ediflorianUS wrote on 2023-05-15, 18:31:

... BTW I am not sure that damage is from shipping , may have been already damaged previously.

I'm afraid not. Here's what it looked like in the listing:

BTW , does anyone have a spare sk423 Motherboard , here in eu? I almost got a new board from a local company , but by the time I realy decided to buy it the company was gone , and no stock on the SK423's listed anymore... Even a project board may suffice , I have a spare CPU I was unable to test . seem to be rare things this sk423 mb's...

keenmaster486 wrote on 2023-05-15, 17:56:

ST-251 hard drive almost certainly dead from shipping, but we’ll see.

Incredibly, this drive low level formatted with no issues and now boots to DOS.

I did find out it auto-parks the heads, so that is probably why.

ediflorianUS wrote on 2023-05-15, 19:16:

BTW , does anyone have a spare sk423 Motherboard , here in eu? I almost got a new board from a local company , but by the time I realy decided to buy it the company was gone , and no stock on the SK423's listed anymore... Even a project board may suffice , I have a spare CPU I was unable to test . seem to be rare things this sk423 mb's...

I've had nothing but problems with S423 boards. I own 2 currently, and have owned 2 others previously. Literally none of them work correctly. They were only on the market for about 1.5 years, most of them used hard to find RDRAM, they were made at the absolute height of the capacitor plague, etc.

Just get a 478 and throw a 478 willamette on it.

ediflorianUS wrote on 2023-05-15, 19:16:

BTW , does anyone have a spare sk423 Motherboard , here in eu? I almost got a new board from a local company , but by the time I realy decided to buy it the company was gone , and no stock on the SK423's listed anymore... Even a project board may suffice , I have a spare CPU I was unable to test . seem to be rare things this sk423 mb's...

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-05-15, 23:49:

ediflorianUS wrote on 2023-05-15, 19:16:

BTW , does anyone have a spare sk423 Motherboard , here in eu? I almost got a new board from a local company , but by the time I realy decided to buy it the company was gone , and no stock on the SK423's listed anymore... Even a project board may suffice , I have a spare CPU I was unable to test . seem to be rare things this sk423 mb's...

I've had nothing but problems with S423 boards. I own 2 currently, and have owned 2 others previously. Literally none of them work correctly. They were only on the market for about 1.5 years, most of them used hard to find RDRAM, they were made at the absolute height of the capacitor plague, etc.

Just get a 478 and throw a 478 willamette on it.

For fun why not? Avoid RDRAM if possible.

For long term a 478 w/ Willamette core may be a better option, there are a lot of good and cheap boards.
DDR comes cheap and the difference in performance wasn't outstanding.

There is no reason to avoid RDRAM if SDRAM is the alternative. It was insanely expensive back in the day, but it's very cheap now on the used market.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-05-15, 23:49:

ediflorianUS wrote on 2023-05-15, 19:16:

BTW , does anyone have a spare sk423 Motherboard , here in eu? I almost got a new board from a local company , but by the time I realy decided to buy it the company was gone , and no stock on the SK423's listed anymore... Even a project board may suffice , I have a spare CPU I was unable to test . seem to be rare things this sk423 mb's...

I've had nothing but problems with S423 boards. I own 2 currently, and have owned 2 others previously. Literally none of them work correctly. They were only on the market for about 1.5 years, most of them used hard to find RDRAM, they were made at the absolute height of the capacitor plague, etc.

Just get a 478 and throw a 478 willamette on it.

Now I'm realy pissed , I knew one co had brand new 423's with sdr ... (a few years back)... (I only have 1 CPU , most of my systems are 478 anyways).

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-05-16, 07:16:

There is no reason to avoid RDRAM if SDRAM is the alternative. It was insanely expensive back in the day, but it's very cheap now on the used market.

I got confused, as I thought DDR+423. That's 462... 😀
Silly mistake.

There are 478 boards that support DDR2 but I'm not sure if they support Willamette core.

We all love a nice deal on a nice bit of kit and I bought two motherboards recently both with CPUs.

A Gigabyte 990FXA board with a Phenom II 1100T BE and 8gb of ram and cooler for 50 AUD (33.50 USD), I thought I would get outbid on this one since the CPU alone is worth more than 30 USD and the 990FX board would certainly go for more than 30USD.

Board was sold untested but it works fine so far as does the CPU and memory, ill know 100% when I get more time to fully test the setup out, cooler looks a bit lop sided here but its just sitting there no damage done to board or CPU.

Then this EPOX EP-MVP3C2 with K6-2 500 popped up, I paid a little more for this one at 80 AUD (53 USD) but I suspect that was because of the motherboard rather than the CPU, board and CPU work just fine has 512k of cache which is nice.

And also bought another Abit Slotket III which will be heading to the P2B-DS for some Coppermine fun.

Nexxen wrote on 2023-05-16, 10:34:

I got confused, as I thought DDR+423. That's 462... :) Silly mistake. […]
Show full quote

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-05-16, 07:16:

There is no reason to avoid RDRAM if SDRAM is the alternative. It was insanely expensive back in the day, but it's very cheap now on the used market.

I got confused, as I thought DDR+423. That's 462... 😀
Silly mistake.

There are 478 boards that support DDR2 but I'm not sure if they support Willamette core.

They would support the 478 Willamette CPUs of which there were a whole range, only difference between the 423 and 478 versions was that there was never a 1.3Ghz in the 478 series, other than that they were identical.

The memory thing is down to the Northbridge, so if the board supports DDR2 then it wont matter what CPU is in there since the Northbridge handles memory compatibility. Unless you mean BIOS support for Willamette on such boards, I mean even if it didn't it wouldn't be difficult to add the support via microcodes.

I doubt that they removed the Willamette microcodes from any 478 bios, there wasn't a massive amount of CPUs for 478 before 775 arrived.

I bought an Abit AK3 that was labelled up as an Auva TAM 386. I wanted a 386 board that has physical cache and the possibility for a socket - all of my 386dx motherboards with cache chips don't have room for a CPU socket, but this one does:

It was sold as for parts and wouldn't boot getting stuck at an early post code of 0D or 0E - the traces looked like this to start with and I thought I'd need to run new ones:

They cleaned up really well though - instead of using vinegar I'm just using the flux in some Loctite solder that I don't otherwise like for soldering because it's sticky rosin type flux that's tough to clean off the board:

That wasn't even what killed it I think, maybe the board even worked with the traces looking like that - but there was a bashed trace on the back and some chip pins smashed down into adjacent traces. Also had to repair one via that is almost invisible from the corrosion. Following a recent youtube video I watched I tried clearing the via's hole with a fine needle then ran the replacement trace through that:

Oh and that 10k resistor pack had pin1 fall off when I tried to measure it but I cleaned the epoxy of the package back a bit and soldered a pin on there, now that's working again in place.

Fired right up, now it gets a socket and I need to figure out how to disable an onboard 386 to allow the socketed one to operate.

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-05-16, 11:48:

They would support the 478 Willamette CPUs of which there were a whole range, only difference between the 423 and 478 versions w […]
Show full quote

Nexxen wrote on 2023-05-16, 10:34:

I got confused, as I thought DDR+423. That's 462... :) Silly mistake. […]
Show full quote

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-05-16, 07:16:

There is no reason to avoid RDRAM if SDRAM is the alternative. It was insanely expensive back in the day, but it's very cheap now on the used market.

I got confused, as I thought DDR+423. That's 462... 😀
Silly mistake.

There are 478 boards that support DDR2 but I'm not sure if they support Willamette core.

They would support the 478 Willamette CPUs of which there were a whole range, only difference between the 423 and 478 versions was that there was never a 1.3Ghz in the 478 series, other than that they were identical.

The memory thing is down to the Northbridge, so if the board supports DDR2 then it wont matter what CPU is in there since the Northbridge handles memory compatibility. Unless you mean BIOS support for Willamette on such boards, I mean even if it didn't it wouldn't be difficult to add the support via microcodes.

I doubt that they removed the Willamette microcodes from any 478 bios, there wasn't a massive amount of CPUs for 478 before 775 arrived.

Exactly my concern, some boards either do not support (budget boards/sloppy job) or do not put Willamette cpus in the supported list.
check my latest repair failure: https://asrock.com/MB/Intel/P4i945GC/index.asp#CPU no Willy in list.

Today I got some more boards and tested them, sold as working. Didn't and got a refund.
More boards that don't work: am I jinxed? 🤣

Nexxen wrote on 2023-05-16, 13:46:

Exactly my concern, some boards either do not support (budget boards/sloppy job) or do not put Willamette cpus in the supported […]
Show full quote

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-05-16, 11:48:

They would support the 478 Willamette CPUs of which there were a whole range, only difference between the 423 and 478 versions w […]
Show full quote

Nexxen wrote on 2023-05-16, 10:34:

I got confused, as I thought DDR+423. That's 462... 😀
Silly mistake.

There are 478 boards that support DDR2 but I'm not sure if they support Willamette core.

They would support the 478 Willamette CPUs of which there were a whole range, only difference between the 423 and 478 versions was that there was never a 1.3Ghz in the 478 series, other than that they were identical.

The memory thing is down to the Northbridge, so if the board supports DDR2 then it wont matter what CPU is in there since the Northbridge handles memory compatibility. Unless you mean BIOS support for Willamette on such boards, I mean even if it didn't it wouldn't be difficult to add the support via microcodes.

I doubt that they removed the Willamette microcodes from any 478 bios, there wasn't a massive amount of CPUs for 478 before 775 arrived.

Exactly my concern, some boards either do not support (budget boards/sloppy job) or do not put Willamette cpus in the supported list.
check my latest repair failure: https://asrock.com/MB/Intel/P4i945GC/index.asp#CPU no Willy in list.

Today I got some more boards and tested them, sold as working. Didn't and got a refund.
More boards that don't work: am I jinxed? 🤣

I would just shove a Willy in it and see what the BIOS makes of it, usually the system will still function and boot and aside from it being unidentified or miss identified shouldn't have any issues. I wouldn't do that with a more modern Core2 setup as from my experience Core 2 systems dont like unidentified CPUs.

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-05-16, 14:00:

Nexxen wrote on 2023-05-16, 13:46:

Exactly my concern, some boards either do not support (budget boards/sloppy job) or do not put Willamette cpus in the supported […]
Show full quote

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-05-16, 11:48:

They would support the 478 Willamette CPUs of which there were a whole range, only difference between the 423 and 478 versions was that there was never a 1.3Ghz in the 478 series, other than that they were identical.

The memory thing is down to the Northbridge, so if the board supports DDR2 then it wont matter what CPU is in there since the Northbridge handles memory compatibility. Unless you mean BIOS support for Willamette on such boards, I mean even if it didn't it wouldn't be difficult to add the support via microcodes.

I doubt that they removed the Willamette microcodes from any 478 bios, there wasn't a massive amount of CPUs for 478 before 775 arrived.

Exactly my concern, some boards either do not support (budget boards/sloppy job) or do not put Willamette cpus in the supported list.
check my latest repair failure: https://asrock.com/MB/Intel/P4i945GC/index.asp#CPU no Willy in list.

Today I got some more boards and tested them, sold as working. Didn't and got a refund.
More boards that don't work: am I jinxed? 🤣

I would just shove a Willy in it and see what the BIOS makes of it, usually the system will still function and boot and aside from it being unidentified or miss identified shouldn't have any issues. I wouldn't do that with a more modern Core2 setup as from my experience Core 2 systems dont like unidentified CPUs.

Board has a no power on issue, can't make it work.
I wanted to bench a Willy in it with DDR2.

Nexxen wrote on 2023-05-16, 14:26:

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-05-16, 14:00:

Nexxen wrote on 2023-05-16, 13:46:

Exactly my concern, some boards either do not support (budget boards/sloppy job) or do not put Willamette cpus in the supported […]
Show full quote

Exactly my concern, some boards either do not support (budget boards/sloppy job) or do not put Willamette cpus in the supported list.
check my latest repair failure: https://asrock.com/MB/Intel/P4i945GC/index.asp#CPU no Willy in list.

Today I got some more boards and tested them, sold as working. Didn't and got a refund.
More boards that don't work: am I jinxed? 🤣

I would just shove a Willy in it and see what the BIOS makes of it, usually the system will still function and boot and aside from it being unidentified or miss identified shouldn't have any issues. I wouldn't do that with a more modern Core2 setup as from my experience Core 2 systems dont like unidentified CPUs.

Board has a no power on issue, can't make it work.
I wanted to bench a Willy in it with DDR2.

I have a very similar board from biostar - P4M900. I tried several P4 chips on it from Willamette to Prescott - only the Prescott 2.8GHz and faster benefit from DDR2, but having DDR2-800 in there makes it easy to overclock, and my Biostar also has CPU vcore settings in bios but it's got pretty weak VRMs so getting past 3.2GHz stable is not easy.

I managed to grab a goldie IBM 6x86L. Might never put it in to something, but it’s nice to have regardless.

BetaC wrote on 2023-05-16, 22:25:

I managed to grab a goldie IBM 6x86L. Might never put it in to something, but it’s nice to have regardless.
IMG_1806.jpeg

I also have one, I know the problem, it needs a board that is gonna be capable of taking MUCH better processors, so it just kinda sits there. Even my 2 best cyrix are kinda marginal use case. I should get around to a head to head with a non-L though, see if there are any minor incremental improvements, smidge faster FPU maybe, tiny gains from a core shrink that sort of thing.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-05-17, 03:54:

BetaC wrote on 2023-05-16, 22:25:

I managed to grab a goldie IBM 6x86L. Might never put it in to something, but it’s nice to have regardless.
IMG_1806.jpeg

I also have one, I know the problem, it needs a board that is gonna be capable of taking MUCH better processors, so it just kinda sits there. Even my 2 best cyrix are kinda marginal use case. I should get around to a head to head with a non-L though, see if there are any minor incremental improvements, smidge faster FPU maybe, tiny gains from a core shrink that sort of thing.

As far as I recall, the only tweeks ar related to the L1 cache to better support Windows NT, a split-rail voltage supply and die shrink = less heat disipation. Not much more.

Got two nice cases - both containing Pentium era hardware(S7 & SS7).

This Tandon 286. I have two of these now. They are way better build than the original IBM 5170 - much heavier, better quality materials... When I bough it I didn't realized what was hidden inside...