VOGONS


A NOT-SO EPIC Dual Pentium Pro Build

Topic actions

First post, by Irinikus

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

The weapon of choice as far as the motherboard goes is an ASUS P/I-P65UP5 Baseboard with a C-P6ND CPU card!

oJElVHp.jpg

It's now powered with one of these fully modular 750W Power Supplies: (It will suit the case that I plan to purchase for this system!)

M6I23JM.jpg

I currently have it setup on my desk in this fashion, while I acquire the necessary additional parts that I'm going to need: (I've installed XP onto it just to carry out a blender test in order to compare it to the Pentium II Overdrive, as soon as this test is done, it will get Windows NT4 SP6!)

H4w4WYV.jpg

AMAyXNV.jpg

dzkQzl9.jpg

Here's the Blender Test Result:

sjpmpgz.jpg

It did it in 23 minutes and 59 seconds!!! (The Pentium II Overdrive did it in 29 minutes 7 seconds and 51 split seconds!) So it's quite a bit more powerful than the Pentium II Overdrive!

Last edited by Irinikus on 2023-03-11, 08:41. Edited 3 times in total.

YouTube

Reply 2 of 167, by Irinikus

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

This machine will be getting this GUS once I receive it: (As I have been able to obtain a Gravis Ultrasound PnP driver for windows NT4)

MpxsChk.jpg

hxt0nJn.jpg

aKrUve2.jpg

As far as a SCSI RAID setup for this machine goes, I wouldn't mind installing one of these little monsters:

Kg5ZJ6s.jpg

YouTube

Reply 4 of 167, by Irinikus

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
TrashPanda wrote on 2023-02-03, 14:39:

Mmmmm what is that sexy SCSI card, asking for a friend with a SCSI fetish.

SCSI RAID Disk Array Controller ICP GDT6538RD 6x68pin, 4x50pin SCSI Adapter

YouTube

Reply 5 of 167, by Irinikus

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I've just realised that this motherboard has a serious limitation in that the RAM bank situated below the CPU card limits the number of full-length cards you can have slotted!!!!

RSLSl4r.jpg

One way to get around this is to give the system its full complement of 512MB (as this board only apparently supports 512MB of RAM) by slotting 4 x 128MB SIMM's

Here's my solution to the problem:

Fe51UtW.jpg

YouTube

Reply 6 of 167, by Irinikus

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

NT4's as boring as hell (as nothing seems to run in it) so I tried Windows 2000 professional, but it's not happy with the driver for the Dynamic Pictures Oxygen 202, so I'm unfortunately going to be reverting to NT4!!! 🙁

While I had 2000 installed I managed to get an ATTO disk benchmark in, and the current SCSI drive setup's dismal: (So this will definitely have to be swapped out!!!!)

v2TvBjr.jpg

Last edited by Irinikus on 2023-02-04, 15:34. Edited 1 time in total.

YouTube

Reply 8 of 167, by TrashPanda

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
Irinikus wrote on 2023-02-03, 14:59:
TrashPanda wrote on 2023-02-03, 14:39:

Mmmmm what is that sexy SCSI card, asking for a friend with a SCSI fetish.

SCSI RAID Disk Array Controller ICP GDT6538RD 6x68pin, 4x50pin SCSI Adapter

Oh my ...they are actually priced pretty reasonable from Jerry Land, got so many cool hardware parts from Germany ..must be a retro hardware collectors paradise there !

Wonder if they are accepting Immigrants from Australia ..might need to teach them how to drink though.

Reply 9 of 167, by Irinikus

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
TrashPanda wrote on 2023-02-03, 21:32:
Irinikus wrote on 2023-02-03, 14:59:
TrashPanda wrote on 2023-02-03, 14:39:

Mmmmm what is that sexy SCSI card, asking for a friend with a SCSI fetish.

SCSI RAID Disk Array Controller ICP GDT6538RD 6x68pin, 4x50pin SCSI Adapter

Oh my ...they are actually priced pretty reasonable from Jerry Land, got so many cool hardware parts from Germany ..must be a retro hardware collectors paradise there !

Wonder if they are accepting Immigrants from Australia ..might need to teach them how to drink though.

I'm unfortunately also living in the wrong place, as there's basically no interest in retro computing over here in South Africa, hence most retro equipmen was landfilled years ago! 🙁

Last edited by Irinikus on 2023-02-04, 07:48. Edited 1 time in total.

YouTube

Reply 10 of 167, by Irinikus

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
chrismeyer6 wrote on 2023-02-03, 20:48:

This is going to be a fun build to watch! Definitely looking forward to seeing your progress.

Thanks! 😀 It should hopefully be pretty interesting!

YouTube

Reply 11 of 167, by Irinikus

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

This is the base graphics card that I'm using for this build (The Dynamic Pictures Oxygen 202)

GwucY4M.jpg

This is the current setup:

kx18daW.jpg

I'm going to have to wait until I have a pair of Voodoo2's and the GUS before I can do anything interesting with it!

YouTube

Reply 12 of 167, by Irinikus

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I want to use one of these Thermaltake Level 20 cases for this build, as it will show off the hardware nicely. (Especially if off-white in-case lighting is used! NO RAINBOW COLOURS - I simply can't stand RGB lighting!!!!!!!!)

It has the right number of card slots to accommodate this mother board. (A mixture of the old with the super modern!!!)

I would have to make up a custom mother board holder to interface this AT board with the ATX mounting points in this case. (A piece of Plexiglas of the appropriate thickness could be used to achieve this.)

nXqK1m3.png

4LjOcZh.png

M2FcrPq.png

ufUEomg.png

The only problem is that it's a bit pricy! So it will be pretty much the final component I purchase for this build!

YouTube

Reply 13 of 167, by H3nrik V!

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Irinikus wrote on 2023-02-03, 07:16:
The weapon of choice as far as the motherboard goes is an ASUS P/I-P65UP5 Baseboard with a C-P6ND CPU card! […]
Show full quote

The weapon of choice as far as the motherboard goes is an ASUS P/I-P65UP5 Baseboard with a C-P6ND CPU card!

oJElVHp.jpg

It's now powered with one of these fully modular 750W Power Supplies: (It will suit the case that I plan to purchase for this system!)

M6I23JM.jpg

I currently have it setup on my desk in this fashion, while I acquire the necessary additional parts that I'm going to need: (I've installed XP onto it just to carry out a blender test in order to compare it to the Pentium II Overdrive, as soon as this test is done, it will get Windows NT4 SP6!)

H4w4WYV.jpg

AMAyXNV.jpg

dzkQzl9.jpg

Here's the Blender Test Result:

sjpmpgz.jpg

It did it in 23 minutes and 59 seconds!!! (The Pentium II Overdrive did it in 29 minutes 7 seconds and 51 split seconds!) So it's quite a bit more powerful than the Pentium II Overdrive!

Well, in the ideal world, that's 400 MHz of computing power in the two 200 PPros ... And that board is downright sexy! Will it take ODs as well?

Please use the "quote" option if asking questions to what I write - it will really up the chances of me noticing 😀

Reply 14 of 167, by Irinikus

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-02-04, 20:11:

Well, in the ideal world, that's 400 MHz of computing power in the two 200 PPros ... And that board is downright sexy! Will it take ODs as well?

As far as I know it does accept Overdrives, but in this case I'll stick with the PPros, As I already have a system fitted with an Overdrive.

Here's an example of two revisions of the CPU card fitted with Overdrives:

qo8I3Ge.jpg

One strange thing that I've noticed however is that this board simply won't accept the Matrox Millennium G450 card, whereas the Chaintech board that I've used in the Overdrive build does????

YouTube

Reply 15 of 167, by PD2JK

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

The G450 doesn't work at all in this build?
Maybe a PCI compatibility thing?

i386 16 ⇒ i486 DX4 100 ⇒ Pentium MMX 200 ⇒ Athlon Orion 700 | TB 1000 ⇒ AthlonXP 1700+ ⇒ Opteron 165 ⇒ Dual Opteron 856

Reply 16 of 167, by Irinikus

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I think that it's got something to do with the AGP to PCI bridge chip on the G450!

I'm happy to be using the Oxygen 202 though, as it's more quirky and more period specific!

YouTube

Reply 17 of 167, by pshipkov

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Irinikus wrote on 2023-02-03, 19:50:

NT4's as boring as hell ...

The Holly Inquisition strongly condemns the words of heresy.

Joking aside.
That PC is shaping great.
The Oxygen card gives it a graphics workstation flavor which is neat.

retro bits and bytes

Reply 18 of 167, by Irinikus

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
pshipkov wrote on 2023-02-04, 22:50:
The Holly Inquisition strongly condemns the words of heresy. […]
Show full quote

The Holly Inquisition strongly condemns the words of heresy.

Joking aside.
That PC is shaping great.
The Oxygen card gives it a graphics workstation flavor which is neat.

The nice thing about NT4 it that it's pretty lite! (Runs extremely well!)

I will install 3D studio Max R3 onto the system and the Oxygen driver has special settings for Max as well as quite a few other CAD programs, which is pretty cool! (For this build I do indeed kind of want the "workstation feel", with the ability to do a bit of gaming on the side!)

YouTube