zuldan wrote on 2025-01-06, 10:39:

Grabbed this ASUS SP97-V (https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-sp97-v) for $30 sold as “For parts”. It’s probably one of […]
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Grabbed this ASUS SP97-V (https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-sp97-v) for $30 sold as “For parts”. It’s probably one of the fastest socket 7 (non-AGP) boards out there. It performs as well as a T2P4 (maybe even slightly better). It’s north bridge and south bridge are in a single chip for great performance. A great little overclocker too.

After fixing the jumper settings she booted up first time. I then flashed it to a patched BIOS to support AMD K6-2+/3+. Used the “secret” voltage jumper settings for 2.0v. Chucked a K6-2+ 500 in it and it worked! Not bad for a board that was only supposed to support a 233 MMX.

Thanks to Necroware for exposing this motherboard. Highly recommend watching his video https://youtu.be/zaOXLErWcPc

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Interesting blurb on the retroweb page about that board, it reads:
Known issues:
Inadequate Power Delivery
This motherboard may have insufficient power delivery, which can lead to unstable or unsafe operation. In extreme cases, this may result in hardware damage, spontaneous combustion, or other electrical failures.

That is a bit concerning to me, but good luck!

pete8475 wrote on 2025-01-06, 20:55:

Interesting blurb on the retroweb page about that board, it reads: Known issues: Inadequate Power Delivery This motherboard may […]
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Interesting blurb on the retroweb page about that board, it reads:
Known issues:
Inadequate Power Delivery
This motherboard may have insufficient power delivery, which can lead to unstable or unsafe operation. In extreme cases, this may result in hardware damage, spontaneous combustion, or other electrical failures.

That is a bit concerning to me, but good luck!

I noticed that too 😂 TRW is not the most accurate website 😉 I have two these boards now and have not experienced any issues. I’ve seen that wording used on other motherboards. Either it’s on there in error or someone claimed that’s what happened not realising their board had bad caps. Necroware (who has made his own custom VRM) didn’t have any issues with this board either.

Could be insufficiently differentiated OEM versions made with cheaper parts, or ran out of regular regulators and used a substitute for some boards. There are some TRW listings that seem "revision unaware" in that a board may have had several revisions and they only describe one accurately, without specifying, where others had minor variances.

I bought a "mystery machine" again. It was Fu-fuu uggly as F, but it said it had a Yamaha DS-XG (I like those) so I bought it for 10 bucks. Fastforward to getting the side panel open (very shit case, tough nut to crack) I was FREAKING OUT, DUDE!! It has a SLOT-A board in it! OMG! So excited for this! I've been thinking I would NEVER find a SLOT-A board. It is a BCM QS750. Never seen anything like it.

Very plain, but it looks good! I'll be savoring this one: looking at it, feeling it up for the rest of the week, PLOTTING, etc. What type of system should I build with it? I'll probably just use that DS-XG in it. What is a good GPU to pair with it? ATI/nvidia? I have a few option to choose from. I have a Radeon 7000 and a few GF2 sitting about.

Oh yeah, I did also get a Micron "Pro Magnum Plus", which is ANOTHER system I want to enjoy working on as much as possible. It is a Pentium Pro system and actually has a PRO sticker on it. It had a FX5200 in it (only thing I've done to it so far is take that out) and a Sound Blaster CT2940. Very cool.

Bought two cool Apple systems.

Macintosh Quadra 605 (needs repair, which means a recap and cleaning the board)

Macintosh PowerBook 180 (dying LCD, which might be cap problems, but it shouldn't be that hard to fix)

Major Jackyl wrote on 2025-01-07, 02:07:

I bought a "mystery machine" again. It was Fu-fuu uggly as F, but it said it had a Yamaha DS-XG (I like those) so I bought it for 10 bucks. Fastforward to getting the side panel open (very shit case, tough nut to crack) I was FREAKING OUT, DUDE!! It has a SLOT-A board in it! OMG! So excited for this! I've been thinking I would NEVER find a SLOT-A board. It is a BCM QS750. Never seen anything like it.

Very rare to find those in the wild. Well done!

Major Jackyl wrote on 2025-01-07, 02:07:

I bought a "mystery machine" again. It was Fu-fuu uggly as F, but it said it had a Yamaha DS-XG (I like those) so I bought it for 10 bucks. Fastforward to getting the side panel open (very shit case, tough nut to crack) I was FREAKING OUT, DUDE!! It has a SLOT-A board in it! OMG! So excited for this! I've been thinking I would NEVER find a SLOT-A board. It is a BCM QS750. Never seen anything like it.

Slot A boards with an ISA slot are neat and pretty uncommon... Slot A boards with two ISA slots are very cool and very rare... Slot A boards with three ISA slots? I didn't even know they existed. And, I think you have basically the only such design that exists. According to TheRetroWeb, this BCM QS750 and the AOpen AK71 are identical and they are the only Slot A boards with three ISA slots.

What an awesome find! 😮

As far as what to put in it... the Yamaha card is a decent choice if you intend to play older games on it (late DOS games that will run in a DOS box in Windows, or Windows games that use MIDI music will take advantage of the XG synth as well as the OPL3)... though if you have a Vortex 2 laying around I would opt for that, since it also has a decent Windows hardware assisted MIDI synth as well as A3D support. I had a similar setup back in the day with a Geforce 2 GTS + various sound cards in a Tyan Slot A Via KX133 board with an Athlon 750Mhz. Very nice system for the time. 😀

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-01-07, 06:07:

Slot A boards with an ISA slot are neat and pretty uncommon... Slot A boards with two ISA slots are very cool and very rare... Slot A boards with three ISA slots? I didn't even know they existed. And, I think you have basically the only such design that exists. According to TheRetroWeb, this BCM QS750 and the AOpen AK71 are identical and they are the only Slot A boards with three ISA slots.

I have a few slot A motherboards, not very many, probably around 20... almost all have at least one ISA slot. They were competing with slot 1 motherboards targeted at Pentium III, those also have ISA slots.
Even the first generation of socket A (those with SDRAM) tend to have one ISA slot, I had one back in the day in my main computer - ABIT KT7E, it was the budget version of KT7A.

Got a mystery pack today. Here is the contents. Not sure how rare the 3700 is. Need to do some research on the 7600.

RaverX wrote on 2025-01-07, 10:03:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-01-07, 06:07:

Slot A boards with an ISA slot are neat and pretty uncommon... Slot A boards with two ISA slots are very cool and very rare... Slot A boards with three ISA slots? I didn't even know they existed. And, I think you have basically the only such design that exists. According to TheRetroWeb, this BCM QS750 and the AOpen AK71 are identical and they are the only Slot A boards with three ISA slots.

I have a few slot A motherboards, not very many, probably around 20... almost all have at least one ISA slot. They were competing with slot 1 motherboards targeted at Pentium III, those also have ISA slots.
Even the first generation of socket A (those with SDRAM) tend to have one ISA slot, I had one back in the day in my main computer - ABIT KT7E, it was the budget version of KT7A.

Sorry, I guess I worded that poorly. I meant that in a general sense, having a Slot A board with an ISA slot is a neat and uncommon thing. Like, Socket A are still quite common, Slot 1 are super common... but Slot A in general is uncommon, and having one with an ISA slot is less common than having one in general (since lots of them have none, including popular boards like the Asus K7V and K7M).

Also, you have more Slot A boards than I have ever seen in my life. 🤣 I don't particularly seek them out, but I grab them when I can since the first PC I built myself had one. I have probably a hundred motherboards and only a 2-3 Slot A.

Just curious ,since you have so many, do you have a Tyan S2380\Trinity K7? I think I saw one for sale a few years ago, but other than that I haven't seen one since I sold my old machine back in like 2002-2003. They seem quite rare these days.

I only have one Slot A motherboard and it has an ISA slot, albeit only one..

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-01-07, 11:15:

Just curious ,since you have so many, do you have a Tyan S2380\Trinity K7? I think I saw one for sale a few years ago, but other than that I haven't seen one since I sold my old machine back in like 2002-2003. They seem quite rare these days.

I don't have Tyan slot A... 20 slot A motherboards seems a lot, but keep in mind that I collect from 2003... those boards are very rare now, and they were rare even 20 years ago, when I started collecting.
Same with slot A CPUs... back in 2005-2010 I could find in a single day in the flea market more than 10 slot 1 CPUs, but slot A I found just a few (maybe 5?) in more than 20 years...

RaverX wrote on 2025-01-07, 10:03:

I have a few slot A motherboards, not very many, probably around 20... almost all have at least one ISA slot. They were competing with slot 1 motherboards targeted at Pentium III, those also have ISA slots.
Even the first generation of socket A (those with SDRAM) tend to have one ISA slot, I had one back in the day in my main computer - ABIT KT7E, it was the budget version of KT7A.

That must be a nice collection!
I also have a few Slot A motherboards, one to be exact (Asus K7M) 😉
And I've only seen two or three for sale over the years. That's all.
CPUs otoh are much easier to obtain. Albeit only having a mere handful of them, there were much more on sale one could have grabbed.

Also, I didn't know ISA on Slot A was a thing. I mean, this was still the sub-GHz period, the dark ages of the fading 1990s, isn't it? Every board back then still had ISA...
That said, seeing the K7M without ISA at the retroweb made me curious and look for my board...and it really has one ISA slot. Only one but still.

ChrisK wrote on 2025-01-07, 12:43:

That must be a nice collection! I also have a few Slot A motherboards, one to be exact (Asus K7M) ;) And I've only seen two or t […]
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That must be a nice collection!
I also have a few Slot A motherboards, one to be exact (Asus K7M) 😉
And I've only seen two or three for sale over the years. That's all.
CPUs otoh are much easier to obtain. Albeit only having a mere handful of them, there were much more on sale one could have grabbed.

Also, I didn't know ISA on Slot A was a thing. I mean, this was still the sub-GHz period, the dark ages of the fading 1990s, isn't it? Every board back then still had ISA...
That said, seeing the K7M without ISA at the retroweb made me curious and look for my board...and it really has one ISA slot. Only one but still.

I have an ASUS K7V. Had it since new with 700Mhz Athlon. No ISA slots on it.

RaverX wrote on 2025-01-07, 10:03:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-01-07, 06:07:

Slot A boards with an ISA slot are neat and pretty uncommon... Slot A boards with two ISA slots are very cool and very rare... Slot A boards with three ISA slots? I didn't even know they existed. And, I think you have basically the only such design that exists. According to TheRetroWeb, this BCM QS750 and the AOpen AK71 are identical and they are the only Slot A boards with three ISA slots.

I have a few slot A motherboards, not very many, probably around 20... almost all have at least one ISA slot. They were competing with slot 1 motherboards targeted at Pentium III, those also have ISA slots.
Even the first generation of socket A (those with SDRAM) tend to have one ISA slot, I had one back in the day in my main computer - ABIT KT7E, it was the budget version of KT7A.

As far as it goes, my K7 Pro from MSI does have one too. I might switch from the SB0090 I was using on it to a CT3900 AWE32 😀

Kahenraz wrote on 2025-01-06, 19:14:

These laptops are prone to catastrophic battery leakage. Inspect it immediately when you get it. […]
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megatron-uk wrote on 2025-01-06, 18:31:

Bought a cheap Sony Vaio laptop - PCG-F809k, aka PCG-9316 aka whatever other model number Sony thought up for it!

P3-850, 128mb, 15" 1400x1050 LCD, ATI Mobility M1, Yamaha YMF-744, CDROM, floppy. Could make a nice late DOS/Win98 gaming device.

It was sold as not powering on, and without PSU, so is a bit of a risk. Worth a shot at the price though - it looks clean and not badly cared for, so I'll keep my fingers crossed..

These laptops are prone to catastrophic battery leakage. Inspect it immediately when you get it.

If you own a Sony VAIO PCG-Fxxx series laptop, inspect it for corrosion as soon as possible!

If it's not powering on, the power board that lives underneath the touchpad may have been damaged by a leaking NiMH CMOS battery.

Good to know. I'll be sure to strip it down as soon as it arrives. Seems to be *reasonable* amount of spare parts for these machines on Ebay... well, more so than my recently acquired Thinkpad 240 and 240X... they're tricky little blighters to find parts for.

Always cool when you buy something you didn't know it exists.

Just got a Socket 7 Pentium 133MMX, apparently it was released as a mobile CPU only, which probably explains the lower Vcore.

Living happy here with the other members of the family.

Pino wrote on 2025-01-07, 23:09:

Always cool when you buy something you didn't know it exists.

Just got a Socket 7 Pentium 133MMX, apparently it was released as a mobile CPU only, which probably explains the lower Vcore.

Living happy here with the other members of the family.

Neat! Does the other side look the same as most MMX processors?

pete8475 wrote on 2025-01-07, 23:39:

Pino wrote on 2025-01-07, 23:09:

Always cool when you buy something you didn't know it exists.

Just got a Socket 7 Pentium 133MMX, apparently it was released as a mobile CPU only, which probably explains the lower Vcore.

Living happy here with the other members of the family.

Neat! Does the other side look the same as most MMX processors?

Yes, pretty much the same

RaverX wrote on 2025-01-07, 12:30:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-01-07, 11:15:

Just curious ,since you have so many, do you have a Tyan S2380\Trinity K7? I think I saw one for sale a few years ago, but other than that I haven't seen one since I sold my old machine back in like 2002-2003. They seem quite rare these days.

I don't have Tyan slot A... 20 slot A motherboards seems a lot, but keep in mind that I collect from 2003... those boards are very rare now, and they were rare even 20 years ago, when I started collecting.
Same with slot A CPUs... back in 2005-2010 I could find in a single day in the flea market more than 10 slot 1 CPUs, but slot A I found just a few (maybe 5?) in more than 20 years...

Yeah, I didn't actually start collecting this stuff on purpose until around 2016. I "accumulated" lots of stuff before that, and thankfully didn't get rid of a lot of my coolest items, but I wasn't seeking out motherboards because I moved around several times, got married, etc. and wouldn't have been able to lug all that around with me. It was already a bear dragging my HP P1230 CRT around into all the places I lived... somehow it ended up on multiple 3rd and 4th floors of homes as well as upstairs offices... 🤣

Regarding Slot A CPUs... I actually have found several of those over the years and still have most of them. My best find is the original Slot A 1Ghz Orion core Athlon. The first 1Ghz consumer CPU to hit the market. I am still waiting for the ideal board to install it into, though I'm not sure it's worth running such a rare chip with such limited cooling and high wattage (65 watts... youch!).

Come to think of it, I did end up with a new open-box Asus K7V-T several years ago, and in the box was an Athlon 850Mhz Tbird ready to install (no cooler though). I was in need of money at the time so I ended up selling the combo at some point, but that was a pretty cool find at the time.