I'd try to finish one project first.

Yeah, I do believe the motherboard should be alright with the K6 I have, which is definitely the 3.2V version based off info on the heat spreader, as there's a little sticker that I can see on it that lists '3.2V OK' and the motherboard manual does seem to show jumper configs that will support it. I'm not sure about the cache size on the board to be honest, as I really can't tell from the picture (see below) what it is, other than I can see the TAG SRAM slot is open.

And of course, you know I went snooping to see if there are any Baby AT/AT Socket 370 motherboards out there for the Celeron 700, just in case...only found one or two and they're pretty pricey.

MeatballB wrote on 2024-09-26, 15:40:

Yeah, I do believe the motherboard should be alright...

I wouldn't count on the ODIN. You may have to deal with that.

ux-3 wrote on 2024-09-26, 16:37:

MeatballB wrote on 2024-09-26, 15:40:

Yeah, I do believe the motherboard should be alright...

I wouldn't count on the ODIN. You may have to deal with that.

Yeah, I meant it will be alright with handling the 233 / 3.2v. I'm 99.9% certain I'm going to have to deal with the ODIN. So certain, I've already ordered the replacement chip with external battery. Even if somehow it still lives, I'm sure it'll go out sooner, rather than later.

MeatballB wrote on 2024-09-26, 13:16:

Here's the current plan. Assuming I get through the CMOS battery saga and don't slag the motherboard at least. […]
Show full quote

Here's the current plan. Assuming I get through the CMOS battery saga and don't slag the motherboard at least.

Mobo: Asus P/I-P55T2P4 Rev 3.1 - Socket 7
CPU: AMD K6-233
RAM: 256MB (4x64MB) 60ns EDO RAM
GPU: PCI Dell/Nvidia Riva TNT2 M64 16MB (180-P0002-0000-B01)
Audio: Creative Labs Soundblaster SB16 / CT2800 Vibra 16S ISA
HDD: Still up in the air, going to try to use a HP 120GB SSD with a SATA/IDE Adapter, but if that doesn't work, have a CF/IDE Adapter and will pick up a 60-120MB Industrial CF
PSU: 200W AT
OS: Win 98SE

Anyone see any glaring issues with the build? Will I run into any major issues with W98SE and DOS/Win3.1 games? Any other thoughts? 😀

Spec-wise this should be decent for gaming up to about 1997 or so. If you wanted to extend its 3D capabilities, then a Voodoo card to add native Glide support would fit with the intended time period.

Were you planning on just installing Win98SE or dual booting also with DOS and Win 3.1? With a boot manager, it's possible to do separate installs of different operating systems. A 120GB SSD would be ideal for that (and Win 98 in general).

MeatballB wrote on 2024-09-26, 14:16:

Really a bit worried about the whole CMOS/RTC soldering mess. 😀

If you don't have any soldering experience, definitely do a bunch of practice first. I'd suggest practising IC removal and replacement on a scrap board before the real thing.

There are also soldering practice kits that can be useful for training on as well.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-09-26, 16:48:

Were you planning on just installing Win98SE or dual booting also with DOS and Win 3.1? With a boot manager, it's possible to do separate installs of different operating systems. A 120GB SSD would be ideal for that (and Win 98 in general).

I was just planning on Win98SE and trying to get DOS/Win3.1 stuff working under that, but that dual boot sounds tempting. When you say boot manager, you mean something like XTIDE, or is there a specific one folks use for the old MS/Win stuff?

MeatballB wrote on 2024-09-26, 16:55:

I was just planning on Win98SE and trying to get DOS/Win3.1 stuff working under that, but that dual boot sounds tempting. When you say boot manager, you mean something like XTIDE, or is there a specific one folks use for the old MS/Win stuff?

By boot manager I mean software like Plop, GRUB, BootIt Bare Metal, etc. Basically any software for managing different OS installs and being able to boot to the selected option.

It's not really necessary if you're just running DOS or earlier Windows games under Win98. And there is always the option to boot to DOS prompt if you really to.

It's really just a matter of if you wanted to have a native DOS / Win 3.1 install to use separately from Win 98.

MeatballB wrote on 2024-09-26, 12:45:

Who in their right mind ever thought it was a smart idea to embed the CMOS battery inside a soldered on RTC chip. What the heck? Anyways, more parts on their way, and keeping my fingers crossed that that battery somehow still has some life or I can learn how to solder/desolder chips real quick. 😀

Hey, at least they didn't do what Apple did - Apple used cylindrical lithium batteries that, after 20 or so years, have a habit of exploding and spewing corrosive liquid all over the logic board. Probably the leading killer of lovely vintage beige Macs.

But I would note two things:
1) They probably expected the embedded battery to outlast the system it was in, and
2) Basic soldering/chip removal/etc skills were less... exotic... at that time. I remember the first 'computer toolkit' set I got in the late 1990s, had a whole bunch of things for pulling socketed ICs. When's the last time you saw a socketed IC other than maaaaaybe a BIOS (and obviously a CPU but that's different) on a personal computer board?

After reading through all this, I can honestly say, this is a struggle I think we all go through. You also came to the right place for advice! 😀

When I went to build myself a couple retro systems, I ended up here asking for input since I was out of practice on many things having not touched the hardware in so many years and had likely forgot many details. In the end, I set myself limits based on what I wanted each system to do, with some help from people on here, and stayed within those boundaries. In the end, I ended up with two builds I'm very happy with. I won't bore you with the details, but if you're interested to see the path I took, they are both detailed in my blog, linked in my signature. An ITX Win95 machine and a DOS 6.22 build for older DOS games.

I wish you the best of luck on your builds! Also, welcome to the Wonderland, with many more rabbit holes to go down!

Edited for silly typos...

Yeah, so...I've got a problem, and I blame eBay and eBay sellers. Since I can't order and get stuff in a day or two, it gives me time to stew, research and look stuff up and constantly second guess myself. And yes, I know...I need to just pick one and stick with it. But I've finally landed on building a bit more powerful machine so I can run 98SE and play just about all the games I want to play with maybe some issues on DOS games. As part of my old stock, I still have my old Celeron 700 Mhz (Coppermine), so I spent a good hour or so poking through retroweb for AT/Baby AT boards that had Socket 370 support only to find that hardly any are out there/for sale and that Socket 370 was crazy, and you really had to dig to see what chips/speeds it can handle. So after a ton of searching, I finally found a mobo that would let me do pretty much everything I needed and was a good price (what are some of these sellers thinking with $300 price tags on some of this stuff?)

I landed on an Azza 810DTA Baby AT motherboard. Pros for me were that I could run the Celeron 700 on it, it had a replaceable CMOS battery, it was AT and could go in the old Compudyne case, and it's got this crazy mish mosh of new/old connectors that I think are going to let me do a bunch and straddle most hardware from the late 80's to early 90's. So with the AZZA board I also grabbed a Nvidia Riva TNT2 M64 16 MB GPU, 256MB (2x128) PC133 SDRAM, a Creative SB Live Audio card and a 3COM 905C Ethernet card. I was actually surprised at the prices of most of those compared to what I was looking at for prices on the 486 and Socket 7 era stuff.

So, the downsides I really see are that I'm sure I'm going to have some audio issues for older/DOS stuff, not having an ISA card. Though the board actually does have onboard Audio (AC97) and 'AGP VGA' (doesn't say what), but I'm sure those will both be pretty poor, and they both require some adapters to connect to motherboard headers that I'm sure will be impossible to dig up. Also I was able to return/cancel a lot of the previous hardware, but still have enough left over that a 486 machine wouldn't be a stretch to build out for machine 2 if I really have problems with the DOS games.

Seriously though, I just need to step away from eBay and digging about stuff, wait for all the parts to come in and just dive in. Really appreciate everyone's feedback and 'support'. Helps to know that I'm not the only one with this disease 😀