ability is very limited because just lik you said there are better and easier available platforms that cover this time period better.

As for the overclocking of the old hardware, sorry but that makes totally no sense to me at all... risking damaging rare and expensive components just for what?

HanJammer wrote on 2022-01-08, 15:45:

Also it's true that K6-2+/III is not that interesting platform if you are CPU collector then it's a must to have them, but usability wise it falls behind Slot-A Athlons (of the same era), Pentium III and even fast Pentium IIs are a better choice... I don't really see much point in spending crazy amount of money to build such machine, especially if it's gonna be in ATX format...

Errr, what?
K6 CPUs have one advantage over Pentium II/III: Open multi.
This makes them extreme flexible. Clock it down to 133MHz, disable the cache and you can play anything from the late 80s to late 90s. Slap in a GeForce 2MX plus Voodoo2 SLi, maybe add a Voodoo1 for the early Glide titles that don't work on Voodoo2.
You can easily unlock Athlons with the good old pencil trick, but they still will be too fast for many DOS titles.

Keep in mind: Not everyone has the space to keep 20 machines. Flexibility is king in that case.
My current plans to cover everything:
1. Socket 1155 (i7-2700K) with GTX285
2. Socket AM2+ (Phenom II X4 965) with FX5950
3. Socket A (Athlon XP 3000+) with Voodoo5 5500
4. Super Socket 7 (K6-III+ 400ATZ Low Voltage) with MX2, Voodoo2 SLI and Voodoo1
5. Early 486 which can be clocked down to 4.8MHz
Of course, these machines are not period accurate. But I don't give a shit. I don't want to open a museum. I just want a few gaming rigs which will cover everything.

HanJammer wrote on 2022-01-08, 16:41:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-08, 15:50:

I have a SiS 635t based P3 machine so I have ignored ATX based socket 7 and PII boards simply because the P3 machine covers that area nicely, socket 7 in AT format is more interesting to me and I bought a Rev 2 FIC VA 503+ today simply so I can overclock the snot out of a K6 III+.

Super Socket 7 was a nice thing for people who couldn't spend more money on Slot 1 CPU and motherboard and ability to reuse SIMM memory modules and AT case was an advantage too... Nowadays it's ability is very limited because just lik you said there are better and easier available platforms that cover this time period better.

As for the overclocking of the old hardware, sorry but that makes totally no sense to me at all... risking damaging rare and expensive components just for what?

There is a dude on eBay selling lots of 3 K62+ 570 series CPUs for 60 bucks and they have 90k give or take 10k, you really think I would OC a rare one like a K6-III+ 550ACR ? no would be the answer you are looking for (Just looking at the price for an AK6-III+ 550ACR its sitting at 400 GBP or 543 USD .. Jesus wept)

I have two rare K6 CPUs and neither will be treated badly but the dirty cheap ones ...yup they get the speed racer badge, I also have a pretty common K6-III 400 that will be getting overclocked.

I'm not a cave man I know the common cheap K6 CPUs from the rare expensive ones and to be perfectly honest .. I have never seen a K6 die from being overclocked (Too much voltage yes, but it was excessive for any CPU), they had a reputation for being absolute units back in the day and I doubt that has changed.

As for why, I never got to do it with my K6-2 400 back in the day and I see no reason to not have a crack at it now.

So I just attempted to install the socket a cooler I bought without realizing the socket was broken. leaving nothing for the otherside to hook onto. apprantly based on reviews from the mini super orb I removed this is actually a common thing. fucking great!

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-01-08, 16:57:

Errr, what?
K6 CPUs have one advantage over Pentium II/III: Open multi.

Well if you want play old games on non-period correct hardware then why bother at all... just use PC-em or DOSbox...

Period correct-ness does not matter.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2022-01-08, 21:20:

Period correct-ness does not matter.

Doesn't it? If I wouldn't care for using software on a period correct machine then I would simply use an emulator which is easier, faster and certainly takes less space 😁 but for true and real 'retrocomputing' or 'retrogaming' experience I simply need and want hardware which is from the same "era". Most people I talk to have the same point of view...

HanJammer wrote on 2022-01-08, 21:13:

Well if you want play old games on non-period correct hardware then why bother at all... just use PC-em or DOSbox...

And deal with all the glitches? No thanks!

HanJammer wrote on 2022-01-08, 21:36:

but for true and real 'retrocomputing' or 'retrogaming' experience I simply need and want hardware which is from the same "era".

Loud fans, slow ass HDD's and unreliable PSU's are no things I need to re-experience.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2022-01-08, 21:20:

Period correct-ness does not matter.

Correct. As long as it runs and you're happy with it... you are the winner.

I have real hardware that is not period correct. I prefer it that way, it enables me to play a very wide range of DOS and Windows 9X games that won't run on emulators with a single machine.

It's also the same machine I had back in the day, so it's period correct. 😁

Any real hardware has its place and usage, and emulators don't replace it at all.