The Oxygen 202's a cool video card which is 100% compatible with this system, as it's from the 1996 era, however it has one fatal flaw which renders this system pretty much useless for classic gaming, as it doesn't support 256 colours!!!

This system seems to be very fussy with graphics cards, and doesn't like my Matrox millennium II, so I'm considering one of these to hopefully drive the 2D graphics in this system:

An ATI 3D Rage II 8MB (4MB on card + 4MB)

It's from the 1996 era, so it should hopefully be compatible with this system. (I really hope so!!!)

And it supports 256 colours @ 640x480:

And it has windows NT4 driver support:

The lowest the Oxygen 202 will do @ 640x480 is 32768 colours, and this won't do for classic gaming! 🙁

ok fine I guess I'll "let you" swap out the Oxygen 😉
Shame as it's such a unique card, but your right not much point if it makes the PC useless for gaming.
The Rage is somewhat correct as well as dual socket servers would use it for onboard video, newer servers but servers all the same.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-03-14, 22:16:

ok fine I guess I'll "let you" swap out the Oxygen 😉
Shame as it's such a unique card, but your right not much point if it makes the PC useless for gaming.
The Rage is somewhat correct as well as dual socket servers would use it for onboard video, newer servers but servers all the same.

Thanks! 😀

I'm all for other suggestions if there are any, "period correct cards which can push 1280x1024 in true colour and 640x480 in 256 colours".

my board works great with a matrox G200.

Matrox G200 PCI 8MB video card, quick test

luckybob wrote on 2024-03-16, 15:02:

my board works great with a matrox G200.

Matrox G200 PCI 8MB video card, quick test

Thanks very much for the link! 😀

The system's still suffering from a considerable amount of instability, especially after it's been running for a while!

I think that it may require a re-cap as well as an inspection with a fine-toothed comb (Microscope)!

I don't currently have the equipment (re-work station with microscope and oscilloscope) necessary to carry out these tasks, so I'll have to put this on hold until I do.

I'm not willing to throw more money at this one until I can get it to run stably!!!

Ultimately this little hobby will convert from collecting to repairing, which is fine by me!

You might want to fiddle around with the cpu card. if it isnt EXACTLY in the right position, it can cause errors. There is a big reason they didnt do this on other boards.

luckybob wrote on 2024-03-17, 15:33:

You might want to fiddle around with the cpu card. if it isnt EXACTLY in the right position, it can cause errors. There is a big reason they didnt do this on other boards.

Agreed!

The CPU card isn't the best of designs, as you have electrolytic capacitors sitting right up against the VRM heatsinks, which will reduce their life span as the heat sinks on this card get pretty hot!

I'll also need to find out how to give all of the contacts in the slots a deep clean. (The board as a whole for that matter!)

I'll need to go over this board with a fine-toothed comb in a series of logical steps.

Irinikus wrote on 2023-07-30, 12:52:

I've created a bootable floppy using FreeDOS in Windows XP Professional on my "EPIC Socket 8" machine and I've copied The BIOS […]
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I've created a bootable floppy using FreeDOS in Windows XP Professional on my "EPIC Socket 8" machine and I've copied The BIOS file "ND6I0218.AWD" and aflash221 to the disk, so all's ready for the BIOS flash from a Boot Disk point of view! (I now need to build the machine into a case!)

Here's a site featuring a wide selection of Awdflash versions, other than version 2.21, which I already have: (Which version found here would you most recommend for this job?)

https://www.wimsbios.com/awardflasher.jsp#gsc.tab=0

When the time comes, JP4 will have to be set to enable the BIOS flash:

This shows that there were indeed some crucial fixes to the BIOS for this board along the way:

Hey.. hate to revive this thread as it looks like you maybe didn't quite finish this build? Either way, I have this EXACT same setup. Same CPU's, cpu card, Asus board. I've also been attempting to get my Matrox G200 working, and NT 4 REFUSES to install drivers for it and keeps resetting to standard VGA. Anyways, I was curious if you ever got around to updating your BIOS? Seems like I may be running into some of the same issues but I really don't want to go flash-crazy until I know which version of the flash util you used and if the new BIOS fixes some of the problems. Appreciate ANY insight here, thanks!

#1 - the bios file depends on the CPU card. There are 3 of them, one for each CPU card. (see #4)
#2 - the latest bios is still available from the Asus website, last I looked. its also over on Theretroweb. In fact, i looked at TRW and it has a lot of missing info, so just ask me. (i'll set that site straight shortly.)
#3 - I had no problem with NT4 and the G200 on my machine - at least beyond the normal bullshittery of NT4 - I DO know NT can have an issue with Uncached Speculative Write Combining (USWC). Check the bios and turn that off.
#4 - this exists: https://www.ebay.com/itm/334083997635 it lets you swap the cpu cards around, but its NOT a good idea.

Schafeman wrote on 2025-11-17, 21:39:

Hey.. hate to revive this thread as it looks like you maybe didn't quite finish this build? Either way, I have this EXACT same setup. Same CPU's, cpu card, Asus board. I've also been attempting to get my Matrox G200 working, and NT 4 REFUSES to install drivers for it and keeps resetting to standard VGA. Anyways, I was curious if you ever got around to updating your BIOS? Seems like I may be running into some of the same issues but I really don't want to go flash-crazy until I know which version of the flash util you used and if the new BIOS fixes some of the problems. Appreciate ANY insight here, thanks!

I will eventually get back to it once I get a suitable chassis for it. (The position of the CPU card on this motherboard makes it rather fussy as to which chassis can accommodate it)

I've just managed to purchase this case from a seller in Germany to house my Dual Pentium Pro!!!

I'm going to need a 5.25" floppy drive, two beige hard drive caddies and an optical drive for this one!

Here's the system:

I've been looking for an opportunity to get my hands on one of these for years! (A rare motherboard such as this one deserves a special case!)

It’s arrived from Germany!

@grachev on the Silicon Graphics User Group Discord asked whether it's a water dispenser! To which I replied that it could pass for one!

It came with this sticker on it.

I don't usually like to have stickers suck to things, so I wanted to remove it, but after considering @grachev's comment I now understand why it was probably placed there, so it's going to have to stay!  😎

Yesterday I started cleaning the case and opened up the power supply to clean it. This is what it looked like before cleaning:

This is what it looked like after cleaning:

Unfortunately all of this work was in vain, as the power supply is blown! It’s got nothing on its 12V rail and it has 10.4V on its 5V rail!!!! (Thank God I didn’t plug anything into it!)

I removed the internals of the power supply: (There’s more than enough space in here to fit the internals of a new ATX power supply in here and use an ATX to AT converter to run my motherboard!)

Seeing that there’s 10.4V on the 5V rail, I’d imagine that all of the IC’s on this power supply board are more than likely blown!

New power supply internals installed!

There’s is some sort of standard when it comes to the width of the board. Two of the mounting points align perfectly, but the other two are slightly out.

Luckily the original power supply didn’t burn out the LED 7-segment display and the other LED’s on the front panel, as they’re connected to the 5V rail!

Here’s the case’s motherboard tray: (I’m going to have to purchase a few snap standoffs before I can look at mounting the motherboard.)

I’ve attached the motherboard to the motherboard tray, but I need two more snap standoffs to secure it completely:

very nice work and attention to detail

normally I'm extremely hostile to power supply guts swaps, but it seems you actually did a good job with that too

I thought I sensed a disturbance in the force...

So, what’s in the garage if the bike is parked in the living room? : )

That case is a TANK ! a very nice acquisition and a fitting TANK to house the dual Pentium Pro in !

maxtherabbit wrote on Yesterday, 13:34:

very nice work and attention to detail

normally I'm extremely hostile to power supply guts swaps, but it seems you actually did a good job with that too

With this system I can understand the swap ..I too would be very cautious about using a unproven or even a proven AT PSU with such rare parts, at least this way the PSU internals are new.

The CPU card JUST FITS IN!!!

And I’ve set the LED display to read 199!!! (The closest I can get to the 200MHz that the Pentium Pro’s run at.)

maxtherabbit wrote on Yesterday, 13:34:

very nice work and attention to detail

normally I'm extremely hostile to power supply guts swaps, but it seems you actually did a good job with that too

Thanks! 😀

I didn't really have a choice since I still wanted to make use of the lovely power switch on the front panel of the machine!

luckybob wrote on Yesterday, 17:32:

I thought I sensed a disturbance in the force...

You Bet! 😀