VOGONS


First post, by Kordanor

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Hey there!
So after I accepted the fate of not being able to adjust the clockspeed in BIOS directly (as I can do atm) with a board which supports AGP (they do exist, but it's probably easier to find a unicorn) I checked what other boards fit the bill:

-SS7 Board
-AT
-AGP Slot
-ISA Slot
-CPU on the same level (or above) AGP slot (as it wont fit into my case otherwise)
-Pins to set Clockspeed and Multiplier (and not dip-switches), so that I can route them to an external switch

What I found is the the Acorp 5ali61, which seems to be very available (albeit not cheap, coming at around 150€ if you include shipping)
I did some homework already. And found this thread:
My build and hello world
With talks about revisions, essentially saying that the Northbridge before G are broken and need external Tag-RAM.
I am not quite sure how this is to be interpreted. My best guess is that boards before Northbridge G have a chip next to it, and might be slightly slower. Is that guess correct? Does it have any noticable impact? Or is it just important if you want to overclock?

I also found the manual here and read through it:
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/978434/Acor … #product-5ALI61
But because there are different revisions of the board I am now not sure, if this applies to all boards or for example if Revision A is significantly worse than Revision F and the board is just applying to F (for example Rev A might not support 550Mhz CPUs or something like that, even though its mentioned in the manual)

I also saw in the manual that there is a Turbo LED and even Turbo headers for a switch. Does anyone have first hand experience with what they actually do? (my current board only has an LED header, which is always on, so pretty useless)

On Ebay there are currently multiple Boards with
Board Rev: A
Northbridge Rev: E

There is one with
Board Rev: ?
Northbridge Rev: G (still as the external chip installed)
(board sold as potentially broken as its untested)

And there is one with
Board Rev: F
Northbridge Rev: G (does not have the external chip installed)
This one is insanely expensive and located in the US (so add another 100€ to the price of 300€)

Do I miss anything by going for the Board Rev: A instead of the latest revision, besides of maybe some minor room for overclocking?
Is ther anything else important to know about the board? For example, I read that the AX59Pro does not work with Nvidia Cards...which would be pretty bad. ^^

Reply 1 of 11, by rasz_pl

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This reads like self harm cry for help 🙁. Probably every socket7 board will have some AGP problems ranging from doesnt work at all to "its so stable it doesnt crash every gaming session". Isnt the whole deal of going back to ss7 AMD builds about reliving that trauma? You could cut yourself some slack and instead play road not taken alternative reality where you did research in 1999 and got intel 440BX board with overclocked Celeron 😜
Re: AMD K6-2 (not +) - any real difference between 400-550MHz?

https://github.com/raszpl/FIC-486-GAC-2-Cache-Module for AT&T Globalyst
https://github.com/raszpl/386RC-16 memory board
https://github.com/raszpl/440BX Reference Design adapted to Kicad
https://github.com/raszpl/Zenith_ZBIOS MFM-300 Monitor

Reply 2 of 11, by Kordanor

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My goal is to play games from 1990 DOS games to y2000 Windows 98 games. I think that SS7 is a solid choice there.
And "reliving that trauma" is certainly not part if it. I don't actually remember having any PC issues back in the days. Buying something like the Diamond Fire GL1000 Pro for hundreds of bucks, expecting it to run 3D accelerated games, which it didn't - yes. But stuff not working...not really.

I mean if you get a better idea to achieve that goal, which is original hardware and not Emulation (Hardware or Software) then let me know. But according to Phils Videos and others the SS7 should be a solid choice.

Edit: And btw: I am not interested in "maximizing" a PC in terms of fastest possible speed on SS7 or anything like that. My goal is flexibility. I will probably roll with my current 350Mhz CPU, which should be more than enough for the games I have in mind.

Reply 3 of 11, by rasz_pl

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>expecting it to run 3D accelerated games, which it didn't

yep. In my opinion the only reliable way of getting working 3D on s7 is 3dfx. Instead of looking at $100-200 ss7 motherboards buy V2 or Voodoo3 2000/3000 and be done with it. Works in every motherboard with AGP, doesnt care about clocks or broken chipsets, and is gentle on weak FPU CPUs.

https://github.com/raszpl/FIC-486-GAC-2-Cache-Module for AT&T Globalyst
https://github.com/raszpl/386RC-16 memory board
https://github.com/raszpl/440BX Reference Design adapted to Kicad
https://github.com/raszpl/Zenith_ZBIOS MFM-300 Monitor

Reply 4 of 11, by Kordanor

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That was not my point though.

Reply 5 of 11, by rasz_pl

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Isnt the original question about broken socket7 chipsets? AGP this, cache that. In the end you will most likely still end up with a board that crashes while running Nvidia card in 3D.

https://github.com/raszpl/FIC-486-GAC-2-Cache-Module for AT&T Globalyst
https://github.com/raszpl/386RC-16 memory board
https://github.com/raszpl/440BX Reference Design adapted to Kicad
https://github.com/raszpl/Zenith_ZBIOS MFM-300 Monitor

Reply 6 of 11, by Kordanor

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The original questions I actually marked bold:
-Do the revisions matter in any significant way for normal use (no overclocking)
-Are there any experiences with Turbo Button and LED?
-Is there anything noteworthy regarding that board which I missed?

Why would the board crash with Nvidia chipsets? Is that a common thing?

Reply 7 of 11, by rasz_pl

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Super socket 7 and AGP cards thats why I called it reliving trauma. Maybe you will get lucky and everything will just magically work.

https://github.com/raszpl/FIC-486-GAC-2-Cache-Module for AT&T Globalyst
https://github.com/raszpl/386RC-16 memory board
https://github.com/raszpl/440BX Reference Design adapted to Kicad
https://github.com/raszpl/Zenith_ZBIOS MFM-300 Monitor

Reply 8 of 11, by Kordanor

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Ah, alright. Well, the thread states it's not with all cards in general and apparently less problems with the ALI chipset which the board in question does have. So I guess thats a plus.
I do have multiple AGP cards anyways and when in doubt I could also mix and match (I hopefully will also receive a Voodoo 2 from a family member, not sure if it works).
Right now I am not too concerned about that potential issue. Ofc if the board was an especially bad case in terms of compatibility, I would avoid it.

Reply 9 of 11, by Sphere478

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rasz_pl wrote on 2023-03-18, 21:11:

This reads like self harm cry for help 🙁. Probably every socket7 board will have some AGP problems ranging from doesnt work at all to "its so stable it doesnt crash every gaming session". Isnt the whole deal of going back to ss7 AMD builds about reliving that trauma? You could cut yourself some slack and instead play road not taken alternative reality where you did research in 1999 and got intel 440BX board with overclocked Celeron 😜
Re: AMD K6-2 (not +) - any real difference between 400-550MHz?

I’ve gotten a few ss7 setups fully stable. But they are for sure picky :p freeway made a very nice board with good agp implementation. Designed by tmc I believe.

Unfortunately this board uses dip and is atx so not for OP.

There are a lot of criteria to this post’s question. Maybe it might be more productive to ask people what their best AT ss7 combos are with full specs and pick one to replicate.

Personally, my favorite AT s7 setup isn’t a ss7 so you might not be interested in replicating it. But it is stable. 400mhz k6 no agp

Fastest ss7 I have that I like is my freeway setup (atx). Works great with radeon 9800 pro. Can even play halo.

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 10 of 11, by Kordanor

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The issue with identifying the "best" ss7 and then trying to mirror it, is that it might just not be available.

Reply 11 of 11, by Kordanor

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I tried to find more on the board.
In this thread: Voodoo3 won't POST on S7 AMDK6 III, other cards fine a user reported an issue, but it was then not related to the board. In addition the user Mamba commented that this is a solid board.
On the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md5Wl7t-VfI Phil mentions issues with Nvidia cards, however they seem to be mostly linked to the VIA chipset.

As one of the 2 boards available was just sold, I then decided to try my luck and buy the other one. Bought for a total of £113,99 (Includes £15,00 shipping from the UK) = 135,60€
Now I hope for the best (especially that the board arrives save and works in the first place)