So although the official specs say no, the MS6119 will recognise and supply less than 1.8v - it’s a rev 1.1 I think without the “blue sticker”. Only got a 2v Celeron to test it with ATM and it boots down to 1.6v which I’m sure is a limitation of the CPU rather than the board.

If I can get a Tualatin running in the slotket I will be pretty pleased with it and will allow me to use the S370 board for my Coppermine build and not have to pin mod it.

So the final specs should hopefully be:

1.266ghz Tualatin (until I can find a 1400) in MS6905 V2 slotket
MSI MS6119 board
512mb PC133
Geforce4 Ti 4200

Wait, you can flash AMI BIOS into an Award BIOS?

Solarstrike wrote:

Wait, you can flash AMI BIOS into an Award BIOS?

Sorry for the late reply. Yes, you can cross flash, you have to use the AMI BIOS flasher with the Award BIOS image. (Or vice versa if you’re flashing from Award to AMI) Had to do it for Coppermine support I think. I believe it’s more risky than a regular BIOS flash in case there’s some incompatibilities so read up on your board first but in my case it worked just fine.

Not had much time to work on it lately but I set to work pin modding the slotket to work with the 1.266 Tualatin I had on hand. Removed the pins and gave it a try, no boot. Turns out I was reading the diagram wrong and thought it was for the socket, not the CPU, so I removed the wrong pins...

So that slotket was ruined, so I tried it in another unsure if it would work (lots of references to it only working with Celerons) and thought I’d remove the pins on the CPU this time as it seemed easier... only to get the wrong ones again same as the first time I tried!! I tried soldering the pin connections with wires to the back of the slotket but it wasn’t having it.

So I’ve well and truly paid the stupid tax and ruined one perfectly good slotket and a 1.266ghz Tualatin 🙁 so I’m having another go this week with a new slotket and a 1.4ghz one and will probably try the nail varnish method on the CPU pins.

After that I need some more RAM... maybe 256mb and this will be done, should be nice with the Geforce4, then I can move onto the Voodoo3 system

There's a seller from South Korea on Ebay that sells pin-modded Tualatins soldered on a custom PCB, along with custom BIOS updates in case the motherboard requires it. I bought mine from him to use on my previous motherboard, an MSI-6309 V2. The only thing I had to do was to flash the BIOS with the custom version he sent me, and presto, the motherboard recognized the CPU without issue (although the BIOS erroneously reported it to be a 1GHz Coppermine, but Windows detected it correctly). Why not trying that path? You could have better luck than risking once again. Just tell him your motherboard model and he can help you making a custom BIOS that adds the Tualatin microcode, if possible.

looking4awayout wrote:

There's a seller from South Korea on Ebay that sells pin-modded Tualatins soldered on a custom PCB, along with custom BIOS updates in case the motherboard requires it. I bought mine from him to use on my previous motherboard, an MSI-6309 V2. The only thing I had to do was to flash the BIOS with the custom version he sent me, and presto, the motherboard recognized the CPU without issue (although the BIOS erroneously reported it to be a 1GHz Coppermine, but Windows detected it correctly). Why not trying that path? You could have better luck than risking once again. Just tell him your motherboard model and he can help you making a custom BIOS that adds the Tualatin microcode, if possible.

That sounds like a great option... can’t seem to find the seller on eBay though, do you know the name? According to others’ reports the board I have should support Tualatins when pin modded but it would be nice just to have it on a PCB ready to use

PM sent. 😀

badmojo wrote:

The Live! has the potential of being a very good option for that system if it’s one of the good models and you have the right drivers, if not then you’re probably in for a frustrating ride. But give it a shot before you discount it.

The best option for a PIII that will be used for a mix of Windows and DOS games is having both a PCI and ISA card installed - also more fun to set up!

Totally agree with this - I don't get the hate on the SB Live! For a PCI card, I've found DOS emulation to be pretty decent. Like you say though, I originally bought a CT4830 value, and it does work fine; but the bloody drivers didn't have the correct device ID. Tried a lot of different drivers. Eventually found an original Live (CT4760) for 8 quid with the digital I/O bracket, and alongside the Liveware 3.0 drivers, it works a treat! There's nothing wrong with the CT4830, but I just wanted the original card.

FWIW, you can also modify the EEPROM to change card models, and add the 5.1 functionality etc.

I did end up going with a Live! for it in the end, seemed like the simplest option, got the CT4760 version too for around about that price. I’m sure there are better cards out there but it fits the bill 😀

britain4 wrote:

Solarstrike wrote:

Wait, you can flash AMI BIOS into an Award BIOS?

Sorry for the late reply. Yes, you can cross flash, you have to use the AMI BIOS flasher with the Award BIOS image. (Or vice versa if you’re flashing from Award to AMI) Had to do it for Coppermine support I think. I believe it’s more risky than a regular BIOS flash in case there’s some incompatibilities so read up on your board first but in my case it worked just fine.

Maybe a bit late into the game, but used the Award flasher that came with the 2.8 bios image to cross flash 2.9 over a customized Packard Bell AMI BIOS on my MS-6119. The flasher that came with the 2.9 image wouldn't work, can't remember what it complained about though.

Usually it works fine to cross flash, and I can't see why it wouldn't, as long as the boards and the BIOS chips are identical between versions with different BIOSes. While cross flashing usually isn't officially supported, I've yet to come across a board where it won't work.

britain4, cool to see you've got your rig up and running by the way 😀

kaputnik wrote:

Maybe a bit late into the game, but used the Award flasher that came with the 2.8 bios image to cross flash 2.9 over a customize […]
Show full quote

britain4 wrote:

Solarstrike wrote:

Wait, you can flash AMI BIOS into an Award BIOS?

Sorry for the late reply. Yes, you can cross flash, you have to use the AMI BIOS flasher with the Award BIOS image. (Or vice versa if you’re flashing from Award to AMI) Had to do it for Coppermine support I think. I believe it’s more risky than a regular BIOS flash in case there’s some incompatibilities so read up on your board first but in my case it worked just fine.

Maybe a bit late into the game, but used the Award flasher that came with the 2.8 bios image to cross flash 2.9 over a customized Packard Bell AMI BIOS on my MS-6119. The flasher that came with the 2.9 image wouldn't work, can't remember what it complained about though.

Usually it works fine to cross flash, and I can't see why it wouldn't, as long as the boards and the BIOS chips are identical between versions with different BIOSes. While cross flashing usually isn't officially supported, I've yet to come across a board where it won't work.

britain4, cool to see you've got your rig up and running by the way 😀

Yup, it works fine. It didn’t work for me if I tried doing it with the Award BIOS flasher with the board on the AMI BIOS, but maybe I made a mistake somewhere, YMMV.

Thanks 😀 yup it’s all good to go now although I haven’t had much time to tinker with it. I have painted the drives black though. Got some plans for the coming weeks however!

Tualatin 1.4ghz is now installed and running (almost) fine on the MS6119 board! Official specs be damned.

I say almost because it is only stable below 112FSB probably due to the PC100 RAM but hey it boots!

So a quick update on this - I’ve found a Tualatin board now so (unfortunately) this Slot 1 board is now running a Pentium II 233 in my Voodoo1 build.

New board in this is an ECS P6IPAT. The PIII-S runs quite happily at 1.58ghz, the Voodoo5 at 180mhz, but only for benchmarks, I keep it at stock the rest of the time 😀

I’ve also bought a Voodoo5 5500 to replace the Geforce4 Ti I had in this before 😁

I’ve also bought a NOS aluminium Lian-Li case for it...

I think it dates from around 2004 but has that early 2000s aluminium case look I think suits the build perfectly 😀

Will update once all the parts are in, this should be fun 😁

appiah4 wrote:

firage wrote:

I was under the impression that GeForce 4 has issues with scaling under DOS that GeForce 3 does not. If I posted this in error, someone please do let me know, but GF4 will not be as smooth as GeForce 3 for DOS games which I think should be a concern for a Win9x system..

When it comes to DOS -- you're correct in at least one instance and that is the BUILD engine games. On a S939 AMD 4000+ build Duke 3D and Blood will have either performance issues or screen tearing (if using NoLFB) on an FX5900 or G4 Ti4200 at the highest resolutions. These issues disappeared when I switched to a Geforce 3 but I should note that the ingame framerate counters continued to 'lie' but only at certain resolutions. They might say I'm getting 3FPS or 12FPS at 800x600 when I'm clearly getting 60FPS... but will correctly display 50FPS at 1600x1200.

When it comes to Windows 98 games though I don't think any compatibility is broken by using an FX5900 over a Geforce 3 or 4. Older drivers might allow for the G3 to have better performance in certain games but we're still talking 60+ FPS either way and if you start using AA/AF the FX5900 is going to beat out the advantage of the older drivers, still.

Here she is all finished 😀 almost every part is different to what I started out with...

Final specs are:

1.4GHz PIII-S Tualatin @1.58GHz
ECS P6IPAT motherboard
512MB PC133
Voodoo5 5500
Sound Blaster Live!
40GB WD hard drive
Windows 98lite
Lian Li PC-3077 case + obligatory 3dfx sticker

Only thing to do is find a suitable IDE cable for the DVD burner!

Wow, that's a beautiful looking system. 😲

KCompRoom2000 wrote:

Wow, that's a beautiful looking system. 😲

Thanks 😀 moved slightly away from the whole “budget system thrown together” theme but I’m very happy with how it’s turned out, it looks nicer than my main PC!