VOGONS


First post, by blank001

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Hi,

I recently acquired this board inadvertently when buying two 600E chips (for a P2B-F Dual setup). I only now noticed that I don't know what this board is, what it does or whether it can be useful. It does appear to have a SECRET chipset and ES located on it, which for intel usually means engineering sample. Therefore I have the following questions:

1) What is this?

2) Is it any good?

3) If the answer is yes to #2, how can one use it?

Thanks

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_: K6-III+ 450apz@550, P5A-B, 128Mb CL2, Voodoo 5500 AGP, MX300, AWE64 Gold 32mb, SC-55v2.0
_: Pentium III 1400 S, TUSL2-C, 512Mb CL2, Voodoo 5500 AGP, MX300

Reply 1 of 11, by brostenen

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Looks like a somewhat half industrial dual CPU single board computer.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

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Reply 2 of 11, by brostenen

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On further investigation or looking at the pictures...

It does indeed look like a CPU card from a server or industrial PC.
It has what looks like a PCI slot for a backplane.
And a combined ISA and perhaps AGP slot.
The chipset appears to be Intel 815 wich I am not sure of at all.
As I recall. 8XX chipsets are without ISA normally.
On the other hand. It clearly spells "secret".
This is without any googling. Just investigating the pictures.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 4 of 11, by blank001

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I suppose it could be used if there were a way to deliver it power. But I think the only power source is through the board slot contacts.

_: K6-III+ 450apz@550, P5A-B, 128Mb CL2, Voodoo 5500 AGP, MX300, AWE64 Gold 32mb, SC-55v2.0
_: Pentium III 1400 S, TUSL2-C, 512Mb CL2, Voodoo 5500 AGP, MX300

Reply 5 of 11, by luckybob

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Thats not an industrial motherboard. Its a cpu-card for an OEM setup. It almost looks like an IBM setup.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 6 of 11, by RDRAM

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First time I see a Korean Intel Chip, seems a very well built board, not very powerfull VRM but good quality , typical IBM/Compaq setup

Reply 7 of 11, by shamino

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The FW82443GX chipset is a 440GX.

In this document:
http://download.intel.com/design/chipsets/spe … dt/29064304.pdf
on page 6 they show that Q633ES is an Engineering Sample "FM Test", whatever that means.
The 1999 copyright on the PCB confuses me.
The production 440GX chipset was out in 1998, yet there's an ES chipset on the board instead. It also has an S3 Virge chip with a date code from 1995.

The 440GX is basically a 440BX with more RAM capacity and maybe support for more CPUs. It's a good chipset, just as the 440BX is. The S3 Virge is great for DOS.
If this was a conventional motherboard, it would be excellent for playing DOS games. But as it sits, you don't have the expansion backplane, which means you can't plug an ISA sound card into it. You also don't have any way to power it, which means you can't turn it on. 😀

Reply 8 of 11, by pewpewpew

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Perhaps the silkscreen date is for the year these boards were intended to ship as a product, while this proto was assembled in 98.

Reply 9 of 11, by brostenen

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After reading up on Cubix boards late this night.
I have found that they were sometimes used in IBM servers. There are actually Cubix blade systems too.
The closest I came to finding this board is some server called Cubix blade 1220 or something like that.
Cubix is still in business though. You could check their website under support or legacy products.

Some tech sites talked about these systems as modular CPU boards sharing the power supply.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 10 of 11, by tayyare

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Cubix seems to be a company providing industrial solutions:

"From pioneering blade server hardware systems 30 years ago to the current product lines of high-performance remote video processing and PCIe slot expansion solutions, Cubix continues to lead the industry with unique, thoughtful hardware solutions for a variety of markets including Media & Entertainment, financial trading floors, and public sector government and defense agencies."

And there is also something like that in their site:

"End of Life Announcement Fc Series Processor Boards - Due to component obsolescence from our supplier, please be advised that Cubix no longer ships FC Series boards (with Intel BX and GX chipsets) for Density 1220 systems on new orders."

And there is also this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CUBIX-400-A06541-Pr … R-/370630120469

And also this:

https://books.google.com.tr/books?id=njoEAAAA … 20plane&f=false

So:

- This is most definitely a purpose built Single Board Computer/CPU module for an industrial PC application
- You cannot do anything with it, without finding a proper backplane (*) that you can connect it to.

(*) http://www.retrocomputing.net/parts/cubix/ers … ix/backpl12.htm

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Reply 11 of 11, by blank001

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Here's a put together example on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cubix-ERS-Fault-Toler … =item3cf986f4b4

I guess I would need a whole chassis like that.

_: K6-III+ 450apz@550, P5A-B, 128Mb CL2, Voodoo 5500 AGP, MX300, AWE64 Gold 32mb, SC-55v2.0
_: Pentium III 1400 S, TUSL2-C, 512Mb CL2, Voodoo 5500 AGP, MX300