First post, by Paadam
- Rank
- Member
Out of nowhere a dual Pentium Pro board appeared on local auction site and since it was IBM one (=proprietary form factor) plus the seller did not have any idea whether it works or not the interest was not too high and I scored it for 20 euros. It came without any risers etc.
Board is from PC365/Intellistation Z Pro, so called Hey Little Buddy (it is written on the board too, cute huh?)
Physically looked just fine, brushed off the dust, took a spare Pentium Pro CPU, riser that fitted there and spare IBM PSU and alive it came. Riser is a necessity as there is no onboard graphics.
Expected it to accept regular EDO DIMMs but no such luck, it requires unbuffered ones with notch exactly like on SDRAM DIMM's. Most of the EDO DIMM's that I have did not fit, luckily found one 32MB stick that fit and board came alive.
Fast forward 3 weeks, found a pair of 1M SL25A pentium Pros on ebay with s**tloads of bent (and some broken legs), got the pair for 50 usd and decided to take a shot.
They arrived, spent an hour to straighten up the pins, soldered threee missing ones scavenged from dead Celerons and tried them one by one. Both worked!
Next was to find a suitable VRM from my stash for second socket. Found one and both CPU's worked. Tried 3.5x multi (=233 MHz), no problems but granted I only tested to BIOS. Board has 4x multi also, will definitely try it some oint.
At the moment customising a Netvista case for this build (can't get the PC330 or other suitable one anywhere near me), made adapter so I can use regular ATX PSU and will modify low profile Netburst Xeon heatsinks to fit, they are made of full copper, would be spot on with them hot Pro's.
Later will flash latest BIOS, it is from 1997. It is currently in Finnish though that's not a problem as Finnish is very close to Estonian language 😀
Many 3Dfx and Pentium III-S stuff.
My amibay FS thread: www.amibay.com/showthread.php?88030-Man ... -370-dual)