I continue with the tests of the motherboards, but it is not the A-Trend ATC-2000, which is still at the top of the list of those to try, I tried instead an S.370 with Celeron 500 MHz, precisely an MSI MS6178 VER:1.0, Intel i810 chipset (unfortunately not i810E), the format is uATX with three PCI slots and an AMR, next to that AMR there is a second AMR called PTI, honestly it might look like a kind of AGP, in reality it is not!

To make a long story short, I installed a 16 MB SDRAM, a new battery and connected the ATX power supply and keyboard and monitor cables, in short, I gave power and it started!!!

The BIOS is AWARD, dated 05/12/1999, from the first BIOS screen you can read that the integrated VGA uses 1 MB of memory, maybe a little but for normal use it could be more than enough, unlike the i815 it cannot be disabled, but you could perhaps add a second PCI VGA, if the main one is not enough.

I've already made some benches, and soon I'll publish the results, I'll probably increase the RAM to 128 MB or more, regarding the CPU, I don't think it can be updated with Coppermine, but in this regard I have to do some investigations, maybe who knows, we'll see!

Still with the MSI MS6178, I did a little investigation, just to see if overclocking is possible (slight maybe), and what I found makes me think that, excluding the limits due to the chipset, it is possible to select other frequencies, some even interesting.

At least on paper 🃏, it promises well, but from the BIOS it could be a completely different story, the one on the MB is an AWARD first version (V1.0), there are later versions, and the most recent one should be V2.1, there is also an AMI BIOS that could be loaded, but I don't think it can be better, currently from the settings present, you can go up with the FSB to 75 or 83 MHz, of course I would avoid the highest value, and I will limit myself to selecting 75 instead of 66, this will give me over 60 MHz of frequency more, and we'll see how much it would earn after the various bench (Phil's included) DOS.

Before doing this, I have already changed the SDRAM, I put a 256 MB one, a bit exaggerated for a PC like that, but enough to be able to load Windows 2000 or XP, the only thing that could bother, is that the triple count becomes quite slow, apart from this that in any case it can be skipped, now there is also too much memory, and except in special cases, it should not be necessary to add more.

On the results of the bench I will make a summary later, for now it is possible to preview Speedsys 4.78, the other benches have not all been completed yet, but I need some time to conclude them, I will see later to load Windows, and also do benches from there.

I would have ended up with Phil's benches, on the MSI MS6178 VER:1.0 motherboard with Intel Celeron 500 MHz, leaving out that I started with only 16 MB of RAM, and later I replaced them with 256 MB, this is because those benches do not seem to change with little or so much RAM, while they change a little when you optimize the times, in conclusion I have three bench values executed at two frequencies, the first at 500 MHz with standard RAM times, the second at 563 MHz and standard RAM times, the third at 563 MHz and optimized RAM times (more Fast CL2 etc...).

So following this order we have:

2) 150.1 / 169.1 / 169.3

3) 131.5 / 148.7 / 149.2

4) 35.5 / 40.2 / 40.6

5) 81.6 / 92.2 / 94.2

6) 30. X/34. X/35.1

A) 271.60 / 298.76 / 301.17

B) 62.82 / 70.26 / 70.93

C) 70.4 / 79.6 / 81.6

D) ??? / 32.9 / 33.7

M) 299 / 344 / 352

N) 569.62 / 641.03 / 641.03

It is clear that the FSB at 75 MHz, earns something, probably in percentage it could be about 10%, which then we will be quite in line with the increase in frequency, clearly this value is an average value, so some can do better and others not!

Not having a CF memory card with Windows, I can't do other bench with this PC and with the other Celeron 533, tried a few days ago, at first glance I would say that the Celeron 533 with SIS chipset is more suitable for a PC for DOS games, because it has an ISA slot, and because the integrated VGA can be disabled, while the Celeron 500 with i810, does not have an ISA slot and the integrated VGA cannot be disabled, at the limit you can add a Voodoo type PCI card in the hope that it will greatly improve the overall efficiency of the video.

Last consideration for both, since it is not possible to upgrade to Coppermine CPU, the performance should be at the level of a PII, so no software of the new millennium.

I had to change the program, because among the motherboards to try, there was an early arrival, in fact I got an ASUS S.370 motherboard, which I will then try before the A-Trend ATC-2000, the motherboard is in uATX format, the model is TUSI-M, SiS 630ET chipset, very similar to the MSI MS6178 or the Biostar M6SBA (tested lately), but more modern since it supports both Coppermine and Tualatin, and about installable CPUs, there is the possibility of using the Pentium III, both with FSB 100 and 133, you can also select various frequencies for the FSB, which Range from 66 up to 150 MHz, these can be used to overclock (even light), but this depends a lot on the starting CPU, and the goodness of the same to work at higher frequencies.

Taking a quick look, the motherboard is in excellent condition, I notice that a plastic is missing next to the PWR FAN, it should be that of the CD-IN (audio), one thing I don't like, is the welded BIOS chip, I hope they didn't make an incorrect upgrade, but this could be easily solved, if there was a socket for the BIOS chip.

The electrolytic capacitors are from Rubycon, very nice to see, if they are not the originals, the replacement work was done by a professional, there are also a couple of Nichicons, also aesthetically like new, among other peculiarities of the motherboard, we have integrated audio video and LAN, unfortunately there are only two RAM slots, which in any case allow a maximum amount of 1 GB 🇬🇧 of RAM, enough to install Windows XP, without having a shortage of memory.

Included is also the original box, plus the paper manual, there are no various cables for the drives and the second serial port (COM2), maybe there was also a pair of USB ports, to be mounted on the back of the PC, finally we have three PCI slot, an AMR slot, and no ISA slot, given the proximity between PCI and AMR slots, I don't know if they can be shared, overall however I would evaluate it as a motherboard suitable for compact PCs and that offers the possibility of using CPUs over 1 GHz (up to 1.4 GHz), I don't think it's a Good idea to limit it to frequencies from 500 to 800 MHz, although maybe initially it could go, there could also be support for VIA C3, which I personally would not use anyway.

I have a pair of S.7 motherboards that have long been forgotten, they were waiting to be tested, but I had to postpone due to the lack of the COAST modules for the L2 cache.

In this way the motherboard works with 0 KB L2 cache, so it would be a little slower than usual, or maybe much slower (?), but it could be solved, finding the COAST modules used on those motherboards, unfortunately it is a real puzzle, because those modules do not have standard footing, so if they are good on one board they could fail another, it is difficult to know if and how many types of pinouts exist, some have checked the individual pins of the COAST socket, to see if those of the voltage are the same, in that case it might be possible to use them in other boards, But there is no manual that specifies which COAST module to use.

The cards as you can see are a SIEMENS and a SOYO, the SIEMENS is with HX chipset, while the SOYO has VX chipset, in practice there would be a solution to this problem, use CPU with integrated L2 cache, but being dated motherboards, I doubt that it is possible to install these CPUs without an interposer!

The SOYO motherboard sure looks like it has pipeline burst cache chips soldered on in the top right corner. If it doesn't report any cache it might just be bad BIOS settings?