VOGONS


First post, by oerk

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Yeah, yeah, I know! But hear me out.

I got a Fujitsu Siemens system for free, with the aforementioned Biostar M6VBE, PIII 500 MHz, 256MB RAM, Rage 128, etc. - nothing to write home about, so I didn't even turn it on, it spent the last few months in the closet.

Today, I decided to inspect it. Hmm, supports 100MHz FSB, has ISA, and the onboard ESS Solo 1 is apparently DOS compatible, has a synthesizer and software wavetable. Not too bad actually.

Also, it is µATX. I like my retro systems compact, so being able to fit this in a µATX case would be another plus.

So I would be using this mainly for 98SE and demanding DOS games.

However, I had no luck getting a 900MHz Coppermine with a Slotket to run in this system.

Does anyone know if the M6VBE
- supports Coppermines?
- can supply the voltages needed for a Coppermine?

Or should I get a faster Katmai for it? Is this even worth pursuing, or are there any other µATX Slot 1 / Socket 370 boards that are worth it and not overly expensive?

Reply 1 of 8, by ODwilly

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That actually looks like a pretty neat motherboard. I could not find much info on the web about that board from my 30 second google search, but as far as I know the voltages should be handled by jumper settings on the Slocket. One of the Mendocino Celerons on a slocket might be a viable alternative. You can overclock them a bit and you get the added benefit of full speed cache. EDIT: If the motheboard doesnt support a 133fsb be sure to set the jumpers on the slocket to 100 and/or have a 100fsb cpu on the slocket.

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 2 of 8, by oerk

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Yeah, it's not the Apollo Pro 133, so no 133 FSB... no biggie.

Not a bad idea with the Mendocino Celeron. I have one somewhere. There's no way to overclock the FSB on this board, actually, but I could at least use it to check if the slocket works.

Reply 3 of 8, by ODwilly

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Cool glad I could help. Post back on how the Celery works out, I know Celeron specific slockets go for peanuts on ebay, every one wants the Coppermine and Tualatins

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 4 of 8, by oerk

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Welp, the Mendocino Celeron doesn't boot at all. It's entirely possible that my Slocket is shot, though.

With the P3 500 I can switch between 66 and 100 MHz FSB, there's nothing in between. So it seems that I'm stuck with this one for now 🙁

Reply 5 of 8, by shamino

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What is the part number of the VRM chip? You might be able to find a datasheet for it which would indicate whether it supports Coppermine voltages.
That doesn't tell you if the BIOS will support them though.

Reply 6 of 8, by oerk

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Seems to be a US1261CM - fixed voltage, 1.5 and 2.5V 🙁

I'm done with this board for now, it just isn't flexible enough for my taste.

Thanks for your help though!

Reply 7 of 8, by shamino

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oerk wrote:

Seems to be a US1261CM - fixed voltage, 1.5 and 2.5V 🙁

I'm done with this board for now, it just isn't flexible enough for my taste.

Thanks for your help though!

I think that's the wrong device - those 1.5v and 2.5v outputs aren't for Vcore. The regulator for Vcore should be a smaller chip with a larger number of pins.
I just looked at an Epox slot-1 board for comparison and saw that it has the same 5pin US1261 that your board has, but the Vcore regulator chip is a different 16pin chip. A regulator sometimes used on Asus P2B boards is the HIP6019CB, which is 28 pins. It should be located near the bank of mosfets which are near the CPU socket, but it's smaller than the mosfets are.

Reply 8 of 8, by oerk

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Ahhh, ok. Katmai needs 2V, if I'd done my research correctly, I'd have known that Katmai needs 2V and that this isn't the right device.

I'll see what I can find out.