Just bought a ton of REALLY OLD computer components and need help.

[totalnoob]

Sup guys..long story short I went to the ultimate retro yard sale and got piles and piles of old IDE CD drives, 3GB hard drives (lol), NIC cards, PC100 memory, Power supplies pulled from old Dells and Compaqs, and around 10 Pentium 2 and Pentium 3 processors. I know it's weak but I want to have fun with it and build a bunch of cheap word processing machines..maybe to give to a charity.

I think I have everything necessary except for the motherboards.

Questions:

Were mobos (and case standoff positions) designed differently back then, or can I use a modern case?
Is there a reliable source online where I can buy ancient (socket 370 and slot 1) supplies to complete these builds?

I also had a question about these processors. Every one of them seems preinstalled and "stuck" on a PCB that looks like it is supposed to be inserted into a PCI-type slot.. This is very odd since I always assumed CPU's were separate squares that went directly into the mobo..but these appear to be part of a graphics card type thingie with gold connectors on the side. It looks like it needs to be inserted into something else. Is this normal?

Any answers/tips/hints/advice for retro building would be greatly appreciated!

 

[MichaelD]

Those carded-CPUs are Socket 7 form factor and they do indeed slide into a slot on the motherboard. You won't be able to do much with those machines. Windows 2000 at max. Stripped-down Linux distro would probably be your best bet on HW that old. Good luck.

*edit*
They're not Socket 7...S7 is a ZIF socket, not a card...I'm trying to find out now what it was called. Slot A?Slot A? BRB.

*GOT IT!!!*
Slot 1

 

[Visual]

The CPUs are probably Slot 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slot_1
Just did a google shopping search and there are some results with prices starting around $25 (a lot false hits that turn out to be memory though). Maybe you can find better deals, especially when you'll be buying 10 at once, but I don't know where.
But you'll also need special heatsinks/fans for the weird slot, PCI sound cards, AGP video cards, monitors, keyboards, mouses, a ton of time and patience assembling the stuff and figuring out which of it is busted already (believe me, a lot of it will be)
I just don't get why you would bother.

 

[totalnoob]

Thanks guys.. slot 1, lol..What came before that, slot 0?

I already got one machine working actually using an old Gateway motherboard. Pentium 3 600mhz + 512MB ram + a small Nvidia TNT AGP video card and surprisingly it's running quite zippy with XPSP3 on a 12GB hard drive...only takes 30 seconds from startup to the XP desktop.

Of course it was sluggish at first but I used my master tweak skills to minimize the number of services and also slimmed down the install with XPLite 1.9, so it takes up 1/2 the space on the HD. I have the desktop at a nice high resolution (1400x900) and it looks great..no problem opening up Open Office documents, IE, Windows Media Player, etc. It's all you need for web surfing and documents...so I figure it's worth the investment to find mobos that can resurrect the rest of them. Some local school or church would appreciate it + I'll get a tax writeoff for the donation and have fun doing it.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: totalnoob
slot 1, lol..What came before that, slot 0?

* Socket 7 & 8
* Socket 6
* Socket 5
* Socket 4
* Socket 3
* Socket 2
* Socket 1

 

[Billb2]

Welcome to the world of "real" computers.
I'd be interested in your findings about what what you think the shortcomings of your "antique" systems are. Especially in "daily use".

Oh, and have a look at CPUCool, CPUFSB, etc., for overclocking.

 

[acheron]

"REALLY OLD" would be at least 8088s. Pentium IIIs are practically new.

 

[Farmer]

I guess 10 years can be considered "really old." Geez, I can't believe it.

Slot 1 was for Intel PIIs and early PIIIs (I actually still have a Slot 1 PIII system circa-1999, and it boots fine, and an exciting era it was, AMD finally becomes competitive, race to 1GHz). Slot A was what AMD initially used for their K7, the first Athlon. Those were the only two popular CPU "cartridges" before everything went back to sockets. I also remember it was around this time that enthusiasts first started buying aftermarket heatsink-fans in numbers, which is now the norm rather than exception, at least for enthusiasts.

As for stand offs and installing motherboards, the ATX standard was well established in the PII era.

 

[Paperdoc]

Over the last couple decades, mobo sizes and layouts went from AT to ATX and then micro-ATX. Most cases now can handle at least ATX and micro-, and I expect most can use the older AT, too. The AT style was larger, so small cases may not accommodate them. For each mobo design, the layout of mounting points was kept constant. In the case, when you look closely you'll see that you have to move standoffs to the right case hole position, depending on which mobo you are mounting.

Power supplies are significantly different. The AT power supply has basically one type of output connector to the mobo, nothing extra for a video card, and only 4-pin Molex power connectors for peripherals (plus, usually, a few of the smaller ones for floppy drives). They usually required an actual on/off switch, not a momentary push-button on the front panel; often these were permanently part of the PSU on a 16" cable to reach the front. The ATX PSU introduced different output connectors, software turn-off and front panel push-to-start connected to mobo, not PSU. Case cooling was rpovided almost entirely by the PSU exhaust fan with no separate case fans.

Most such mobo's will have 2 IDE channels and one floppy channel on the mobo, 1 Parallel and 2 serial ports for peripherals, and a few USB (not USB2) ports. You will need to pay attention to the details of RAM required - there were several types over the time span you seem to have. Some actually REQUIRED RAM sticks mounted in matched pairs.

486, Pentium and Pentium 2 CPU's all used separate CPU cooling fans with thermal paste clamped onto the top of a CPU in a mobo socket. The Pentium 3 in the Slot1 system used a dedicated CPU slot (not part of the PCI bus) and the CPU module contained the cooler in it. Pentium 4's were the start of high heat output requiring larger CPU heatsinks and cooling fans.

I still have a Socket 7 mobo with an AMD K6-III chip running 550 MHz, 768 MB of PC150 RAM, a 128 GB hard drive plus an older 20 GB drive, 2 CD burners, running Win XP SP2 just fine. Speed is OK, would be faster if I removed the old Norton Utilities I have on it for virus protection.

 

[mmntech]

lol. Slot 1. I still have one of those lying around with a Pentium II 233mhz. That was my first PC. I was shocked when I saw how big the CPU was. It certainly would make upgrades a lot easier for a novice. No need to mess with thermal paste or exposed pins.

 

[glugglug]

Originally posted by: totalnoob
Thanks guys.. slot 1, lol..What came before that, slot 0?

Slot 1 was the first slotted architecture for PCs. Intel claimed that staying with a socket (Socket 7) was limiting performance (really they wanted to move to something patented so AMD couldn't use the same boards) - so why are we in sockets now?

Slot 2 was released very close to slot 1, to keep server parts separate and more expensive than desktops. Slot 1 is mainly for desktops, Slot 2 is just for servers.

The original Athlons were in Slot A after this. Stuff used slots for that couple of years partly because the difference between CPU and bus speed had gotten too big and they hadn't shrunken the cache to fit in the chip with the CPU easily. But mainly because Intel's marketing convinced people for awhile that sockets are bad.

Also, depending on just how old the motherboards are, they could be using either EDO DRAM or SDR DIMMs. SDR is about the same size as today's DDR, as each module is 64 bits wide just like today. EDO (at least from the 486 days onwards) is 32 bits wide, and the modules are much smaller, so you should easily be able to tell looking at the memory slots which type it uses.

Since these are old Compaqs, and Compaq was far worse about using modern/non-EOL components other than the CPU back then than they are today, I'm going to guess you probably have 440FX chipsets which only support EDO & FPM (FPM = even older & slower than EDO, I think it goes in the same socket).

If it takes SDR DIMMs you can install just 1. If it requires EDO you need to install the SIMMs in pairs so your 32-bit wide modules will fill the 64-bit wide bus.

Oh, and for an OS, either Win98 or Win2K will run just fine with that amount of horsepower, although Win2K driver support is terrible for anything made in the 90s. So I would stick with 98. (or of course Linux).

If any of those old PCs are Socket 7, check what chipset it is.
If it is an Intel chipset, the only Intel Socket 7 chipset which supported enough tag RAM for caching addresses > 64MB is the 430HX. And even with the HX this extra tag RAM (to cache up to 512MB) was optional and would probably not be found in a Compaq or Dell. Windows and Linux both allocate physical memory from the top down, so if you were to put say 128MB in the box it will only cache the first 64MB which will be rarely used, making the system incredibly slow.

If it has an ALi or VIA chipset, it can probably cache up to at least 512MB properly.

 

[mindless1]

Originally posted by: glugglug

Originally posted by: totalnoob
Thanks guys.. slot 1, lol..What came before that, slot 0?

Slot 1 was the first slotted architecture for PCs. Intel claimed that staying with a socket (Socket 7) was limiting performance (really they wanted to move to something patented so AMD couldn't use the same boards) - so why are we in sockets now?

The reason for slot 1 was to allow a back-side bus for faster L2 cache chips on the CPU PCB instead of further away on the motherboard. This did improve performance until they could shrink their process size enough to fit L2 cache on the CPU die itself, but it also increased yields of the CPU.

 

[0roo0roo]

i remember reading there were some local charities that did that kinda thing, i dunno, if u can find one u could probably put together better machines from a combined parts bin.

 

[brblx]

i think i've still got a slot1 and an s370 board laying around, both abit 440bx's. if i can find 'em OP can them for shipping, if he wants.

 

[firewolfsm]

My work has tons of components like these lying around in storage. 3GB hard drives, ATi Rage cards, and some Pentium II, III computers as well. I'm not really sure why my boss still has them at all but I might ask about taking some home for charity.

I'm just not sure if that's worth it, although I'm sure some schools in Detroit could use them, please let me know how the effort works out for you (in message if see this.)

 

[RebateMonger]

Before spending too much time on a motherboard from that time frame, inspect all the capacitors for leaks or bulges. Take a look at the coils and voltage regulators, too, for heat-related damage. There were lots of capacitor issues in that era.

 

[mindless1]

RebateMonger read my mind... Lots of PII/III boards are at end of life already due to old capacitors even if they don't look bad. Best bet for a long-lived board from that era were the Intel 440LX/ZX/BX boards with large 12mm diameter Nichicon capacitors, commonly used in some major OEM systems of the period like Dell, Gateway, etc.

 

[Modelworks]

Don't forget the slocket. When processors were making the change to chips put on the board they sold adapters that were sockets on a card . You put the processor in the socket then put the card in the slot.

I miss slot1 based cpu. It was so much easier to apply heatsinks or change out a cpu fan.

 

[ChaiBabbaChai]

Yeah I remember those Slot1 CPU's they didn't work out too well. hahah

I think I have a good AMD K6-III+ or whatever (the best K6 chip ever made, which isn't saying much) somewhere around here, as well as a 66Mhz SCSI fast-wide server card and some new SCSI cables if anyone is interested. Shipping costs, and they are yours (if I can find them).