Found old Optiplex GX110 - Worth Keeping? \ VOGONS

Found old Optiplex GX110 - Worth Keeping?

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First post, by Retromangia

Posted on 2017-03-17, 14:40

Retromangia Offline

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Howdy folks,

First time posting, long time reader. Such an awesome forum.

Anyhow, I found an old Dell Optiplex GX110 the other day, and man did they cut corners on this motherboard (see pics!).

From my research it appears to be running on the Intel i810 chipset. The funny thing is, it has NO expansion slots except for 1 ISA slot! Plugged into this ISA slot is a 5 Slot PCI adapter bridge (are these hard to find?). I'm assuming this would cause anything plugged into the PCI slots to run at ISA speeds, which is not ideal.

So my question is... is there any good reason to hold on to this board?? I can't think of ANY uses I might have for this thing.

I already own better boards, including the Intel 430FX Triton for really old school games, and 440BX for my 90's Goodness.

The CPU it came with is a Pentium 3 866mhz/133fsb Coppermine, this I will hold on to 😊

Reply 1 of 8, by keropi

Posted on 2017-03-17, 15:00

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What you call "ISA slot" is a connector for that PCI busboard, nothing to do with ISA at all. PCI cards will behave as normal.

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Reply 2 of 8, by lazibayer

Posted on 2017-03-17, 15:04

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There is no ISA - to - PCI bridge. I had the same machine and these are normal PCI slots. i810 chipset doesn't support ISA natively so you'll need a PCI-to-ISA bridge before an ISA-to-PCI bridge. It will be a horrible design.

Reply 3 of 8, by Retromangia

Posted on 2017-03-17, 18:25

Retromangia Offline

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Well don't I feel like a dumbass! 🤣

Thanks for the heads up guys. Maybe I can put this little board to use after all.

Reply 4 of 8, by gdjacobs

Posted on 2017-03-17, 18:36

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Dell did produce a riser board that featured 2x PCI, 2x ISA, and 1x PCI/ISA shared slots. It's documented in the service manual.
http://www.partsguy.net/img-3524d.jpg
http://downloads.dell.com/manuals/all-product … anual_en-us.pdf

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Reply 5 of 8, by lazibayer

Posted on 2017-03-17, 18:46

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gdjacobs wrote:
Dell did produce a riser board that featured 2x PCI, 2x ISA, and 1x PCI/ISA shared slots. It's documented in the service manual.
http://www.partsguy.net/img-3524d.jpg
http://downloads.dell.com/manuals/all-product … anual_en-us.pdf

... and we can see the bridge chip on the PCI-ISA board!

Reply 6 of 8, by gdjacobs

Posted on 2017-03-17, 19:24

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Indeed, although I can't make out whether it's an ITE chip or some other manufacturer.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 7 of 8, by Retromangia

Posted on 2017-03-17, 20:09

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Light bulb! .. Does anyone know if dell made a riser that includes an AGP port? Man I could really use one of those and I'd be set!

thanks,
Retro

Reply 8 of 8, by oeuvre

Posted on 2017-03-17, 23:27

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Be careful, some of the ISA risers for Optiplexes were designed for the GX1. Those will not fit in the GX110 because the expansion connector on the motherboard are slightly different.

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