emosun wrote:

funny enough I have swapped packard bell boards with IBM ones. funny how many people think packard bell boards are a proprietary form factor.

That is actually interesting! I have an Intel AP440FX LPX mobo myself, but I always thought that LPX isn't as standardised as AT or ATX.

So, basically, if I had another LPX mobo with an I/O backplane shield, I could just swap it? (can't say that I often see those for sale, though)

emosun wrote:

there isn't. […]
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gdjacobs wrote:

Well, what's the board? There might be undocumented voltage settings and/or patched BIOSes available.

there isn't.

http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/pb/mb/810.htm

Thats why I didn't ask what cpu's I could upgrade to and why I've only asked for game ideas and comparable benchmarks for the cpu I have.

I've already tried different cpu's and already have plenty of documentation and knowledge on the board and the the proper jumper diagram that is not listed online for the board.

again , more interested in how someone elses 233mmx runs without l2 and interested in what games they are able to run on it. and a passmark run would be great.

Apparently all three jumpers enabled on the VRM toggles delivers 2.4V (please check before running this setup long term). This should be viable for K6-2 CXT chips. I don't think there's a BIOS patch and I doubt core voltage goes any lower, so I think you're right in terms of pushing further into plus territory.

If you can identify the required parts, you can perhaps install some L2 cache. QFP parts aren't too nasty to solder using a good iron and the drag method.

jheronimus wrote:

emosun wrote:

funny enough I have swapped packard bell boards with IBM ones. funny how many people think packard bell boards are a proprietary form factor.

That is actually interesting! I have an Intel AP440FX LPX mobo myself, but I always thought that LPX isn't as standardised as AT or ATX.

So, basically, if I had another LPX mobo with an I/O backplane shield, I could just swap it? (can't say that I often see those for sale, though)

yeah . one of my machine I have is a packard bell case with a pentium 2 ibm board in it.

they made flat back LPX boards for industrial machines all the way up to socket 775 so it's possible to upgrade old packardbells and ibms to entry level core 2 duos

Yes 2.4V is possible Which is better, Pentium 233MMX, Cyrix MII 266 or K6-233?
Anyway what sort of benchmark do you want to run? I have 233MMX in my socket7 build right now, the board has 512 kB L2 cache, now I'm running PCI VirgeDX and EDO RAM, but it has a VIA MVP3 chipset, so it might perform worse than typical i430TX setup, although my memory timings are tight.
And Quake is somewhat playable only up to 400x300 resolution in software mode.

just a passmark cpu run would be great

Isn't passmark a Windows 9x benchmark? My P200MMX in a Packard Bell with no L2 is a DOS-only system. I'd be happy to run any DOS benchmarks for you, though.

emosun wrote:

just a passmark cpu run would be great

which version and where can I download it?

Well I've downloaded the oldest version of passmark, I could obtain on the official site which is version 5 and run the benchmark with and without L2 cache. Both CPU and memory benchmark. I thought that the differences would be bigger, it seems that passmark's tests fit into L1 cache, so disabling L2 had no big effect. Only memory benchmarks showed some differences and that was with EDO CL2 memory, SDR memory and higher fsb would help.
I also run Quake (1.06) in software mode in 320x200 and 400x300 resolution with sound, but to my surprise it didn't drop dramatically.

P233 MMX with 512kB L2 cache, FIC VA-503+ (MVP3) board, 64MB EDO RAM CL2, S3 Virge/DX 2MB, Win98SE, AD1816 sound card:
320x200 44.1 fps
400x300 29.2 fps

P233 MMX without L2 cache, EDO RAM:
320x200 38.1 fps
400x300 26.4 fps

P233 MMX with 512kB L2 cache, FIC VA-503+ (MVP3) board, 128 SDRAM 100MHz CL2:
320x200 43.7 fps
400x300 29.8 fps

EDIT: updated results with SDR memory running at 100 MHz with CL2 timings and L2 enabled. There is not much difference, actually passmark show performance decrease which also happened in quake in low res. Only sisoft sandra showed some interesting memory results.
It seems like 128MB is too much and is not cached, but i thought i was in cacheable area 😕

mv_cz wrote:

Well I've downloaded the oldest version of passmark, I could obtain on the official site which is version 5 and run the benchmark with and without L2 cache. Both CPU and memory benchmark.

tyvm for this I'll compare with my results as soon as i can to see if it matches yours

mv_cz wrote:

Well I've downloaded the oldest version of passmark, I could obtain on the official site which is version 5 and run the benchmark with and without L2 cache.

well it took forever for me to check but your results with a pentium 1 with no l2 cache seem to match my results exactly. so thanks for running those it helps.

emosun wrote:

jheronimus wrote:

Looks like you're interested in a particular build, and since this one is a branded Packard Bell machine, changing a mobo isn't an option.

exactly. If i really wanted better performance I could just pull any of the pentium 2 or 3 machines i have off the shelf. More interested in seeing what this specific machine can do. 🤣

funny enough I have swapped packard bell boards with IBM ones. funny how many people think packard bell boards are a proprietary form factor.

It's plain old LPX. LPX was hardly ever sold retail, but was as much of a standard as AT or later ATX and NLX. Both PB and IBM (and a host of other vendors) used it. Very occasionally you came across retail LPX components - actually I just got my hands on a generic LPX case the other day. Would fit this old PB board, but what I'm really hunting after for it is an IBM Blue Lightning board.

This must rank as PB's most crippled motherboard though - no L2 cache and no COAST slot... really... Any idea where this system/board was sold? I worked on PB's UK/IE tech support around 2000 and saw lots of their 682/683 (rebadged Intel 'Orlando' OR430VX) boards, but never this one.

dionb wrote:

Any idea where this system/board was sold?

It's the board that comes with the multimedia m415.

emosun wrote:

dionb wrote:

Any idea where this system/board was sold?

It's the board that comes with the multimedia m415.

But which market? US? Somewhere in the EU? Somewhere else?

dionb wrote:

But which market? US? Somewhere in the EU? Somewhere else?

The US , this board is pretty common with the majority of their sales at the time.

Well I think i've found most of my answers for this thread.

many of the games I'm trying are simply too cpu intensive for a pentium 1 despite the game minimum and recommended requirements being lower than a pentium 1.

The other issue was the gpu i was using did not entirely support direct 3d , when I swapped it for a newer one direct 3d games that were under the cpu requirements seemed to work better. I still have a few games i'd like to try to see if the newer direct 3d gpu can entirely replace the voodoo2