PCA Forums

Hey guys, this is my first thread here, so be gentle.

I am currently a Mac/Windows/Linux user, who thinks its about time that he got a new(er) PC. My main PC at the moment is an antique 486 DX2/66 with 8 megs of ram and a 1.2 gig hard drive running Windows 95 OSR2. With IE 4 (my favourite version of IE), it is slooow, and unfortunately it won't get past the boot screen on NT Workstation. However, don't think this is my best computer. Far from it. My main computer is the one i'm typing this on now: a 333 Mhz iMac with 96 megs of RAM and a 40 gig hard drive running Mac OS 9.2.2. (I haven't gone X...yet) A few weeks ago my best friend rang up offering me a Celeron 300 processor and a 5 gig Quantum BigFoot IDE hard drive. (God those things are big) He is offering these to me if i can find a Slot-1 mobo to build the machine with. However, i do have a few questions:

1. What would be the best chipset? Is the Intel 820 or the 440 any good?

2. How much would i expect to pay for a motherboard in Australia? (inbuilt sound and video and networking isn't important, but it needs to be able to use an AT form factor power supply)

3. How well would NT 4 with the latest Service Pack run on here with 128 megs of ram?

4. How easy is it for me to overclock one of these? If i could get a 33 or 50 Mhz boost and still have the machine run reliably that would be deluxe.

5. I want to dual boot NT 4 with RedHat Linux. Which boot manager should i use? NT's OS Loader, or the copy of LILO that comes with RedHat?

6. When i apply the latest Service Pack for NT, do i need to apply all the previous Service Packs, or can i just go straight to the latest?

Although it would be nice to have the machine up and running by April, i don't think i will be able to now, with the rise in RAM prices. (60 bucks for 128 megs of PC133? Get real.) I know that some of these questions may seem dumb to you, but my main specialty is the Mac. The specs of the machine-to-be are:

Processor: Celeron 300

RAM: 128 megs

HD: 5 gig Quantum Bigfoot

CD ROM: Old Creative 4x from my 486

Video card: Probably gonna be an old TsengLabs ET4000 I have lying around here, until i get a Voodoo2 or something

Sound card: Probably going to be my old SB16 until i save up for an SB Live

Network card: An old 10BT D-Link DE-220

Case: Hopefully this big old full tower from a Pentium 1, which i might be getting. (The case, that is. Not the Pentium 1) Got tons of drive bays, both 5.25 and 3.5. Very nice, although its so big that instead of sticking your monitor on your desk, you may as well stick it on top of the machine.

Thanks for all your help, and i'll let you guys know of any progress in this project.

/me checks the posting date, wondering if it is from 1999 ...

OK, lets try to answer a couple questions ...

- Quantum Bigfoot drives are bad, they had a fairly high failure rate ... I suggest to make regular backups of the important data when you dare to use it.
I lost a 2.something Quantum Bigfoot after a year or so, I just threw it in the dumpster not wanting a replacement drive ...

- Celeron 300 ... or is it a Celeron 300a ? I hope it's a Celeron 300a, cause the 300 has no integrated L2 cache, the 300a has 128K .... the Celeron 300a is also a top overclocker, most reached easily 450MHz just by upping the FSB from 66 to 100

1. Intel 440BX

2. No idea, all mobos from this time are discontinued and even finding a Slot1 AT board won't be easy ... Soyo made one that has even some o/c potential, the SY-6BB http://www.soyousa.com/sy6bb.html

3. It should run fairly well, especially due to the 128MB RAM, it'll run even better when you can o/c the Celeron 300a to 450 ... if it's only a Celeron 300 you might see a lil less performance due to the missing L2 cache and I doubt it even was a good overclocker.

4. Celeron 300a, as mentioned above, was almost 100% success rate to run 450 (or even 464) by just upping the FSB from the 66MHz to 100MHz. Just make sure your memory can handle the higher speed (it looks that way since yer wanna get PC133) and that you have a nice cooler cause you might have to up the core voltage a lil = more heat.

5. NT-loader, http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/Linux+NT-Loader.html explains it ... you install NT first, next Linux and put LILO in first Linux partition, not MBR, then you extract the bootsector from that partition and copy it to the NT partition and add a line to BOOT.INI ... but the howto explains it more indeepth.

6. You could just install the very latest servicepack, 6a is the latest for NT4 ... BUT it takes some extra work if ya want to enable aktive desktop or the integration of IE into the OS.
I think you had to install first SP3 and then the IE4.0 and then you have to install the latest SP ... something in that order, it's been a while that I played this game with NT4

I hope this helps a lil for your "new" PC

something to add to #3

i've had pretty decent luck with PCCHIPS brand slot1 AT-form factor motherboards. they run SiS chipsets, they overclock decently.

I also found pcchips as a suggested slot1 AT-mobo manufacturer searching the newsgroups but now specific models mentioned (and I didn't want to search for too long) and they have no more links to slot1 mobos at their homepage http://www.pcchips.com/index2.html , maybe you know a model number by any chance?
What about o/c potential upping FSB with those pcchips mobos?

if it is a slot1 300a, look around and see if you can find an msi 6163 pro bx mobo - they are rock solid and superb overclockers - i used one with everything from a celery 366 to a p3 800 and it will give you a really good upgrade path. you can get a concerverter to go from an at to an atx form factor - you may just have to rewire the case buttons -

depending on the price you're getting this older stuff for, you might also want to look at some of the duron/mobo combos that are available - not sure if you can get the same deals in Aus - but here you can get a decent 950 mhz duron/mobo combo for about $125 - that combo will be at least twice as fast as anything you'll get out of that celery.

i have an sis 630 (i think) chipset mobo which has onboard everything sound, vid, lan, dvd decoder and even came with a modem for $65 - i have a 1.2 bird in it that i got for $80 and it's and awfully good machine for the money -

which ever way you go enjoy and keep us posted!

PCChips mobos are JUNK. I've had nothing but problems with them. They're cheaply constructed, the BIOS is rickety and their combo AT/ATX mobos have serious Power Management issues.

I've setup several of them and generally been very unhappy.

I'd shop around for a new or used Slot1 BX mobo. You can still buy new Soyo 6BA+III, 6BA+VI or 6BA+100 boards, and the Intel SE440BX2 mobo - both good boards. The Intel isn't an overclocker's board but it's a rock solid mobo and it's widely availble (I got dozens of hits for it on http://www.pricewatch.com).

The Abit Be6-II and the Asus P3B-F are great boards if you can find them second hand.

Directron.com has four Slot-1 mobos and I've had good luck dealing with them in the past. They have the Intel SE440BX2 for $70 - the others aren't BX mobos so I can't recommend them off hand.

Even if it is a plain 300 he might get a good overclock out of it. I picked up a 300 before the (A) came out and got 504 out of it with the stock heatsink.

I'm no big fan of VIA boards, but I'm playing with an ABIT VT6X4 right now for a client and HardOCP rated it very highly. Article here: http://www.hardocp.com/reviews/mainboards/abit/vt6x4/

I got one hit on pricewatch.

UPDATE: I now have a source for that deluxe jumbo size full tower AT case that i was talking about before, and although its not as big as i remembered, (there ain't quite enough room for my Samsung on top, unlike what i thought), and has about 4-5 5.25 inch bays. This is just a shell, with nothing in it except for the indicator lamps, so i'm getting a powersupply (hopefully something upwards of 200W). I may also have a potential source for the mobo, so it seems to me as though things are coming along quite nicely! Now I just need to wait for RAM prices to come back down. If they aren't down by April or May, i'm just buying anyway, as i really want a fast(er) PC soon.

Thanks for all your advice with mobo selection and advice on overclocking. A 300 Mhz Celery clocked to 450 Mhz would be a sight! The mobo i may be getting, although i don't know much about it (i'll be asking a few questions when i go to ask about it), i know has a SiS graphics controller onboard, and has PS2, USB, video, sound, serial, IDE, basically everything onboard. If its good and cheap, sure...i'll place my order.

You want a mobo that allows for easy bios OCing (no jumpers required) such as the good ol' Abit BH6 (I still have one in use) and onboard video, sound are usually not very desireable either IMHO. I'd also advise a 250w or better PS, not 200W or less.
You should still be able to locate a used BH6, used video card and decent in-expensive soundcard (like a SB 16) fairly in-expensively as that stuff is now considered "old" and one has to almost give it away these days to get rid of it. Chances are good that someone here (this site) has everything you need and cheaply sitting around in a box in their closet. Try running a "WTB" thread in the "For Sale, Buy, Trade" forum here.

Another alternative is to consider what's called a "bare bones" system, either from someone here selling an older PC or a place like Computer Geeks http://www.compgeeks.com/products.asp?cat=SYS where you can get an almost complete refurbished PC, faster than 300-450mhz very reasonably. I bought my son an older P2 400 system from there for Christmass and it was inexpensive, no probs with the PC either.

Hmm...BIOS overclocking, that would be nice, although the AMIBIOS on this board i may be getting doesn't support BIOS overclocking (well at least i don't remember it having an option in CMOS setup for overclocking, anyway). Oh well, i'm a geeky type who enjoys the process of fiddling with internal components anyway, so really, whats so bad about that? If i can't get a board with onboard video and sound, i'll steal the SB16 outta my 486, which for some reason won't power on. (I switch it on, the monitor powers up, the lights on the front come on, the CD ROM drives come on, hard drive spins up, yet i don't see anything on the screen, or hear anything from the speaker...time for a new RTC (Real Time Clock) chip maybe?), as well as this old TsengLabs ET4000 i have hanging around from a 486 which had its mobo corroded by a dead battery ages ago. I'm really glad that they stopped soldering batteries to the board...my soldering skills suck! FYI, i'm also stealing the 4x Creative CD ROM outta the old 486 too, until i get like a 24x or something. While i'm at it, i'll also stick a 5.25 inch drive in there, as today i was working on a 286 and learnt how useful it is to have a machine with both 5.25 inch and 3.5 inch floppies, and besides, with 4 5.25 inch drive bays, i'm not missing out on too much, and it'll be there just in case i need it some day.

This sure is gonna be some mad@$$ project...

You don't need any bios overclocking, although the pcchips board that i used did have bios settings where you could change fsb and multiplier.

with the Cel300a, just put thin sliver of scotch tape over pin B21 to force the chip to run at 100mhz.

there were some other tape tricks to raise voltage too, its been too long

"This sure is gonna be some mad@$$ project"

No offence meant and maybe you like playing with outdated PC stuff but if you look around at the link I posted above, you'll see that for not alot of $$$, you can just buy a refurbished PC that's at least twice as fast as an overclocked C300a system will ever be (464mhz most likely, high OC speed as mine was about 3 yrs ago before I sold the cpu for a C366 @550mhz) .
IMHO, it's not worth spending much $$ on considering its age and old PCs are practically worthless for resale these days.

True.... I keep seeing Duron 900 Mhz CPU & mobo combos for under $90, so I'm not sure it's worth screwing around with an old Celery...

Originally posted by FlyingPenguin
True.... I keep seeing Duron 900 Mhz CPU & mobo combos for under $90, so I'm not sure it's worth screwing around with an old Celery...

WOW...here in Australia, a Pentium-1 166 with 32 megs of ram and a 2 gig hard drive can go to about 300 bucks.

Btw, does anyone have any clues as to what i said before about my 486 not starting up? Although i would normally reseat the graphics card, its onbard, so i can't. Either way, the project is still on, even though the machine in question will be built with old parts. I'm just a vintage computer geek.