Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

[Topcat]

...and it's NOT a BP6!!





This was made possible by some weird brand of slotkets that tout supporting dual CPU's, but do not support Coppermines.....interesting indeed.....but they worked. The motherboard is an Asus P2L97-D, which is a LX chipset and hellbound to 66FSB. The LX chipset will not run anything higher (like 100, even with CPU's rated for 100FSB)....albeit, I did try 75, it runs stable @ 466....

More later when I tinker with it. Another slow worthless retro rig....but I enjoy this stuff.

[Topcat]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

testing CPU's I have on hand.... 433's run stable @ 466/75. Pair of 500's run @ 563/75, stable... Curiousity got the better of me and I picked up a pair of 533's (fastest Medocino Celeron) cheap, seeing if they'll run @ 600/75. I didn't bother with 83FSB, its never been known to be stable because of the PCI & AGP dividers...but if the CPU can hack it, 75 tends to be solid....Many Mendocino's don't even mind 100, but with this chipset, its not an option.

This post created from it, @ 563/75 on win2k.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

hm someone with more spare video cards than I. Really all you need is one good AGP 4x, PCI, and PCI-E. Maybe ISA, but do people actually still send you boards to repair that are ISA only?

[Topcat]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

hm someone with more spare video cards than I. Really all you need is one good AGP 4x, PCI, and PCI-E. Maybe ISA, but do people actually still send you boards to repair that are ISA only?

I think they breed at night....what you see is only the tip of the iceberg......I have boxes full in the attic.

[ratdude747]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

hm someone with more spare video cards than I. Really all you need is one good AGP 4x, PCI, and PCI-E. Maybe ISA, but do people actually still send you boards to repair that are ISA only?

Micro channel, EISA, NuBus, and VLB too?

[Topcat]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

^
I do have a couple VLB and EISA's on-hand. Haven't used them in years...

[momaka]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

Cool

Maybe you should setup a classic retro LAN cafe?
I know I'd come then. Former co-worker I worked with actually does that every year and I always go if he calls me. Fun times playing through retro games. Believe it or not, a lot of older games are just as fun as newer titles... if not even better (sometimes due to silly bugs that can make the gameplay just that more fun).

Anyways, you can also always count on old hardware like this to work near forever. With new stuff, I never know. Seems like too many things are ran near their limits and that's why things just don't last.

hm someone with more spare video cards than I. Really all you need is one good AGP 4x, PCI, and PCI-E. Maybe ISA, but do people actually still send you boards to repair that are ISA only?

Oh, I have collected quite a horde too!
But it's mostly PCI-E stuff. I do have some good AGP stuff too, though. And PCI - just a handful. Could always use more. I think I got the video card hoard bug - same stuff as the PSU hoard bug. That said, I regularly look for video cards on eBay, especially AGP stuff. Broken/for parts - even better... just as long as the price is right.
I think you've all seen at least one of my Sacon FZ video card decapping threads. And more to come guaranteed.

[Topcat]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

...Curiousity got the better of me and I picked up a pair of 533's (fastest Medocino Celeron) cheap, seeing if they'll run @ 600/75...

This OC test did not work. It was never stable. I even tried them in a BP6, which allows for better tweaking....while it yielded better results, it was never stable....and I ran the vcore up to 2.3v.

I stuck the 533's back in the Asus P2L97-D, and will run them at stock speed....for a board that was never able to run anything in a dual configuration faster than a pentium2 @333, dual 533 with full speed L2 caches is a mega win!

[eccerr0r]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

fastest I've ever had my 300A/66 celerons back then (one slot 1, one S370) were 450/100 in a dual slot 1 BX board. One of them eventually died on me, the other one is still working. They were both replaced together by a single Celeron 1200/100.

[Topcat]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

They were both replaced together by a single Celeron 1200/100.

...but having a dual motherboard with an empty socket/slot is absolute blasphemy!

[eccerr0r]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

Yeah, but the 1200/256K cache celeron was more stable and faster than the working plus the unstable 128K cache celerons together

Alas I could not get the 1200 to MP with a 450... it would no longer be symmetric anyway...

[Topcat]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

Yeah, but the 1200/256K cache celeron was more stable and faster than the working plus the unstable 128K cache celerons together

Alas I could not get the 1200 to MP with a 450... it would no longer be symmetric anyway...

You could have ran a pair of SL5QW's in slotkets, P3's @ 1100/100. 100MHz core speed hit, but still get 256k full speed L2, and 2 CPU's! I've got a pair of those running in a P2B-D.

[momaka]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

...but having a dual motherboard with an empty socket/slot is absolute blasphemy!

*Looks at HP NetServer E-800PC / CUR-DLS motherboard*
Yup, it's got an empty socket.
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...2&d=1301715572
... or rather a socket terminator, but whatever.
I do have 2x P3 1 GHz CPUs for it and I tried them before. But for the sake of saving energy and keeping my room cool in the summer (this used to be a headless Torrent server / file storage in my college dorm a few years ago, where I didn't have AC), I put back the original P3 800 MHz CPU in there. I still have the 2x 1 GHz P3's, so I can upgrade it back. I haven't done any torrenting in forever, so PC is only fired occasionally for file backup. Had this motherboard had an AGP slot, I would 100% have turned it into a classic gaming PC.

On a similar note, I even thought about running the SM board you gave me with 1 CPU only when I build it and when the hot summer days hit again. Hope I don't get banned from BCN for having such an idea.
(Though in all honesty, I'll probably get too lazy to keep taking out and putting back CPUs in the board, so more likely it's gonna stay with 2 CPUs forever. )

[Topcat]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

*Looks at HP NetServer E-800PC / CUR-DLS motherboard*
Yup, it's got an empty socket.
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...2&d=1301715572
... or rather a socket terminator, but whatever.

That looks like a trusty serverworks chipset. I always liked them..they weren't the most efficient, they were extremely stable!

On a similar note, I even thought about running the SM board you gave me with 1 CPU only when I build it and when the hot summer days hit again. Hope I don't get banned from BCN for having such an idea.

If it's being used, I'm happy. CPU's are cheap for it though....I think I have a pair in the CPU stash somewhere.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

Is that a T-bird (or a T-bred, maybe a Barton!) I'm seeing under the tiny Samsung LCD monitor? (first photo)

[Topcat]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

Is that a T-bird (or a T-bred, maybe a Barton!) I'm seeing under the tiny Samsung LCD monitor? (first photo)

That one is a t-bred. I have a drawer full of socket-a processors, but that one is the lab rat.

[Topcat]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

I found a beige case for this one that I forgot I had.....

[momaka]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

I found a beige case for this one that I forgot I had.....

Haha. Doesn't it feel good when you take all of that old hardware that's been sitting for years (and possibly forgotten about) built into something functional again?

I'm sometimes like that with heatsinks: I stash them in a box (or 5) and forget what I have. Then some years down the road I need a heatsink and accidentally find just the right one that I forgot I had... and it fits perfect!

[Topcat]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

Haha. Doesn't it feel good when you take all of that old hardware that's been sitting for years (and possibly forgotten about) built into something functional again?

I'm sometimes like that with heatsinks: I stash them in a box (or 5) and forget what I have. Then some years down the road I need a heatsink and accidentally find just the right one that I forgot I had... and it fits perfect!

This was a build created entirely from scrap bin parts except the 533MHz processors I bought. GPU is a TNT2 32mb from the bin. SOund is an awe64 from the parts bin. Same with NIC and SCSI RAID...and scsi drives. I don't even remember where I got the case, but it was a freebie from somewhere local.

It's all assembled, but I didn't take pics of the assembly. I'll get some completed pics tomorrow....but its alive & well with a pair of celeron 533's and 512mb RAM. The chipset supports either 512mb sdram or 1gb edo.... I'll take the 512mb of 7ns sdram over 1gb of 60ns edo. Win2k runs smooth.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Dual Celeron Weirdness Build....

Anyone know if the Tualatin Celerons will run SMP or did they nerf them to be not able to run SMP?