VOGONS


First post, by Mau1wurf1977

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What do you guys reckon? Anything I should look out for / avoid?

Thanks!

I have zero experience with Super Socket 7 so any input is greatly appreciated!

Reply 1 of 35, by Tetrium

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I've read on the net that the VIA ones are a lil more unstable due to the chipset and the ali AGP drivers are a story in itself.

I've never build a system based on the MVP3 but I did with the ali (GA-5AX) with a TNT Vanta 16MB AGP + Voodoo 2 and it was as stable as it should be.

What you should keep in mind is that there were many boards made by many different manufacturers and in multiple configurations (like the amount of L2 cache and different board revisions that behave differently).

I've found that most SS7 boards won't work with a larger heatsink (say 60x60mm) as theres always some board component in the way.
The only one I got myself and fits larger heatsinks is the FIC PA-2013.

The largest heatsinks that'll work on most of these boards are the old stock Celeron Intel heatsinks that are rectangular in shape (replace the stock fan as it's annoyingly loud and replace the stock mounting clip as it's a pain in the a**).

If you see an ASUS P5A for sale it's important to know what revision it is. Theres basically 2 that matter:
Rev 1.04 and before has a bug in the chipset that allows only 128MB to be cached but will work with K6 mobiles (K6-2+ and K6-3+).
Rev 1.05 and beyond should cache 256MB (or more if theres 1MB L2 cache on the board) but won't work with the mobiles, so you'll be stuck with K6-2 and K6-3.

If you want to avoid AGP troubles, get a PCI card (it's what I did 😉 ). SS7 combined with 3DFX = gold as 3DFX cards, even the AGP ones, use the least AGP options, and thus have the least problems with AGP related crashes.

SS7 boards won't work with high density SDRAM. To be on the safe side you could opt for using 256MB DIMM's with 16 chips as you'll run the risk, if using 256MB with 8 chips (on 1 side usually) that only half the memory will be seen.

Theres a 3rd SS7 chipset, the SiS 530. It has no AGP but will support 133Mhz fsb (even though on many boards you'll have to disable the L2 cache to get it to work stably).

Oh and try to avoid any of the crappier manufacturers like PC Chips, ECS and Jetway if you can.

And remember that in those days many boards had trouble with AGP cards sucking more juice from the AGP port then the boards could handle, another reason to go PCI

One last thing, there is 1 forum (all but dead now so get the info before it disappears) that has a LOT of info about SS7.
Theres a LOT of good reading there!
Link: http://k6plus.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2

If you have any more questions, then shoot 😉

Reply 2 of 35, by Mau1wurf1977

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Wow so much info! Still reading...

I have my eyes on these boards:

VIA: Aopen AX 59 Pro
ALI: GB GA-5AX and Iwill XA100 Plus

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 3 of 35, by Tetrium

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One more thing (new post so the previous remains readable).
If you use a SS7 chip with L2 cache on-die, the L2 cache on the motherboard will become L3 cache. THE biggest benefit of using such a CPU is that you have virtually unlimited max cacheable area that way. The only chips that have L2 cache on-die are the K6-3 (256k) and the 2 mobiles, K6-2+ (128k) and K6-3+ (256k).

Many boards don't support the mobiles in the BIOS but there is a page which has a LOT of modified BIOS's that make your board support them, along with larger harddrives etc.
Link: http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/k6plus.htm

I find it more troublesome to find a flash util for any particular board as many manufacturers have no downloads for their old stuff anymore and others are a plain mess.

The mobiles have 1 advantage over the desktop models;They are made using a die shrink of the original K6-2 and K6-3 and consume less heat along with being able to be clocked higher (500Mhz, 600Mhz being possible).
If you can choose between a K6-2-500 and a K6-3-400, I'd say go for the K6-3-400.

It is handy if you know how to read the part numbers of those K6's.
Link: http://www.cpu-world.com/info/id/AMD-K6-identification.html

The voltage is quite important as a K6-3-400 2.4v draws 50% as much power as a K6-3-400 2.2v, are less overclockable and run much hotter (remember what I said about the heatsinks).
Heres a link that includes power dissipation of those processors:
http://mysite.verizon.net/pchardwarelinks/elec_pentium.htm.
Interesting note is that some of these will use less power then a P1mmx @ 200Mhz (for example K6-2 400AFR) and a couple may consume as much power as a P3 1Ghz (for example K6-III 450AHX).

Reply 4 of 35, by Tetrium

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Mau1wurf1977 wrote:
Wow so much info! Still reading... […]
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Wow so much info! Still reading...

I have my eyes on these boards:

VIA: Aopen AX 59 Pro
ALI: GB GA-5AX and Iwill XA100 Plus

Those are good choices 😉
Used the GA-5AX rev 4.1 myself

Reply 5 of 35, by Mau1wurf1977

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Thanks for the information!

The Aopen and Iwill come with a K6-2-300 and the GB has a K6-2-450

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 6 of 35, by Amigaz

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Not all Via S7 chipset mobo's are crap

The very last one's made in 1999 like the Epox MVP3 series are very solid examples, I've used two of these boards..one with 2mb L2 cache and one with 1mb L2 cache...both have been rock solid with high spec gfx cards like the GF2 Pro, Ultra, ATI Rage cards etc
But it seem VIA did some crap again starting in the s370/slot 1 era 😜

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 7 of 35, by Tetrium

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Amigaz wrote:

Not all Via S7 chipset mobo's are crap

The very last one's made in 1999 like the Epox MVP3 series are very solid examples, I've used two of these boards..one with 2mb L2 cache and one with 1mb L2 cache...both have been rock solid with high spec gfx cards like the GF2 Pro, Ultra, ATI Rage cards etc
But it seem VIA did some crap again starting in the s370/slot 1 era 😜

But they did make a P3 DDR solution, handy for all those little 256MB DDR stick you'll otherwise will never use ;D

Reply 9 of 35, by Mau1wurf1977

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The Aopen and Iwill are from the same seller so I think I will go with these two...

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 10 of 35, by Tetrium

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Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

The Aopen and Iwill are from the same seller so I think I will go with these two...

Good choice, you'll save on shipping cost. I got an AOpen 59 Pro myself (got it last week, haven't tested yet) but I'm unfamiliar with the IWill.

So what's your planned SS7 build gonna be like? 😉

Reply 11 of 35, by Mau1wurf1977

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Initially playing around with slowing it down. After that I have no plans. Guess I will tuck them away for a later project...

One day I do plan to have a machine for every socket type, but currently I just don't have the space...

Reply 12 of 35, by Mau1wurf1977

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The Aopen support site is awesome. Jumper tables, Bios, Manual, drivers it's all there!

Looking at the jumper list, P54C Pentium 100 seems to be the slowest chip. There are even exotics like Cyrix 6x86 and IDT Winchip...

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 13 of 35, by Tetrium

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Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

The Aopen support site is awesome. Jumper tables, Bios, Manual, drivers it's all there!

Looking at the jumper list, P54C Pentium 100 seems to be the slowest chip. There are even exotics like Cyrix 6x86 and IDT Winchip...

Don't forget the mP6 Rise 😉

Reply 14 of 35, by Mau1wurf1977

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Oh wow I had to google that one!

It's not on the cpu list of the Aopen board, but it appears to be compatible with many Socket 7 boards.

Anandtech reviewed the cpu on a Chaintech 5AGM2 mainboard...

I got my eye on a nice cpu collection. A few modern chips like PIII and Ahtlons and Semprons, but also a few Cyrix S7 chips, a few 486s and UMC cpus. Together with the K2 which comes with the boards that should give me a few options to play around 😀

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 15 of 35, by bushwack

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I had a iWill XA100 back in the day and was happy with it. The CPU voltage selection isn't all that great but setting up the CPU is easier then any MVP3 board I have tinkered with. Still wish I had it now... 😢

Edit:
Oh I just noticed your looking at the Plus version of the XA100, it's yummy like bacon! Think they fixed the voltage selection with that one and added higher bus frequencies. Where is this at? I want. 😊

Reply 16 of 35, by Mau1wurf1977

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Yea the Iwil guys market it as "Easy Jumper setting for CPU frequency selection". It seems to be a single massive row of pins with 2 yellow jumpers, one for bus speed and one for multiplier.

Jumpers with these boards shouldn't be a problem as documentation is excellent. At least I am hoping it won't be a problem 😀

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 17 of 35, by Mau1wurf1977

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Bit of an update. A fellow member of overclockers australia did some L1 and L2 cache testing on a Pentium 200MMX and things look really good!

With both caches disabled he gets a system information score of 11.03!

Can't wait to get my Socket 7 stuff and see what can be done. It looks like this is more sutable than P3 systems as a P3 system is either super fast or slow as a dog wheras Socket 7 is more granular and you also have a wide range of cpus and clock speeds and you can change the multi...

Well what a good way to start the day!

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 18 of 35, by Mau1wurf1977

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Yea won the auction for the cpus!

It's around 30 cpus in total. Works out to 1.7 bucks shipped per CPU 😀 Now I just need to get the boards...

I love bulk buys. So much cheaper than buying a single cpu.

Reply 19 of 35, by Tetrium

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Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Yea won the auction for the cpus!

It's around 30 cpus in total. Works out to 1.7 bucks shipped per CPU 😀 Now I just need to get the boards...

I love bulk buys. So much cheaper than buying a single cpu.

Definately!
If someone selling an item I pretty much must have, I'll browse his other items to see if theres any €1 bids I can place on items that are nice but not worth shipping on it's own 😉