The components weren't fully integrated in pre-ATX motherboards, and it predates the Socket 7 platform. Slot 1 motherboards in AT form factor exists and they have the exact same difficulties.

Currently, these motherboards often sell incompletely. When they were newer back then, they did come with cables for the additional "hardware" (USB if applicable, serial, parallel and PS/2 mouse) and the manual. In certain cases when using the onboard IDE connectors, it would require finding 40-wire cables that has all 40-pin available for the HDD and CD drives. Lastly, it could also have a black rectangular RTC battery, which either soldered (most likely) or socketed.

The situation with the keyboard is easy to solve though, there are 5-pin DIN to PS/2 adapters.

stealthjoe wrote on 2022-12-18, 12:43:

For quite a while was having an urge to build a socket 7 based board (primarily for DOS and Win 95) from scratch. The listings on ebay and locally basically provide only the bare S7 board with probably the processor and heatsink. While getting into the details of the required efforts to complete a S7 build, realized that it looks much more complicated than a Slot 1 build. Most boards provide an AT connector for only the keyboard. For a mouse there is only a PS2 header. It looks like we require addditional hardware/ convertors for mouse, keyboard, USB (if at all supported), etc. which are less commonly available.

Your problem here is mainly that you want to use all kinds of modern peripherals on an old system. Yes, that will take a pile of adapters, possible compatibility issues and configuration troubles. If you're new to this game, it might be a better idea to get period-correct stuff that 'just works', so a DIN keyboard and a serial mouse.

Need some guidance on how to proceed with a S7 build and the required additional hardware and case requirements. For reference, lets say I am going in for this board - A-Trend ATC-1020 with a P1 133 mhz processor. What would be the additional hardware I need to get to be able to complete a build ? Also please let me know if it is worthwhile as compared to a slot 1 system? Thanks!!

The ATC-1020(+) is a board with i430VX it has an AT form factor and is pretty average in terms of integrated peripherals for a mid-1996 board.

What is integrated:
- floppy
- 2x IDE
- 2x serial
- 1x parallel
- AT DIN keyboard
- PS/2 mouse header
- USB 1.0 header

Now, AT DIN and PS/2 are electrically identical, so a passive adapter between the two will work fine and you can even bodge it yourself. USB to PS/2 is another matter entirely as the protocols are wildly different. Passive adapters seem to exist, but they only work with device chipsets that can talk both protocols. That was common in the late 1990s, but less so a quarter of a century on. Assume you will need active adapters to get USB devices to work with PS/2.
As for USB... USB 1.0 was a bit of a non-starter, and even though USB 1.1 devices should be backwards compatible, 1.0 was so fiddly in terms of signal levels/timing that you should not assume it will work until proven otherwise.
In terms of attaching a USB port to the header, that was rather catastrophically not standardized. Most USB headers today have both ports in the same direction (so both +5V at one end, both GND at the other). Back in the old days, some genius though it was better to have them in opposite directions. According to page 19 of this board's manual this is one of those cases. So you need a connector with the same back-to-front pinout if you don't want to fry evrything attached to the second port...

So, what you need as a minimum:
- a supported CPU. In this case that P133 would be fine.
- a heatsink for the CPU. If it's fairly big, no fan needed. Most though are small and come with noisy 40mm fan that probably will have worn bearings by now and need replacing.
- two matched 72p SIMMs with max 60ns timings. For DOS, 2x 4MB will work fine, but for any kind of Windows you want at least 2x 16MB, ideally 2x 32MB. EDO works faster than FP, but both are supported. You *could* consider using a single 168p SDRAM DIMM instead, but as this is the very first chipset with SDRAM support, compatibility is very limited. Assume 32MB is the upper limit, and that only DIMMs with 16 chips will work. So keep it simple: stick to simple 72p SIMMs instead.
- a VGA card. Any VGA card will do for DOS, for usable Windows desktop you want at least 2MB of RAM, preferably 4MB. PCI is faster than ISA. A 4MB S3 Virge PCI card (including any Virge/DX/VX/GX versions) will work fine as a no-brainer default (although cheaply produced ones have washed-out display)
- a keyboard. AT DIN will 100% work, PS/2 will also if your adapter is known-good. USB will require an active adapter. They usually work, but I've had some duds too.

Once you have this, you can get POST to display on screen and boot to DOS. Or to Windows. Which will complain about lack of mouse 😉

What you probably want as well:
- a bracket with serial ports to connect to the header pins on the motherboard. Pinout is standard *and/or* a bracket with PS/2 port to connect to the header pins. Pinout is decidedly non-standardized...
- a mouse. Serial will (with correct driver) definitely work. PS/2 might, if you happen to get a bracket with the right pinout on the cable. I linked to the manual above. It is better than average and shows pinout. Most of the brackets with 2x4 pin connector block will be OK with this. USB is a pain. You'd need to convert to PS/2 first, then get PS/2 sorted... unless you add a USB card to the system.
- a sound card. For DOS, you want ISA. There are 1001 opinions on which is best. For your very first P1 retro build, keep it simple. Something with OPTi chipset is likely to be cheap and 'just work'. No, it's not the most compatible or the best sounding, but that's something to worry about once you get more confident about your abilities. Windows can use ISA or PCI cards. Later PCI cards offer A3D or EAX positional audio. Don't bother with that on a P133, no software it can run will use that. Stick with the ISA card and you should be good.
- a USB card so you can use that new mouse and maybe a USB stick. Here's another minefield. Most cards you can find are USB 2.0 cards. Nothing wrong with that, but this board has an old PCI 2.1 bus, with 5V power only. A lot of those USB 2.0 cards are PCI 2.2 and even though they are supposed to be backwards compatible, many fail if no 3.3V is present on the PCI bus. In general the cards with NEC chipsets seem to have a higher success rate than Via chipsets, but YMMV. Old USB 1.1 cards are slow but will usually work.

Now, you ask about whether it will be worthwhile when compared to slot 1. Big question there that you don't go into is what you want to use the beast for. Back in the day these things were sold with Windows 95 and some masochists upgraded them to Windows 98 later too. However doing that will just get you a taste of how frustratingly slow and underpowered computing tended to be in the 1990s. I would use a P133 for DOS only. But you can do that with a Slot 1 system too - in fact my main 'later DOS' system is exactly that, a P3-450 Slot 1 system. It is an ATX motherboard, with PS/2 and USB 1.1. ports on the backplate and no extra brackets needed. There are some speed-sensitive DOS games out there, but most will fail at speeds lower than 133MHZ. To run them you either want to have a CPU you can control very extensively (AMD K6-2+ and Via C3 CPU), but neither will run on this board, or on most Slot 1 boards. So this board doesn't really offer any objective advantages over Slot 1. One potential advantage might be presence and number of ISA slots, but this ATC-1020 only has 3, and you can get Slot 1 boards with that too (mine does, for example). As for Windows, it wants as much RAM and CPU as you can throw at it, and this board can only cache 64MB of RAM and the fastest CPU here will be a lot slower than the slowest Slot1 CPU. For slow stuff I have a 486SX-33 with turbo button to slow it down to XT speeds. That does add value, but is a whole different ball park.

So to be brutally honest, unless you want something very specific, this board does not offer anything of value over a suitable Slot1 system. By "suitable" I mean that it has at least one ISA slot, preferably two or three. Except that is a relatively easy introduction into getting an old AT-style system to run. Because if you think this is challenging, just wait until you get 486 or older motherboards with absolutely no I/O onboard (so you need external cards for everything, which need configuring...), with extremely limited BIOSs (boot from CD? hah, boot from A: or C: and that's it - and C had better be smaller than 512MB) and all the other fun. It would make a lot of sense to try out a nice mainstream forgiving AT-style Pentium system like the one you'd build with this board first.

A lot of good info here.

You'll also most likely need an AT style power supply, or ATX+adapter (need to possibly be careful about if you have ISA cards that require -5v). Any AT style PSU is going to be old, so the internals should, at the very least, be checked and possibly recapped.

AT style cases can be difficult to find. This is somewhat true of beige boxes in general.

An alternative could be to buy a no-name complete retro system and use that as starting point to swap out and experiment with other parts. You may want to avoid big brand names as some times their chassis, PSU, etc. can be proprietary.

re: Slot 1 vs Socket7, that's your call. Personally I like to mess around with hw from each time period. By the time P2 rolled around it was becoming common to see more functionality integrated into the mobo.

As others have mentioned -a lot of P2 and even P3 can run older DOS + games perfectly fine (may need to slow the CPU down via disabling cache or other tricks for some games). and you'll likely find a few ISA slots present on these boards as well.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-18, 13:56:

Currently, these motherboards often sell incompletely. When they were newer back then, they did come with cables for the additional "hardware" (USB if applicable, serial, parallel and PS/2 mouse) and the manual.

Indeed. It is quite hard to find a S7 board listing with the serial and mouse ribbon connectors. Also very few listings on ebay for these.

If the manual for your motherboard lists the pinout for the PS2 mouse header, you can buy a generic PS2 bracket and rewire it to fit. All you need is a multimeter for continuity testing and some jumper wires.

I wouldn't bother with on-board USB on a socket 7 motherboard. The standard wasn't fully established at the time, so your peripherals may or may not work even if you do manage to connect the proper bracket.

Lastly, there are socket 7 motherboards which can use an ATX power supply. They are not as common but it's worth finding one, since you don't need to worry about dodgy AT power supplies or using adapters.

dionb wrote on 2022-12-18, 22:26:

There are some speed-sensitive DOS games out there, but most will fail at speeds lower than 133MHZ. To run them you either want to have a CPU you can control very extensively (AMD K6-2+ and Via C3 CPU), but neither will run on this board, or on most Slot 1 boards.

A Pentium MMX can also be very flexible in terms of slowdown options thanks to SetMul which allows for toggling its test registers.

Pair it with a socket 7 board which supports disabling L1 and L2 cache in the BIOS (most non-OEM boards do) and you have an extremely versatile DOS system. That setup can cover speeds from 386SX-25 over 486 (both slow and fast) up to the late Pentium era.

stealthjoe wrote on 2022-12-19, 05:42:

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-18, 13:56:

Currently, these motherboards often sell incompletely. When they were newer back then, they did come with cables for the additional "hardware" (USB if applicable, serial, parallel and PS/2 mouse) and the manual.

Indeed. It is quite hard to find a S7 board listing with the serial and mouse ribbon connectors. Also very few listings on ebay for these.

Keep in mind there are some later socket 7 mobos that are fairly well integrated without the need for external ribbons.

The one I have is a MS 5148
It has some more quality of life stuff vs ealier mobos:

It has onboard : 2 usb ports , 2 ps2 ports (kb,m) 2x serial and 1x parallel , plus integrated IDE and floppy and an support for ATX psus.
Its a 430TX chipset which I think supports less ram than earlier ones (HX?) but has some other quality of life stuff (maybe usb related?).
Also you can use either simms or dimms and it can go up to a pentium 233mmx.

So maybe you could be a bit more picky and get a mobo that would let you use things like ps2 mice and keyboards which should be a bit easier to source.

A very comprehensive set of details dionb. Thanks!!

dionb wrote on 2022-12-18, 22:26:

The ATC-1020(+) is a board with i430VX it has an AT form factor and is pretty average in terms of integrated peripherals for a mid-1996 board.

Problem here is getting a good board locally. This one is with a local seller who is roughly 1800 kms away (the closest retro source for me ) 😀 Any better suggestions you have with ideally an ATX power connector?

Assume you will need active adapters to get USB devices to work with PS/2.
As for USB... USB 1.0 was a bit of a non-starter, and even though USB 1.1 devices should be backwards compatible, 1.0 was so fiddly in terms of signal levels/timing that you should not assume it will work until proven otherwise.
In terms of attaching a USB port to the header, that was rather catastrophically not standardized. Most USB headers today have both ports in the same direction (so both +5V at one end, both GND at the other). Back in the old days, some genius though it was better to have them in opposite directions. According to page 19 of this board's manual this is one of those cases. So you need a connector with the same back-to-front pinout if you don't want to fry evrything attached to the second port...

So it looks like not worth the trouble going for a USB option for a socket 7 board. I once had a S7 PC from 1997 which didn't have any USB ports. Had to rely on CDs/floppies to copy drivers/games.

- two matched 72p SIMMs with max 60ns timings. For DOS, 2x 4MB will work fine, but for any kind of Windows you want at least 2x 16MB, ideally 2x 32MB. EDO works faster than FP, but both are supported. You *could* consider using a single 168p SDRAM DIMM instead, but as this is the very first chipset with SDRAM support, compatibility is very limited. Assume 32MB is the upper limit, and that only DIMMs with 16 chips will work. So keep it simple: stick to simple 72p SIMMs instead.

Any idea if 64MB SIMM would work fine with DOS? or an overkill?

- a keyboard. AT DIN will 100% work, PS/2 will also if your adapter is known-good. USB will require an active adapter. They usually work, but I've had some duds too.

Once you have this, you can get POST to display on screen and boot to DOS. Or to Windows. Which will complain about lack of mouse 😉

Getting a DIN keyboard and serial mouse locally would be the next challenge.

Now, you ask about whether it will be worthwhile when compared to slot 1. Big question there that you don't go into is what you want to use the beast for. Back in the day these things were sold with Windows 95 and some masochists upgraded them to Windows 98 later too. However doing that will just get you a taste of how frustratingly slow and underpowered computing tended to be in the 1990s.

You could categorize me into one of those 😀 During the late 90's had a S7 system with Win 95 (my first computer when I was a pre-teen). Back then I was not so tech savy. Hence couldn't even remember the board I used. But had a 200Mhz pentium 1 MMX processor, 32MB SIMM RAM and a OPL3 SAx ISA sound card. Tried upgrading that to Win 98 and remember how painfully slow it was. Too bad it was sold sometime in 2007. Still regret it.

I would use a P133 for DOS only. But you can do that with a Slot 1 system too - in fact my main 'later DOS' system is exactly that, a P3-450 Slot 1 system. It is an ATX motherboard, with PS/2 and USB 1.1. ports on the backplate and no extra brackets needed.

Let me know the board you are using! I am assuming that you also have an unlocked processor which could be downclocked.

There are some speed-sensitive DOS games out there, but most will fail at speeds lower than 133MHZ.

I am quite trying to comprehend this one. I was under the assumption that many speed sensitive DOS games usually fail with higher clock speeds. Let me know otherwise.

To run them you either want to have a CPU you can control very extensively (AMD K6-2+ and Via C3 CPU), but neither will run on this board, or on most Slot 1 boards.

I have a Via based board (M6VLR) with a C3 600Mhz (samuel?). I was thinking that setmul should be able to work fine with this to control the clock speeds. Let me know your thoughts!

For slow stuff I have a 486SX-33 with turbo button to slow it down to XT speeds. That does add value, but is a whole different ball park.

I remember playing games on a 486 with a B/W display back during 1998-01 at my grandparents place. It also had a turbo button. Didn't know the use of that button back then. Too bad I wasn't tech saavy those days and didn't know the value of a 486 until recently. Else wouldn't have let it go!!

So to be brutally honest, unless you want something very specific, this board does not offer anything of value over a suitable Slot1 system. By "suitable" I mean that it has at least one ISA slot, preferably two or three.

I do have a few slot 1 boards (SE440BX-2 and Asus P2B) with a 233Mhz P2. Any idea if this would suffice assuming that the processor can be downclocked to 133 atleast on the Asus board?

It would make a lot of sense to try out a nice mainstream forgiving AT-style Pentium system like the one you'd build with this board first.

So you mean it is better to go for a complete built socket 7 system with case?

Thanks again dionb!

Many socket 7 boards had usb.

Yours seems to have it.

Some reading:

Re: Adding more usb ports to old motherboards without using a card

Which USB 2.0 cards for old motherboards

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/a-trend-atc-1020

stealthjoe wrote on 2022-12-19, 06:36:

A very comprehensive set of details dionb. Thanks!!

[...]

Problem here is getting a good board locally. This one is with a local seller who is roughly 1800 kms away (the closest retro source for me ) 😀 Any better suggestions you have with ideally an ATX power connector?

If local supply is such an issue, there's not much point suggesting specific boards. Chances you find the exact one are minimal. But yes, an ATX board would make life a lot easier in terms of power supply, connectors and indeed case options. You don't actually lose anything going from AT to ATX, if other specs (chipset mainly) are the same.

[...]
So it looks like not worth the trouble going for a USB option for a socket 7 board. I once had a S7 PC from 1997 which didn't have any USB ports. Had to rely on CDs/floppies to copy drivers/games.

If you want to do file transfer over USB, get a USB 2.0 card (that will work in PCI 2.1 slots). Much better option for file transfers: Ethernet. Get yourself a well-supported card (3Com 3C509B/C is somewhat overhyped, but widely available and a no-brain 'always works' option), hook it up to your LAN and run an FTP server on the DOS machine. Use a nice user-friendly graphical client (Filezilla...) on a modern machine to feed it stuff. This will work all the way down to XT-level. For DOS networking, see the mTCP suite/project.

[...]

Any idea if 64MB SIMM would work fine with DOS? or an overkill?

SIMMs always need to be installed in pairs with Pentium-class CPUs. They would work but would be overkill and under DOS actually lower performance. Memory controllers have two limits: max total RAM and max cacheable RAM. These days they can cache anything they can address but that wasn't always the case. With one exception, Intel So7 chipsets could cache max 64MB, even though they supported 128-256MB (and i430TX could run with 512MB). Go over 64MB and your RAM is running uncached at L2 level. The only reason to run more RAM than a board can cache is if you are consistently using more and have to resort to virtual memory on a HDD to compensate, as uncached RAM is still orders of magnitude faster than that. DOS doesn't have virtual memory... Worse: DOS tends to run from the top down so most if not all of what you are doing will run uncached. The performance hit varies between 5% and 20%, but there's no benefit to offset it - there are basically no DOS applications that use over 8MB and once you go over 16MB, some RAM size detection routines will incorrectly flag your huge RAM as 'insufficient memory' to add insult to injury.

[...]

Getting a DIN keyboard and serial mouse locally would be the next challenge.

The alternative is to get your assorted adapters locally (I'm assuming non-local stuff isn't an option due to export restrictions or prohibitive shipping costs). Or go for that ATX motherboard.

[...]

You could categorize me into one of those 😀 During the late 90's had a S7 system with Win 95 (my first computer when I was a pre-teen). Back then I was not so tech savy. Hence couldn't even remember the board I used. But had a 200Mhz pentium 1 MMX processor, 32MB SIMM RAM and a OPL3 SAx ISA sound card. Tried upgrading that to Win 98 and remember how painfully slow it was. Too bad it was sold sometime in 2007. Still regret it.

That would have been a beautiful DOS system, an adequate Win95 one and yes, a painful Win98 experience. Know the feeling of frustration with everything I've sold. I was so happy to get rid of the old Pentium 60 build that I worked on from 1995-1999. Now Socket 4 is rare & sought-after, the Gravis Ultrasound Max sound card I had in it even more.

[...]
Let me know the board you are using! I am assuming that you also have an unlocked processor which could be downclocked.

No, I don't. I run all the speed-sensitive stuff on the 486, so this system's only requirement is to not be insanely fast. Motherboard is a Tekram P6B40-A4X. Chosen mainly because of i440BX chipset and 3 ISA slots. It's basically equivalent to an early revision Asus P2B. Because I don't need to do special thing with speed on it, I don't need lots of settings. It has literally one jumper for FSB (66/100MHz) and four for multiplier. That's it.

If I wanted to fiddle with speed, I'd go for either Via MVP3 chipset combined with a K6-2+ (or 3+) - essentially a mobile late So7 platform, or for a Via C3 combined with a board (or at least chipset) that offered on-the-fly disabling of cache and of possible FSB settings.

[...]

I am quite trying to comprehend this one. I was under the assumption that many speed sensitive DOS games usually fail with higher clock speeds. Let me know otherwise.

Higher is relative to what was common in the late 1980s and early 1990s. By the time Pentium MMX CPUs came along, most developers had figured out it was a good idea to allow for differing CPU clocks. Take a look at this list:
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … sensitive_games

Yes, there are a few titles that start having troubles at P3-levels, but the vast majority are XT-games that fail on a 386.

To get down to XT-level performance, you can try clocking as low as possible, disabling L1 and L2 cache and maybe running MoSlo-type. Or just going for an early 486 with 'turbo'. The latter is specifically needed in the case of games that re-enable L1 cache. I basically built that whole 486-system around Ultima 7, which is probably the worst compatiblity nightmare out there.

[...]

I have a Via based board (M6VLR) with a C3 600Mhz (samuel?). I was thinking that setmul should be able to work fine with this to control the clock speeds. Let me know your thoughts!

Not familiar with that specific board, but it sounds like it ticks all the relevant boxes. That system might be able to go slower than a P200MMX.

[...]

I remember playing games on a 486 with a B/W display back during 1998-01 at my grandparents place. It also had a turbo button. Didn't know the use of that button back then. Too bad I wasn't tech saavy those days and didn't know the value of a 486 until recently. Else wouldn't have let it go!!

Whichever marketeer decided that the feature to critically slow down a system should be called 'turbo' deserves a beer. Or to be shot. Still not sure which 😉

[...]
I do have a few slot 1 boards (SE440BX-2 and Asus P2B) with a 233Mhz P2. Any idea if this would suffice assuming that the processor can be downclocked to 133 atleast on the Asus board?

It could, but probably that C3-600 is a better bet, particularly as you could do it on the fly. That said, both Intel SE440BX-2 and P2B are rock-solid early BX boards of exact same vintage and feature set to the one I use. But I don't need to slow down, which is a relevant difference.

It would make a lot of sense to try out a nice mainstream forgiving AT-style Pentium system like the one you'd build with this board first.

So you mean it is better to go for a complete built socket 7 system with case?

No, I mean that if you ever intend to go for something significantly older than a Pentium, it's a good idea to practice on an AT-form factor Pentium build first. There are no ATX 386 or 486 systems (although you can build yourself an ATX XT board these days).

You miss quoted there on the max ram for different chipsets I believe.

Max ram on hx is 512, nx also.

Tx was capped at 256

Fx at 128.

They all suffer from 64mb cachable.

Unless the 512 cachable is enabled. Which is available on hx and nx

But all can reliably do their max ram if using a k6-3, k6-2+, k6-3+ cpu. Without concern for cacheable.

Check the links I posted above.

A usb 2.0 card on these is a bad move sometimes.

It is better to use a hub off the onboard. (Faster system performance.) usb transfer speed may suffer, but usb 1.1 will be fine for what you need it for usually.

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-12-19, 08:53:

You miss quoted there on the max ram for different chipsets I believe.

Max ram on hx is 512,

That's the exception I referred to.

nx also.

That's So5, not So7

Tx was capped at 256

No it's not. Try with two 256MB DIMMs with 16Mx8 chips. Not all boards will accept it, but it is very possible with some. Basically the memory controller is the same as on the i440EX, half of the i440LX's controller. Which also only supports 512MB SDRAM officially, but has been shown to go up to 1GB. I'm looking for some forum posts I did around 2002 with the exact motherboard names, but not immediately finding it.

Fx at 128.

Not so much capped as simply not able to address more, VX too.

They all suffer from 64mb cachable.

Unless the 512 cachable is enabled. Which is available on hx and nx[/quote]
Different situation. i430NX can cache its full RAM out-of-the-box, i430HX needs a second tag RAM to cache more than 64MB.

But all can reliably do their max ram if using a k6-3, k6-2+, k6-3+ cpu. Without concern for cacheable.

Well, technically the motherboard still can't cache it, it just becomes irrelevant due to full-speed L2 cache on the CPU.

Check the links I posted above.

A usb 2.0 card on these is a bad move sometimes.

Hence what I wrote about needing a card that supports 5V-only PCI slots.

It is better to use a hub off the onboard. (Faster system performance.) usb transfer speed may suffer, but usb 1.1 will be fine for what you need it for usually.

USB 1.1 would be fine, but this is i430VX with USB1.0. Not only is that slower but it's a lot less compatible.

AppleSauce wrote on 2022-12-19, 06:11:

Keep in mind there are some later socket 7 mobos that are fairly well integrated without the need for external ribbons. […]
Show full quote

stealthjoe wrote on 2022-12-19, 05:42:

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-18, 13:56:

Currently, these motherboards often sell incompletely. When they were newer back then, they did come with cables for the additional "hardware" (USB if applicable, serial, parallel and PS/2 mouse) and the manual.

Indeed. It is quite hard to find a S7 board listing with the serial and mouse ribbon connectors. Also very few listings on ebay for these.

Keep in mind there are some later socket 7 mobos that are fairly well integrated without the need for external ribbons.

The one I have is a MS 5148
It has some more quality of life stuff vs ealier mobos:

s-l1600.jpg

It has onboard : 2 usb ports , 2 ps2 ports (kb,m) 2x serial and 1x parallel , plus integrated IDE and floppy and an support for ATX psus.
Its a 430TX chipset which I think supports less ram than earlier ones (HX?) but has some other quality of life stuff (maybe usb related?).
Also you can use either simms or dimms and it can go up to a pentium 233mmx.

So maybe you could be a bit more picky and get a mobo that would let you use things like ps2 mice and keyboards which should be a bit easier to source.

That motherboard fits the need of the OP to build a Socket 7 computer. Being able to use 80-wire IDE cables without hassle (and due to having the Intel 430TX chipset, UDMA support for IDE devices if the motherboard BIOS has good compatibility) and the use of CR2032 coin battery.

This thead is kinda TLDR and I feel like I'm being trolled here.

stealthjoe wrote on 2022-12-18, 12:43:

I have a Via based board (M6VLR) with a C3 600Mhz (samuel?). I was thinking that setmul should be able to work fine with this to control the clock speeds. Let me know your thoughts!

If you had this why do you want a K62

stealthjoe wrote on 2022-12-18, 12:43:

I do have a few slot 1 boards (SE440BX-2 and Asus P2B) with a 233Mhz P2. Any idea if this would suffice assuming that the processor can be downclocked to 133 atleast on the Asus board?

same as question as above.

Anyways a socket 7 build is no more or less difficult to build than either of the 2 above systems. Just avoid USB keyboards and mice on anything this old. Get a Ps2 header bracket they cost 1 dollar. Save yourself the grief. Even if the board has USB ports the BIOS probably doesn't support emulation of those devices, let alone the chipsets have Buggy USB support that are not fully compliant with 1.1 even if they say they are.

Maxing out the ram capacity on my motherboard

Usb 2.0 often slows down these systems. Read the link.

Personally, I don't bother with USB on these older platforms due to lack of standardization for the brackets, very slow transfer speeds (I use a NIC instead for this kind of stuff) and as Warlord stated, the lack of keyboard and mouse emulation thru BIOS.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-19, 14:39:

Personally, I don't bother with USB on these older platforms due to lack of standardization for the brackets, very slow transfer speeds (I use a NIC instead for this kind of stuff) and as Warlord stated, the lack of keyboard and mouse emulation thru BIOS.

Many socket 7 have keyboard usb support for bios/dos

But agree, just use the din port.

Warlord wrote on 2022-12-19, 14:03:

Get a Ps2 header bracket they cost 1 dollar.

Appreciate if you could get those links. Searched them on ebay but no luck finding them!!

There are headers for the mobo but the pinout can vary.

This is safer: and easier.

(And also takes a slot) so easier and same effect, also universal.

Anyway. Just search “ps2 pci”