Smokeputer

[momaka]

Re: Smokeputer

what brand/model?

sounds a lot like my gateway with a slot a board i had... it had the jabil kadoka mainboard with the AMD irongate nb and AMD viper sb.

Oh yeah, I was going to put that in the description and forgot. Yes, it's a Gateway Select 750 with a 750 MHz Slot A Athlon processor, same motherboard. I was actually looking for a manual on the motherboard earlier today but couldn't find it because I was spelling it wrong (couldn't tell the a's from the o's in the model number). Thanks for the info.

the gateway case was useless... stupid tiny newton 200w...

What's wrong with the case? It's quite large and has lots of space to work with. No front USB, but that's not too hard to deal with. And I'm sure the tiny 200W Newton was more than enough for that computer. Probably well built too.

I'm keeping mine the way it is. Might mod the connector on the chassis fan to run at 7v though, just to make it more quiet.

[ratdude747]

Re: Smokeputer

ok... i took a look at it. it still has the overkill 300w unit in there... and only 256mb ram. likely another case of 256mb cuts it.

i snared some pics... that way we can compare boards and if yours is the same, you have some ideas on what they are good for.

my main use for it was a computer for the garage. it does light to medium web browsing well, does email well, and was good for messing with xubuntu. mine was tweaked... it has hard to find ndiswrapper drivers for the TI wifi chip pre-loaded and it also is tweaked to be able to use gnome wigets (for palm sync, mainly).

good luck with your find!

edit- mine is the 700mhz, but exact same board. very nice board... it uses the same pinouts as intel did back then (jabil made intel's boards around that time), so it is a good drop in for OEM cases with stripped out boards, like i did.

good score!

[ratdude747]

Re: Smokeputer

my complaints on the case:

1. too big. pita to move, and too big for my needs. plus, mine was held together with tape.

2. limited to the proprietary PSU. you coyld use a dremel but #1 made it not worth it to me. it is well built but i still like having parts i can drop in...

3. hd mounting is a pain... the sideways mounting never made sense to me...

gateway has excellent support for that board... GO HERE and look at all the good info they have. the product views are the best...

[c_hegge]

Re: Smokeputer

1. too big. pita to move, and too big for my needs...

I don't have a problem with large cases. My Antec 1200 case is so big it weighs about 15kg when empty. With all the parts in it's probably about 20-25kg (which is almost half of me!). My laptop is also quite huge as it's a modded briefcase.

[ratdude747]

Re: Smokeputer

by huge, i mean bigger than that. like server size, but with a tiny PSU.

part of why i dumped mine was it had been beat to hell. taped and cracked plastic side. front bezel taped on. scratch and scuffed like a demolition derby car.

the hard drive mounting is weird... holds 3 drives, but they are on edge. the back one was the worst to get to.

no handy reset switch. not a biggie, but i care... the dell 4100 had one though... always nice.

big cases have a place... but that was not one of them.

[mockingbird]

Re: Smokeputer

Looks like an Intel LX motherboard. Fastest processors are the 66mhz FSB Celeron Tualatins. 733mhz IIRC. I don't know that I'd spend that kind of effort like you did. Nice job though.

[ratdude747]

Re: Smokeputer

its AMD slot A. it is exceptionally nice, as it has both amd north and south, amd has NO eletrolytic caps. runs xubuntu reasonably. nice board for the era.

gateway did use LX boards... they did have some nichicon pm's and that was it.

[mockingbird]

Re: Smokeputer

Ah, I didn't see yours, I was talking about his. Still, nice system, all tantalum caps. His also has some tantalum caps but his VRM looks like gigantic UCC LXZ.

Do you have the place for the goldfinger on your Athlon?

[ratdude747]

Re: Smokeputer

good luck finding one... the fingers is hard to find. i would also need a better cooler... then one i have came from a pII and gets pretty warm in use.

[Wizard]

Re: Smokeputer

That old Dell case is generic, I saw it used by one other maker.

1. This takes microATX and ATX boards.

2. Case can take standard ATX PSU up to 500W as long as the length of PSU is standard.

How I know? I had one. Nice and slim. As long as you have drive brackets especially the HD bracket for bottom mount under the floppy drive cage.
Second, it needs 4 long screws to mount second hard drive where that fan is. Mine were missing.

Cheers, Wizard

[ratdude747]

Re: Smokeputer

yeah, i know... got a micron pII unit with the same case. it was broken... bezel taped on. i scavenged a cross brace and the hardware for the bottom hd mount. i also got a better set of long screws for the fanned hd area (the dell was originally missing one of the two).

i agree they are not bad cases... not to mention the cdrom bays coue out as a unit as well.

i had already dremeled the existing fan holder so i did not use the more standard one in the micron.

[Wizard]

Re: Smokeputer

Cross brace? Where it hooks together at both ends?

Mine was not there and wasn't a issue. Re: Micron; I was trying to put finger on what name it was, that was it!

Cheers, Wizard

[ratdude747]

Re: Smokeputer

it goes from front to back...crosses the edge of the hard drive. it is a non-issue but i figured why not.

better than the one the old gateway case had- now that i remember, thats why i hated the case so much. the crossbar (brace, whatever) was a PITA to remove and it was necessary for the case to work. it blocked cards and the hard drives, but was needed to support the large 120mm cpu fan. beastly but such a pain. the only fix would be a standard cooler, which i did (and then i got the 4100 case as a freebie, did some research on pinouts, discovered it would match, and swapped the boards)

[dobber]

Re: Smokeputer

All this talk about Gateway Computers, makes me laugh. I may have built them when I worked there for 7 1/2 years. I sure hated the Cross Bars on the new look towers, they were a big piece of crap. I now work at a Casino in the IT Department, and boy I tell you about some of the worst Smokeputer you could ever see. When I was a Slot Tech, we would get sick from working in the machines do to all of the nasty stuff that floats around in casinos. Also people have a tendancy to flick ashes and pour pop enywhere they think they can damage stuff.