VOGONS


Socket 8 to 370 Interposer Tweaker

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First post, by Sphere478

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At some point in the future I'm going to try and get some adapters going for the Pentium pro/II/II sockets/slots lineup this socket 8 to 370 interposer will be another of the planned flavors see my pcb projects for the others. until that time, I will use this thread as a information and link dump to help me refresh myself more quickly when the time comes to begin. Any suggestions/requests/ interest do please post here.

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 2 of 21, by maxtherabbit

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Neat. I actually do have a spare socket 8 board now that I got my slocket 8 working in a P3B-F. Might be fun to throw a cumine in the socket 8 to balance out the pentium pro in the BX board

Reply 3 of 21, by PC@LIVE

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Interesting for various reasons, first to use faster CPUs, for example the Celeron Mendocino, or the Pentium III, unfortunately using the 100mHz versions, would go at reduced speed, certainly not a big problem having the fastest ones, because they would still go at speed superior to those of the Pentium Pro.
I don't know if it is possible to use cpu via c3, perhaps with a bios modified for support, but I don't think it is advantageous to use that CPU, I don't think there is a big difference, in the past I made beans with a C3 600mHz, and it went More or less like a P.Pro200, it has built me in the negative, since then I consider it quite poor.

AMD 286-16 287-10 4MB HD 45MB VGA 256KB
AMD 386DX-40 Intel 387 8MB HD 81MB VGA 256KB
Cyrix 486DLC-40 IIT387-40 8MB VGA 512KB
AMD 5X86-133 16MB VGA VLB CL5428 2MB and many others
AMD K62+ 550 SOYO 5EMA+ and many others
AST Pentium Pro 200 MHz L2 256KB

Reply 4 of 21, by Gmlb256

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PC@LIVE wrote on 2023-01-17, 21:19:

I don't know if it is possible to use cpu via c3, perhaps with a bios modified for support, but I don't think it is advantageous to use that CPU, I don't think there is a big difference, in the past I made beans with a C3 600mHz, and it went More or less like a P.Pro200, it has built me in the negative, since then I consider it quite poor.

It is possible to use VIA C3 CPUs if the BIOS has some sort of support for Tualatin CPUs.

The 1 GHz+ models have a very underrated advantage, having a lot of flexibility that the PII and PIII doesn't have when it comes to slowing down the computer with SetMul while being able to reach much higher CPU performance than a Pentium Pro 200. See this thread which was originally around the VIA C3 performance for more information: VIDEO BENCHMARKS (Original title: Settling the VIA C3 performance debate once and for all)

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce2 GTS 32 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS

Reply 5 of 21, by Sphere478

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Necrodude wrote on 2023-01-17, 20:42:
Awesome! Im posting a few wayback machine links from the actual old adapter from powerleap […]
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Awesome!
Im posting a few wayback machine links from the actual old adapter from powerleap

https://web.archive.org/web/20000815203513fw_ … om/PL-ProII.pdf

And tool from powerleap to enable the second cpu when using their product
https://web.archive.org/web/20001109164200/ht … p.com/PL-ProII/

Thanks! :p
If at all possible try to re host any info. Thanks.

At the moment this lineup is still a ways down the road. I have to brush up on a few design requirements needed for pentium pro/II/III architecture before I begin with alphas. Anyone familiar with these who is willing to assist do make yourself known!

As always, alphas are just tinkering around, betas are potentially functional as prototypes but don’t order them, working, high confidence files will be denoted with “pi.x” pi versions can be used.

In the meantime continue to drop feature requests, design suggestions, information and links please. Let’s info dump in preparation.

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 6 of 21, by Disruptor

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Did you install the microcode updates into the PPro-BIOS?

Reply 7 of 21, by imi

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your first post didn't quite make it clear if you already have one, so just letting you know I do in case you need any specific detail, I might not be quick with replies but I'll get to it eventually I hope.

The attachment powerleapPL-ProII_01.jpg is no longer available

Reply 8 of 21, by Sphere478

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imi wrote on 2023-01-18, 00:17:

your first post didn't quite make it clear if you already have one, so just letting you know I do in case you need any specific detail, I might not be quick with replies but I'll get to it eventually I hope.

powerleapPL-ProII_01.jpg

I do not currently own one and due to the rarity there’s a decent chance that I may never be able to get a hold of one unless I make one. So, Yes! Any kind of reverse engineering or details you can give about how you think it is constructed and wired will be very informative.

Component values will also be valuable

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 9 of 21, by PC@LIVE

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Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-01-17, 21:48:
PC@LIVE wrote on 2023-01-17, 21:19:

I don't know if it is possible to use cpu via c3, perhaps with a bios modified for support, but I don't think it is advantageous to use that CPU, I don't think there is a big difference, in the past I made beans with a C3 600mHz, and it went More or less like a P.Pro200, it has built me in the negative, since then I consider it quite poor.

It is possible to use VIA C3 CPUs if the BIOS has some sort of support for Tualatin CPUs.

The 1 GHz+ models have a very underrated advantage, having a lot of flexibility that the PII and PIII doesn't have when it comes to slowing down the computer with SetMul while being able to reach much higher CPU performance than a Pentium Pro 200. See this thread which was originally around the VIA C3 performance for more information: VIDEO BENCHMARKS (Original title: Settling the VIA C3 performance debate once and for all)

Thought it might be possible, thanks for the link, I'll take a look (as soon as I can), might be interesting.
Currently I don't have a great consideration of that CPU (C3), I tried it some time ago on an ECS i810, in that board I tried all possible cpu from Celeron to PIII, and through adapter a Celeron 1200, with that CPU and FSB 124 had interesting performance, while the VIA C3 600, was a total disappointment, very slow with integers, and even worse with the FPU, maybe later versions have improvements (L2 cache?), but if I can compare it to anything felt slower than a Celeron 266.

AMD 286-16 287-10 4MB HD 45MB VGA 256KB
AMD 386DX-40 Intel 387 8MB HD 81MB VGA 256KB
Cyrix 486DLC-40 IIT387-40 8MB VGA 512KB
AMD 5X86-133 16MB VGA VLB CL5428 2MB and many others
AMD K62+ 550 SOYO 5EMA+ and many others
AST Pentium Pro 200 MHz L2 256KB

Reply 11 of 21, by havli

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I don't want to ruin the party 😁
But do you realize how slow the i440FX chipset with EDO RAM is, right, especially in games? Even PII Klamath is greatly bottlenecked by it. Mendocino or even Coppermine would be like half performance compared to 440BX boards, at best.

This is interesting excercise, sure but I don't see any real benefit from such adapter. Also Socket 8 boards are very rare, especially those without Dallas RTC.

HW museum.cz - my collection of PC hardware

Reply 12 of 21, by Sphere478

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havli wrote on 2023-01-19, 06:25:

I don't want to ruin the party 😁
But do you realize how slow the i440FX chipset with EDO RAM is, right, especially in games? Even PII Klamath is greatly bottlenecked by it. Mendocino or even Coppermine would be like half performance compared to 440BX boards, at best.

This is interesting excercise, sure but I don't see any real benefit from such adapter. Also Socket 8 boards are very rare, especially those without Dallas RTC.

One of my dream builds is a dual tualitin with 512mb of EDO simms 😀

Oh yeah, I know. But I still wanna!

Dallas RTC is no biggie. We have fixes for them 😀

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 13 of 21, by maxtherabbit

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I prefer boards with dallas module. Desoldering them is easy with proper tools

Reply 16 of 21, by Doornkaat

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maxtherabbit wrote on 2023-01-19, 21:47:

vs. barrel batteries: should be obvious
vs. coin cells: they last longer

Obviously vs. coin cells.
Still don't understand the point.
-Coin cells usually last me 10+years on mobos in storage.
-Coin cell batteries are much easier and cheaper to source new (not relabelled NOS) and it can be assumed they'll be around for longer than RTC modules.
-Coin cells are always compatible, no issues with small changes in later revisions or pin compatible replacement products that break compatibility.
-Finally all popular alternatives to buying a complete replacement RTC module rely on an easily replaceable coin cell.

Not saying you're wrong in your preferences, just saying I completely don't get them.🤷‍♂️

Reply 17 of 21, by Sphere478

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Doornkaat wrote on 2023-01-19, 22:03:
Obviously vs. coin cells. Still don't understand the point. -Coin cells usually last me 10+years on mobos in storage. -Coin ce […]
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maxtherabbit wrote on 2023-01-19, 21:47:

vs. barrel batteries: should be obvious
vs. coin cells: they last longer

Obviously vs. coin cells.
Still don't understand the point.
-Coin cells usually last me 10+years on mobos in storage.
-Coin cell batteries are much easier and cheaper to source new (not relabelled NOS) and it can be assumed they'll be around for longer than RTC modules.
-Coin cells are always compatible, no issues with small changes in later revisions or pin compatible replacement products that break compatibility.
-Finally all popular alternatives to buying a complete replacement RTC module rely on an easily replaceable coin cell.

Not saying you're wrong in your preferences, just saying I completely don't get them.🤷‍♂️

It’s okay, nothing makes sense around here. We spend a lot of money around here on niche and hopelessly out dated computers haha.

If they like dallas, They like dallas. 😀 that’s okay.

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 18 of 21, by Disruptor

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Note that you can "park" DALLAS chips before putting motherboards to store.
The RTC will be shutdown then.
Conserving Dallas RTC chips

Reply 19 of 21, by Sphere478

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Disruptor wrote on 2023-01-20, 02:09:

Note that you can "park" DALLAS chips before putting motherboards to store.
The RTC will be shutdown then.
Conserving Dallas RTC chips

Oh wow, that’s very clever!

Not a hole lot of need to do that on my converted Dallas boards though as they take a normal full size coin cell that I can just pop out. :p But I will try to remember this if I get one that has a still functional Dallas .

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)