VOGONS


First post, by Paadam

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Out of nowhere a dual Pentium Pro board appeared on local auction site and since it was IBM one (=proprietary form factor) plus the seller did not have any idea whether it works or not the interest was not too high and I scored it for 20 euros. It came without any risers etc.
Board is from PC365/Intellistation Z Pro, so called Hey Little Buddy (it is written on the board too, cute huh?)
Physically looked just fine, brushed off the dust, took a spare Pentium Pro CPU, riser that fitted there and spare IBM PSU and alive it came. Riser is a necessity as there is no onboard graphics.

Expected it to accept regular EDO DIMMs but no such luck, it requires unbuffered ones with notch exactly like on SDRAM DIMM's. Most of the EDO DIMM's that I have did not fit, luckily found one 32MB stick that fit and board came alive.

Fast forward 3 weeks, found a pair of 1M SL25A pentium Pros on ebay with s**tloads of bent (and some broken legs), got the pair for 50 usd and decided to take a shot.
They arrived, spent an hour to straighten up the pins, soldered threee missing ones scavenged from dead Celerons and tried them one by one. Both worked!

Next was to find a suitable VRM from my stash for second socket. Found one and both CPU's worked. Tried 3.5x multi (=233 MHz), no problems but granted I only tested to BIOS. Board has 4x multi also, will definitely try it some oint.
At the moment customising a Netvista case for this build (can't get the PC330 or other suitable one anywhere near me), made adapter so I can use regular ATX PSU and will modify low profile Netburst Xeon heatsinks to fit, they are made of full copper, would be spot on with them hot Pro's.

Later will flash latest BIOS, it is from 1997. It is currently in Finnish though that's not a problem as Finnish is very close to Estonian language 😀

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Many 3Dfx and Pentium III-S stuff.
My amibay FS thread: www.amibay.com/showthread.php?88030-Man ... -370-dual)

Reply 1 of 11, by Pino

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I have a fully working Intellistation Z Pro in it's original form, but it's working with a single Pentium PRO.

Can you give me more details about the VRM you used? is it an original IBM part or is it possible to use different models?

Thanks

Reply 2 of 11, by Paadam

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Not original one, iirc from some Compaq. But I can get you part number during weekend.

Z Pro is such a nice machine, impressive tower!

Many 3Dfx and Pentium III-S stuff.
My amibay FS thread: www.amibay.com/showthread.php?88030-Man ... -370-dual)

Reply 3 of 11, by chinny22

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untested and unloved board.
some very sorry sounding CPU's

Nice save of some undesirable desirable hardware!

Reply 4 of 11, by Paadam

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Yes! But I love this board! 😁

Next step is to secure the board to the Netvista case, already cut some cutouts so that the riser fits and I can actually mount expansion cards.
Thinking of Banshee, Adaptec 2940 SCSI adapter+ 36 GB HDD , 3 Com LAN and some SB ISA card.

I have cool Nec Multispin 6x but it is IDE version not SCSI. A bit reluctant to use IDE as a) not as cool as SCSI, b) eats more CPU cycles. Of course not such a big deal with dual CPU's but still. Maybe buy one of those IDE-SCSI adapters from ebay.

Many 3Dfx and Pentium III-S stuff.
My amibay FS thread: www.amibay.com/showthread.php?88030-Man ... -370-dual)

Reply 5 of 11, by Paadam

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Pino wrote on 2024-10-31, 16:14:

I have a fully working Intellistation Z Pro in it's original form, but it's working with a single Pentium PRO.

Can you give me more details about the VRM you used? is it an original IBM part or is it possible to use different models?

Thanks

It is IBM one still, here are photos of the VRM.

Attachments

Many 3Dfx and Pentium III-S stuff.
My amibay FS thread: www.amibay.com/showthread.php?88030-Man ... -370-dual)

Reply 6 of 11, by luckybob

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6ffr0p.jpg

AFAIK all of the pentium pro VRM modules are universal. Intel released an exacting standard and if you used their special connector it was expected you used the intel standard. yes, their special connector was a standard 40-pin IDE connector with some extra plastic bits, but all ppro vreg modules i've ever seen/touched have been interchangeable. you CAN get in trouble with the Pentium 2/3 modules, as those use the same connection, but you can easily sort them out by the sheer number of parts. ppro modules are usually a bit light. Where the P2/P3 ones are CHONKY by comparison.

I really like my model 365. its well worth getting a complete system, but I might be a bit biased.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 9 of 11, by eisapc

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Congratulations to the board especially to the dual blackheads.
Got the same PC Server 365 board some years ago and installed it in my PC Server 315.
The 315 hat the same board, but only a single socket 8.

The same type of unbuffered EDO DIMM memory can be found in some other PPro based systems too:
Compaq Proliant 800/850R (not to be confused with the PII Proliant 800)
HP Netserver LDpro and LHpro
Still got some smaller sticks around, but the 128MB sticks are hard to find for a reasonable price.

@pino: Still got a box full of Compaq PPRO VRMs you can get for shipping cost from Germany.

Reply 11 of 11, by Pino

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eisapc wrote on 2024-11-04, 12:58:
Congratulations to the board especially to the dual blackheads. Got the same PC Server 365 board some years ago and installed it […]
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Congratulations to the board especially to the dual blackheads.
Got the same PC Server 365 board some years ago and installed it in my PC Server 315.
The 315 hat the same board, but only a single socket 8.

The same type of unbuffered EDO DIMM memory can be found in some other PPro based systems too:
Compaq Proliant 800/850R (not to be confused with the PII Proliant 800)
HP Netserver LDpro and LHpro
Still got some smaller sticks around, but the 128MB sticks are hard to find for a reasonable price.

@pino: Still got a box full of Compaq PPRO VRMs you can get for shipping cost from Germany.

I really appreciate the offer eisapc, but I can get it for less than $8 from the link lyckybob posted above, shipping from Germany is probably more than that.