Been a while without any updates. Not a lot has happened since my last post...

• The Intellistation board is now in Australia, sold a while ago.
• I'm waiting on some parts I ordered from ebay a LONG time ago to arrive, when they do I'll attempt to construct a Turbo.PLL for this machine. I am very excited about it! I've put some thought into it and can't wait to start working on it once the parts arrive.
• The machine is now Windows 2000 / Linux only, no Win98.
• I've changed ALL the add-in cards in the machine, with the exception of the Voodoo2 SLI set...

...clockwise from the right: a Quadro FX 1000 modded into a GeForce FX 5800, an all internal USB2 card with a NEC chipset to avoid cables going outside the case, a Promise SATA300 TX2, and a Sound Blaster Audigy2 Value. They are all upgrades, though the SB might be debatable to some. I chose it because it has no embedded FireWire controller--I really dislike having FW for some reason--, and it has Bit Accurate Playback, a feature not available in the Audigy2 ZS.

I expect this thread will be more active when the final parts arrive for the TurboPLL and I start working on it.

Hello. I really like your OR840 setup! I have an OR840 board and was planning on getting a pair of P3/S CPUs running in it. I ordered some pre modded P3/S CPUs on ebay and I already have a few MSI slocket adapters (6905 ver2). Hopefully it works. I have been looking for an updated BIOS for this board without any luck, can you share the updated BIOS or give me a link to where you got it? I'm also interested in your aux power connector mod. Is the aux connector needed on this board? I noticed that some older dual CPU boards use it (I have a few IBM intellistation M pros that use the aux connector)

cxm717 wrote:

Hello. I really like your OR840 setup!

Thanks!

cxm717 wrote:

I have an OR840 board and was planning on getting a pair of P3/S CPUs running in it. I ordered some pre modded P3/S CPUs on ebay and I already have a few MSI slocket adapters (6905 ver2). Hopefully it works.

I'm fairly sure it won't work right away. My guess is you ordered the korean modded CPUs from ebay? If that's the case the mod will need some work.

This is my "reverse engineering" of that mod, done a while back in this same thread. To get it to work there are at least 3 things to do;

• For starters, on the right between a yellow and red line there is a resistor marked "150" with the label "NCH". You need to remove that and bridge those 2 contacts with solder.
• Right on top of it there are yellow and black lines, with the label "RTT". You need to add a 110 Ohm resistor there. (Can be added to the slotket instead.)
• Finally, around the bottom there is another pair of yellow and black lines labeled "SLEW". Another 110 Ohm resistor is needed there. (Can be added to the slotket instead)

Besides that, on the left you'll see a resistor marked "151" between red and marroon lines. This is 150 Ohms, my mod uses 680 Ohm, and the intel datasheet recommends 1 kOhm. And finally, on top between red and blue lines there is a resistor with the marking "102", this is a 1 kOhm resistor that I don't use and don't know if it will interfere with anything when using the mod in the OR840.

Of course, once you get the components feel free to post here again and we can try to get you up and running!

cxm717 wrote:

I have been looking for an updated BIOS for this board without any luck, can you share the updated BIOS or give me a link to where you got it?

Here you go, the latest BIOS files for the Intel board and the IBM board

Note that for the intel board you WILL need either a floppy drive or a Gotek to flash. I consider myself fairly resourceful and couldn't flash the BIOS any other way. The intellistation BIOS has a couple of readmes inside the file when you extract it, one of which describes how to add new microcodes to the BIOS, so if you locate Tualatin microcodes you can add them hassle free.

cxm717 wrote:

I'm also interested in your aux power connector mod. Is the aux connector needed on this board? I noticed that some older dual CPU boards use it (I have a few IBM intellistation M pros that use the aux connector)

The board will run without it, but I recommend you use it if you run a dual setup. Its basically an early version of the 24pin ATX connector, using that 6pin AUX header instead. I had a PSU with the 6pin connector, but after it failed spectacularly I switched to a new, modular PSU. I just cut the 6pin connector from the old PSU, figured out the position of Ground, 5 V, and 3.3 V in the modular PSU outputs, and soldered a wire together. Since the pinouts of modular PSUs are not standardized, I can't really help you beyond that.

Good luck with the board!

Thanks for the info and the BIOS files. I got the updated BIOS installed without too much trouble. I tried to get my s370 1GHz P3s to work in the board with some slokets but I couldn't get them to work. I didn't use the MSI ones though because I couldn't find the documentation for the ver 2 6905. I tried a few unbranded slokets that had jumper settings on them, I tried full auto and setting the 133MHz FSB and I tried the jumper for dual CPU mode. Nothing worked. The OR840 also doesn't like my slot 1 terminator card either. I tried a single CPU as my 1GHz P3s are not a matched pair.

The P3s CPUs I'm getting are from korea btw. Should I try them without your mod first? I don't want to damage the CPUs or board.

cxm717 wrote:

Thanks for the info and the BIOS files. I got the updated BIOS installed without too much trouble. I tried to get my s370 1GHz P3s to work in the board with some slokets but I couldn't get them to work. I didn't use the MSI ones though because I couldn't find the documentation for the ver 2 6905. I tried a few unbranded slokets that had jumper settings on them, I tried full auto and setting the 133MHz FSB and I tried the jumper for dual CPU mode. Nothing worked. The OR840 also doesn't like my slot 1 terminator card either. I tried a single CPU as my 1GHz P3s are not a matched pair.

The P3s CPUs I'm getting are from korea btw. Should I try them without your mod first? I don't want to damage the CPUs or board.

You're quite welcome! I'm actually excited to see another OR840 user fiddling with the board.

You can try the korean modded CPUs when they arrive, the board won't be damaged. I think without the RTT and SLEW resistors in place the board will just refuse to do anything, and with the NCH resistor in place like they have, the board will lock up when running certain applications. You can try setting up the RTT and SLEW resistors in your MSI slotkets (you can find some info in this thread), without any other mod, and it may enable you to run Coppermines. I have not tried it myself, though.

About the MSI slotket documentation, I got mine new in box and they are also Version 2. Here's a picture of the back of the box, its the only "documentation" they had (in the post where I describe the mod you will find a more complete voltage table, too.)

IMPORTANT NOTE: The JV4 jumper should ALWAYS be set to 2-3 with Tualatins, and the "Single/Dual" jumper, J3, should ALWAYS be set to Coppermine when using Coppermine or Tualatin CPUs. You will have to mod the slotkets to support dual Coppermine/Tualatin setups. Again, more info earlier in this thread.

Thanks, I really appreciate your help here. This thread helped me even more today, I was getting some instability after installing a fresh windows XP. Sometimes it would give me a black screen just before windows would finish loading, sometimes it would just reboot. After installing the Geforce4 it wouldn't boot at all. Just reboot. So I decided to read the rest of the thread. I came across the post where you brought up ACPI, so I checked the device manager after booting into safe mode and it was set to ACPI. I changed it to MPS multiprocessor PC and now it boots without problems. I guess I could have saved some time and frustration if I had just read it sooner. 🤣.

I thought I would update. I applied the N33 mod to my slockets and I have the 1GHz P3s working in SMP https://imgur.com/a/1KBSls9. I also found that you can use an empty slocket as a terminator card on this board to use a single CPU.

I'm still waiting on my tualatins from korea. I'll post if/when I can get them to work.

Hey guys

Im the guy from Australia. Thanks silvercr for selling the OR with Slotkets to me

I ordered four unmodded Tualatin 1.4s 2.5 months ago to do the wire mod to finish the slotkets and still haven’t received them. Had to open a ebay dispute.. so i am without dual processors. I have tried the korean ones in the slotkets but no go. Im still on the hunt for unmodded chips

So this is my current config

733Mhz Slot 1
OR840
2GB of PC1066 RD-Ram. Four 512mb sticks.
Voodoo 5500
Diamond MX300 - Aureal Vortex II
Promise SATAII Controller with 60GB SSD and 500GB WD Blue

I actually have two OR840s now. One from silvercr, and a brand new nos intel based one. Both work great. I had to send my Voodoo 5500 off for repairs so I used a Voodoo3 for a while. I tried four 1gb sticks of memory, bad sadly no post. The memory controller doesnt support it.

To Do List
- Buy two SL6BY Tualatins
- Buy some decent 140mm fans
- Buy some Alpha Heatsinks for the Slotkets
- 3D Print a ATX I/O Sheild and Fan Duct
- Get a OS Installed, Windows 2000 SP4

Here is the first boot with the IBM Board / Voodoo 3 and different sata controller from 2 months ago. Silvercr did the caps on this board also 😀

The current config. The Intel board with Voodoo5 and Promise Controller. I will use this board for a bit as its never be used since 2001. The caps need some power or they will dry up which probably already has happened. I will also try modding this bios on this one with Tualatin microcode so I can help the others on here. I will later put the IBM board back in and use the intel board with a HD3850 AGP / Auzentech X-Meridian 2G for some fun.

Okay, just another update. I finally got the P3/S CPUs. It took about a month to get them. I tried them in my 815EEA board first and it was a no go, the board would halt with an error. I tried one in the OR840 and it works! I'm going to try both CPUs and I'll run some benchmarks and post an update. https://imgur.com/a/U2mhQkA

Oh, one other thing. I noticed when I use any CPU in a slocket on the OR840 CPUz shows the wrong FSB clocks. If I use slot 1 CPUs this does not happen. The multi and everything else is correct, just the FSB clock is wrong and it fluctuates.

@SWZSSR How is the IBM BIOS? Does it work with ACPI in XP? Does it have many more settings? I would be interested to see what AGP and DRAM settings the IBM BIOS has.

cxm717 wrote:

Okay, just another update. I finally got the P3/S CPUs. It took about a month to get them. I tried them in my 815EEA board first and it was a no go, the board would halt with an error. I tried one in the OR840 and it works! I'm going to try both CPUs and I'll run some benchmarks and post an update. https://imgur.com/a/U2mhQkA

Oh, one other thing. I noticed when I use any CPU in a slocket on the OR840 CPUz shows the wrong FSB clocks. If I use slot 1 CPUs this does not happen. The multi and everything else is correct, just the FSB clock is wrong and it fluctuates.

@SWZSSR How is the IBM BIOS? Does it work with ACPI in XP? Does it have many more settings? I would be interested to see what AGP and DRAM settings the IBM BIOS has.

I sadly don't have any processors yet due to ebay loosing them in the post. I will let you know once i've found some 😀

please do.

A new challenger approaches.. 😀

I'm attempting another take on the Maximum PC Dream Machine 2000 build, and just picked up my own OR840 (Intel retail, in box even!) which honestly looks to have never been used.

I have yet to get it to POST, and the BIOS version is unknown - here's the current configuration:

• 2x Coppermine 1000EB (SL4BS) - used, unknown working state, but visually appear "correct" and identical
• 4x Samsung PC800-40 ECC 512MB sticks, 2GB total (where I think I went wrong)
• NVIDIA Quadro2 Pro - used, but working in another system

Current behavior: the board does show some signs of life, in that as soon as power is applied, the fans spin up (both processors + AGP card). No beeps or anything else. I have an Intel SE440BX-2 that behaves exactly like this when the board is in an unsupported configuration, so I have good reason to suspect the 2GB RAM is just asking too much, perhaps with the BIOS version that is installed now, or just in general based on the experiences documented in this thread (and by the way, THANKS for writing all of this stuff down!

Other thoughts as to the root cause:
-I'm not using the Molex or AUX-style power connectors - only the 20-pin ATX connector, with a power supply that can do 25A on the 5V rail.
-Sadly I don't have the CRIMMs or processor terminator that were originally included with the board, so I have a single RAM configuration that I can test as of yet.

Aha! A PCI video card did the trick to confirm my suspicions, allowing the board to produce this beep code:

1-2-6 Memory not supported (unsupported memory technology)

Also, I might have missed it, but after a bit of searching I finally found the product guide/manual - I didn't see it posted in the thread, so here it is.

Check the bios revision. Newer ones might be better for compatibility

ok, back from the dead after ~7 months of silence--glad to see new faces posting here!

doogie, my bet is your machine is using an old BIOS which will not recognize the 512MB RIMMs. You should "invest" in 4x128MB RIMMs anyways since you will need them when flashing the newer BIOS. Barring some ACPI issues (specially if I switch my expansion cards too much while testing) the machine has been stable with 2GB of RAM ever since I cleaned some spillage from one of the non-OSCON capacitors.

As for my build, I haven't touched the config much except for switching to a couple of CuMines and switching to a smaller case. I was close to selling it at one point to avoid hauling it to my new place, but decided to keep it in the end.

Good to be back!

slivercr wrote:

doogie, my bet is your machine is using an old BIOS which will not recognize the 512MB RIMMs. You should "invest" in 4x128MB RIMMs anyways since you will need them when flashing the newer BIOS. Barring some ACPI issues (specially if I switch my expansion cards too much while testing) the machine has been stable with 2GB of RAM ever since I cleaned some spillage from one of the non-OSCON capacitors.

I think so too. The story on this board is that it sat unused for ~18 years; so I am almost certain it has a BIOS revision installed now that does not know what to do with 512MB RIMMs. Before I saw your post, I found a cheap auction for 2x256MB PC800 and 2xCRIMMs, so I snagged that. Will give it a shot.

I also got an AUX-style power connector so that I can pin out an adapter, and get some more juice to these processors. Hopefully some more progress soon.

silvercr, do you happen to have a parts list for the capacitors you bought from Mouser? If it is not readily available don't sweat it, just looking to make double sure I buy the same thing.

I dont have the capacitor list available, sorry. However, the Panasonic OSCON caps should still be tip top, and that's the majority of the cans on the board. The 2 that are left (top right corner and between the power connectors) you might want to look into.

The AUX connector is an "early version" of the current 24 pin ATX connector, if you are using a modern power supply you could even make an adapter cable between the 6 pin header and the extra 4 pins on the ATX connector (NOT the extra 4pin connector with 12 V and Ground! I mean the one with 3.3 V, 5 V and Ground)

Sadly the board still does not boot with two Samsung 256MB PC800-40 RIMMs and two CRIMMs.

Arranged per the product guide, I still get the 1-2-6 beep code.
On the upside, the beep code does change as expected if I put both RIMMs on one channel, for example. I also get a beep code with the Quadro2 card installed, which was not happening before.

I suppose we will step down to 4x128MB modules as was suggested - rats.

Wow...coool..just found this post.
Checking surfing old Hardware, hoping to find some cool stuff on Ebay and Co but as we know its hard.

I have one Or840 myself, used it back then - had the best machine on Lan-Parties 😀
Didnt read complete post yet, but i will i guess, since the idea.."Dream machine year 2000" never went off my head 😀

For now, from my XP to Or840 ;
They all had several unique Numbers, some went awesome, some didnt. I remember ive seen once a complete list of all Revisions and how to read the tiny Number on Board, to find out, which one you had. (Mine is an 750780-701) I remember mine was fine, bit upper middle. Have it aswell in Retail Box. Mine i used for Years, before i replaced it for some newer P4 Xeon.
Else - does anyone remember "Powerleap" adapters ? Powerleap iP3/T Slot1/FCPGA370 Adapter, making it possible to use Tualatin Cores on Slot1.
Cause i had back then also an Dual P3 1000 Mhz Xeon Board out of an Compaq SP7500 ?! (cant remeber right now) and the Or840 with 2x P3 1000 - ofc the Xeon was..better...but with the iP3/T Adapter i was able, and i am still able to use 2x P3 1266 Mhz on the OR840. I tested also with 2x 1400 P3, but it didnt want to 🙁 Not that 2x 1266 was already amazing with the Tualatin Core.

Now im ofc hooked up too, after reading here..hm, bring it back, 2x 1266 MHz, get 4x 512MB ECC Samsung PC800. My Board ran with 4x 512 - no problems, had 4gb in the Compaq WS, so i could test them in the Or840 - but sadly sold all RD-Ram when they still were worth something (was young and needed the money^^ - no had company crash, went debt, had to sell so much of my life). Best get Voodoo 5 6000 😀 ok 5500 would be fine too 😀 + Some old IDE SSD - or try to get Sata SSD Raid on it.
Casing i would use Ancient IBM AIX RS6000 Model 260p - ofc mod it.

Edit ; Since I just re-found my old post, surfing for old Rambus Boards 😀

Welcome to the party, freekymachine!

freekymachine wrote:

They all had several unique Numbers, some went awesome, some didnt. I remember ive seen once a complete list of all Revisions and how to read the tiny Number on Board, to find out, which one you had. (Mine is an 750780-701) I remember mine was fine, bit upper middle.

Actually, now that you mention it, in the BIOS release notes there is mention of two serial numbers: 750701-701 and 750780-701. If a board has a serial number higher than those, it supports 512MB RIMMs.

You can find the BIOS release notes here: https://mega.nz/#!dhJzDSaQ!k-2dk0h9dZMsV58tsZ … Za2JRf8cj6FaNBA

Later today I will make a MEGA repository with all the OR840 stuff I have and make it available in the first post of this thread, too.