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Looking for someone with an ASUS P3B-F and a certain set of components to test the stability of something for me

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First post, by Kahenraz

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I have been wracking brain over some bizarre and inconsistent stability results while testing different graphics cards in my ASUS P3B-F and narrowed it down to the motherboard. My board has Sanyo capacitors and everything about it is in perfect condition.

The problem is that when I run it with certain CPU speeds the system becomes unstable, either locking up during boot or when running 3D acceleration (DirectX or OpenGL), but only with the Rage 128? I know, it's bizarre, but bear with me.

NVIDIA TNT, GeForce, AGP/PCI, all fine. 3Dfx AGP/PCI, fine. Matrox MGA, G200-G550 AGP/PCI, fine. ATI Rage II, XL, Radeon, fine. Rage 128, AGP/PCI? Unstable!

I swapped both the video card and hard drive into another i440 motherboard and everything was fine there! Maybe it's the CPU? I dropped the FSB to 66 Mhz and then the Rage 128 was stable. So, it's the CPU, right? I was using a Pentium 2 at 100*3.5 (350 Mhz). Then I tried a faster CPU; a Mendocino running at 66*8 (566 Mhz) and everything was stable. Ahh, so is it the bus speed? Out of curiosity, I tried another Pentium 2 at 66*5 (333 Mhz), which was the closest in speed to my other professor and the instability came back. What??

So, this motherboard is only unstable at certain speeds but not above or below and only with certain graphics cards. This is bizarre. I read though the motherboard manual and verified that all jumpers were correct. I tried both manual and jumperless FSB/Multiplier configuration. I even tried swapping power supplies, in case it was something to do with voltages. I even tried the reflashing the BIOS.

My guess is that there is maybe some kind of fault on the motherboard or maybe the capacitors are old but that theory doesn't sit well with me considering how stable everything is outside of certain CPU speeds.

To check my sanity, I would love it if someone with similar components could run a stability test for me:

ASUS P3B-F motherboard (I have v1.03)
128 GB Memory (I used a single stick of PC133)
Pentium 2 100*3.5 (350 Mhz)
Rage 128
Windows 98SE (stock, no updates)
DirectX 8 or 8.1

The Dell Rage 128 Ultra seems a to lock up at boot while others like the 128 GL, Pro, and Fury get to the desktop but lock up when running 3D Mark 99 and GL Quake.

I tried literally every driver available. But for the some of testing, use v4.13.01.8006 from here:

https://soggi.org/drivers/ati.htm

I've since swapped to a P2B; same components and everything, and it's stable. This is really weird!

I happen to like my P3B-F, but I don't want to go through the trouble of replacing it if the new one is going to have the same problem.

Last edited by Kahenraz on 2026-09-09, 19:46. Edited 4 times in total.

Reply 1 of 7, by pentiumspeed

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One thing this is not mentioned, was any of these processors overclocked?

Cheers,

Great Northern aka Canada.

Reply 2 of 7, by Kahenraz

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pentiumspeed wrote on 2026-09-09, 19:34:

One thing this is not mentioned, was any of these processors overclocked?

Cheers,

Negative. All stock with plenty of airflow over them. I was surprised when I found that the 66 FSB Pentium 2 at 333 Mhz had the same stability issue as the 100 FSB one. It threw the whole idea of that one processor being bad out the window. And downclocking both of these resulted in stability.

I don't know why it only exibits this issue with the Rage 128.

Reply 3 of 7, by bofh.fromhell

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I've tested hundreds of graphics-cards, memsticks and CPU's in my P3B-F with no compatibility issues.
The only thing giving it some trouble are slotkets that don't have proper support and can wiggle a bit, I suspect all my testing has loosened up the slot a tad.
I've run it at 150MHz FSB stable with an ASUS V7100 GF2MX (Fun with an ASUS V7100......many years ago !) and it allowed one of my C300A's to do 600MHz at a fairly low 2.3v.
Also its not been recapped.

Reply 4 of 7, by Kahenraz

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My P3B-F worked with everything as well, except the Rage 128 with these two CPUs. It's a really weird edge case that I hadn't expected. I actually thought that my video cards were faulty until I noticed a pattern.

Also, what version is your board?

Reply 5 of 7, by maxtherabbit

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If I were in your position I would just remove the rage from the system and move on with my life.

I do have a P3B-F but it's in a finished bolted up system, also don't own a rage 128. I feel your chances of getting someone who can replicate your setup and is willing to do so are slim.

Reply 6 of 7, by bofh.fromhell

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Mine is v1.04

Reply 7 of 7, by Kahenraz

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maxtherabbit wrote on 2026-09-11, 01:27:

I feel your chances of getting someone who can replicate your setup and is willing to do so are slim.

I agree with you. I just thought I'd ask while both documenting and venting some of my frustration in the process. Maybe someone will experience something similar in the future.

As a side note, the Broadcom ethernet card that was working fine in my P3B-F prevents my P2B from posting when inserted in any of the top three PCI slots but works fine in the bottom slot. I swear, these early motherboards have ghosts in them.

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