boot on first Pentium socket 4 setup

[@RETROHardware]

first video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hoqrc6qimcx6e80 photo gallery: facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.869525398074767

[@wishusknight3009]

This board is essentially a 486 vlb chipset with a pentium bus interface chip. It was a slapdash solution so OpTi could get something to market fast. Its going to be using a 486 type of memory controller (32bit by 30mhz, or 33in the case of pentium 66, or half bus speed in case of socket 5) and other logic, so its ram bandwidth will be completely pants. The extra bridge chip for the Pentium CPU had extra logic to power the VLB interface that would normally be provided by the 486 CPU. And optionally provided a cache controller that would at least run cache on the processor bus (64bit by 60mhz), however there was a slightly cheaper version that didn't include cache controller on the bridge chip, and instead relied on the controller already present in the main chipset which was of 486 spec The bridge chip could also have a PCI bridge attached to it as well making it a completely modular product family. That same PCI Bridge was used on a lot of OpTI 486 boards. The board that I have is fully optioned socket 5 board with PCI and fast cache option, onboard superIO, 3 PCI and 4 ISA with one being VLB. Compared to the FX66 which is the only other early pentium chipset I have, the performance of the OpTI is around 5 percent to 20% slower. Part of that difference perhaps also being the FX having PBCache. While my OpTI is async. If I disable external cache on both platforms then the difference is closer 40% indicating how much heavy lifting the fast cache has to do. The FX66 loses far less when cache is disabled. Where the OpTI's performance is catastrophically bad. A P75 performs similar to a 486-100 at that point.

[@wishusknight3009]

I will add that it is certainly an interesting collectors item just for its novelty and rarity. Don't expect it to be an ultimate retro box though. It will be a curiosity at best which provides a bit of fun when its compared to other machines. At the time it was certainly looked at very negatively, but it also made the early pentiums much more affordable. Especially as a cheap 486 upgrade option due to being able to run with a single ram stick and take all 486 cards. All one needed was motherboard and cpu.

[@pac-du6mw]

This is the best computer channel on KZbin your knowledge about hardware have motivated me a lot I wish all the best and keep doing what you do best !

[@mrPzero]

It is very difficult for old computer systems to select components so that everything works. It's good that they launched such an interesting version!

[@wishusknight3009]

VLB and very early PCI were the worst culprits. VLB for its fussy timing and sensitivity to bus noise. And early 3rd party chipset designers cutting corners or guessing at the spec reducing compatibility. Especially when it came to cards that would hog the busmaster. Even the early Intel 486 PCI chipsets like Saturn 1 and Aries were fussy with compatibility and were often buggy just like other contemporaries. This also plagued the early intel Pentium chipsets like Mercury and to a lesser extent Neptune. Mostly due to the Spec not really being fully worked out or trial and error in implementation. It wasn't until Triton 2 that Intel started really getting it right. (triton1 was good enough though) And it was probably a good 2 years until others had it as solid(ish).

[@ViperBenchmarks]

where are you ?

[@DataDashy]

wazzup man no videos since a long time 😔

[@ironhead2008]

There may be jumper settings on the board to tune the VLB settings, also, some boards are picky about what is installed in which VLB slot. OTOH, it could just be broken on this board. It is an early one, and VLB compatibility with the Pentium was always kind of iffy.

[@RETROHardware]

Anytime I meet VLB bus, it was with problem 🙂 If VLB controller will work ... Iam fine with classic ISA VGA and no reason to fight with VLB VGA here

[@ironhead2008]

@@RETROHardware considering this is a Socket 4 board, I wouldn't be shocked if the VLB interface chip is in in fact bugged in some way. The OEM that made the board probably had a list of VL video cards that were tested as compatible (and if so, I'd bet that Weitek Windows accelerator card was on it) and system integrators just stuck to those cards. These things were probably too pricy for gamers: these are the days before Quake showed up and stimulated demand for the Pentium. It might be worth trying one of the Cirrus Logic cards that basically treated the VL Bus as a fast interface and didn't really exploit the other features of the bus. Cards like the GD-5428 or GD-5429 might work, or perhaps the unaccelerated variants of the ET-4000.

[@romanrm1]

> CPU is 83.4C > 'Hmm, let's touch it with finger." :D

[@xsc1000]

Its quite strange. 486 with lower power consumption was installed with heatsink since DX2/66 and there is no one here. I would glue one like it was on older Intel CPUs or there were heatsinks attached just to the CPU edges.

[@dikbozo]

Grats on the POST! I knew if you couldn't do it, I couldn't either.

[@Ironclad17]

Times like this bios updates can resolve weird driver compatibility issues provided the chip isn't degraded.

[@dasiro]

at this point drivers aren't the issue, this is a boot failure, only when a system posts drivers can be loaded

[@joaoc_PT]

VLB card vga bios may need to be reflashed, seems to be somewhat happening in older cards. Bits got lost in the decades.

[@brunorbf]

Most likely is due to the internal clock greater than 33mhz, and not due to bit rot of the bios. The pentium runs at 60mhz X 1. Many cards refuse to work above 33 unless they have jumpers to add wait states.

[@wishusknight3009]

@@brunorbf Not for this chipset. Its a 486 chipset with a pentium bridge... I have a similar board here, and it uses ram at half processor bus clock, as well as the VLB.

[@brunorbf]

The VLB cards aren't working because the pentium has an internal clock of 60 MHz. Getting vlb to work without hassle above 33mhz fsb is very hard, although I managed to use two in a 486DX40 for several years. The 486DX50 was also very difficult to work with VLB cards. Some vlb cards have jumpers to increase the wait states when the internal clock is greater than 33mhz (the cirrus I used on my 486 had). Check if any of yours has that option. Good luck

[@RETROHardware]

good point to keep eye on fsb and clocks, after years Iam quite off from this old division and all of these bugs and tricks 🙂

[@brunorbf]

​@@RETROHardwareI hope you manage to get at least one of the VLB cards working on this board ;). Although you are happy with an ISA graphic card, it doesn't do justice to the Pentium (neither to a 486, if it's not limited to an ISA motherboard), and will be a bottleneck. Though a Tseng ET4000 will be competitive. I remember when I upgraded from a Trident TVGA9000A (ISA with 512kb of RAM) to a Powercolor Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 in the summer of 95 on my Cirix 486 DX 40 (my main machine from 94 to 97), it was as if the CPU had been upgraded in some games. To play Red Baron, for instance, I had to disable the internal cache or switch turbo off, or the game would run too fast after the upgrade. One of my cousins at the time had an Intel 486DX33, which, in some situations, should be faster than the Cyrix 486DX40. However, I always found his machine more sluggish because it had an ISA OAK VGA card (even slower than the Trident).

[@wishusknight3009]

Not on this board. The chipset is basically a 486 chipset with a Pentium bridge. VLB and ram clocks will be half processor bus speed. And ram will be only 32 bits wide. Yes, it does perform like you think it will. I have a board with the exact same chipset, but for having one extra bridge chip for PCI slots, and one last OpTI chip for super IO. But the numbers for the bit which has the memory controller is Identical to mine, as well as identical to a 486 Opti board I have.

[@brunorbf]

​@@wishusknight3009 In that case, it should work (provided the graphic cards are ok). Either way, no harm is done if RETROHardware tries a card that has the option to add 1 wait state.

[@wishusknight3009]

@@brunorbf I actually noticed the two oscilators on the board rated 60 and 33mhz. So the VLB technically should be running 33, or at least the ram controller and such will be.

[@Takeshi.Nakagawa]

I’m happy to see a bench looking like mine. 😅

[@finaldragon5976]

That's nice to see the mainboard is still alive.

[@PROSTO4Tabal]

This hardware deserves full pc build !

[@RETROHardware]

full build probably not because no active cooling on CPU, I dont want to toast it

[@benoittheminerandgamer]

Very cool setup!! What is the top 5 best DDR2 Motherboard for Overclocking? I have 4x2gb ddr2-800 and a Q6600. I 'm looking for a good motherboard.

[@harvaldi]

80 degrees on CPU is a short way to fry it, because those old components was way less tolerant than today's.

[@RETROHardware]

that was original use

[@wishusknight3009]

@@RETROHardware I don't think it would have been. Old fan may have been removed before being packaged up. Or it could have had its clip break and fall off. Those cpus NEED a heatsink/fan.

[@XaeroTheYoutuber]

Interesting idea, but are you going to be making more "complete" builds? Like having period correct mouse, keyboard and monitor? It'd be cool to see these types of videos with socket 4 / 7.

[@RETROHardware]

I have very nice machine with socket 4 so this will be build. Just this MB only for table test because no possible put cooler on it

[@Ale.K7]

Great! I'm so glad it works!

[@davidsoares9810]

Qual é o nome desse equipamento que mostra os códigos de erro ???

[@RETROHardware]

PC Computer BIOS Motherboard Tester Analyzer POST Code PCI ISA Diagnostic Card 😀

[@davidsoares9810]

@@RETROHardware Valeu meu lindo ❤️

[@JayJay-88]

Nice to see a semi-working P60! 😀 Please put on a cooler to keep it working. 🙏

[@Wasmachineman]

Nice to see it actually working, despite the fact that damn Varta leaked as they all do.

[@wishusknight3009]

Also shouldn't this really have a heatsink and fan?

[@RETROHardware]

there is not sign about any cooler there, no glue or any plastic solution

[@Kykof]

Ahoj, mam otázku, přemýšlím, jakou grafiku a procesor bych měl vybrat pro 2009 "retro" high end-ish sestavu, napadlo mě něco jako C2Q Q9450 + Radeon HD 5870 nebo GTX 275. Nevíš, co by bylo lepší? Nebo myslíš, že by nějaký jiný procesor víc pasoval do takovéhle sestavy? (RAMku už vím, sice to bude hodně high end a trošku přepal na tu dobu, ale chci tam dát 8 GB RAM (DDR2-1066 asi). Edit: Teďka jsem našel GTX 285 za relativně dobrou cenu, mám jí koupit? Jinak fakt pěkný videa hale, jsem někdo, kdo je mladší a fakt se mi starší hardware libí hodně, je hezký vidět, že někdo i v Čechách má zájem a dělá o něm videa (i když je to v Angličtině) a ne jen o tom nejnovějším hardwaru, což dělá většina.

[@xsc1000]

Try another VLB card like CirrusLogic GD5428 if you have it. Problem with VLB is that it runs on CPU FSB frequency. I dont know if it is 30MHz (which is quite low for VLB) for pentium 60.

[@RETROHardware]

yep maybe more settings can end wit VLB VGA boot, but it is OK with classic ISA VGA too

[@davidrocha5168]

Setting wait state to 1 on vlb bus jumper. It's working above 33 MHz and need wait state. Remember 486-dx50 issues😅

[@davidrocha5168]

This jumper is on the vlb card, not in motherboard. 😊

[@xsc1000]

@@RETROHardware Yes, its OK for boot, but if you would try for example Doom or Quake, the difference would be significant. And Pentium on working VLB board is really rare item.

[@brunorbf]

You're right. The pentium has an internal clock above 33mhz (60). No way a vlb card is going to work with it unless it has jumpers to add wait states. The cl 5428 I used for more than 5 years with my 486DX40 had that option: one for fsb less or equal to 33mhz, and another for speeds above 33mhz. Many 486dx50 had to be used only with ISA cards due to this same limitation. I love VLB cards in a 486, but you need to keep within specs most of the times. I've always managed to get two cards working simultaneously in the same system at 33 or 40mhz fsb (VGA + Io). But some people report trouble using more than one card above 33mhz.

[@RobersonNaves]

Great job!!!

[@RaPtOr9600]

Hey it works, i was thinking it will need some serious repair. It will be nice, part for build im sure you have some old AT cases.

[@Castrejana7]

I want to ask you something. Do you have Asus Blitz Extreme motherboard in your collection?

[@joytam343]

nice work , need new VLB Card 😉 .... Creative 3D Blaster maybe ?😁

[@rallyscoot]

Only FPM memory works?

[@ironhead2008]

Early days for that: I suspect the chipset technically supports it, the problem is likely that there was a relatively small QVL list that's been lost to time. I'm betting something similar is going on with VLB Graphics cards.

[@Thales_WH]

@RETROHardware Your output is wrong. The problem is not that VLB cards don't work, but that the Opti chipsets designed for Pentiums are picky about graphics cards and have a problem with Cirrus Logic cards in particular.

[@TheMikeMan777]

But can it play Starfield??? 🌌

[@ABRetroCollections]

It's also well known that VLB slots share resources. If there were three slots, slots 1 and 3 would be shared. This is why I ensured that VLB slots never shared resources between graphics cards and controller cards. If there we only two slots, then the VLB slot would be singled out for graphics card usage. Controller cards would be limited to the ISA BUS. So again, VLB does not like being shared. Frequency is not the issue here, as VLB can work up to 50 MHz. Wouldn't be surprised if they found a way to downclock the VLB BUS to 30 MHz.

[@ABRetroCollections]

Now I do see two oscillators on the motherboard. Perhaps one is for the VLB BUS?

[@wishusknight3009]

My first 486 build which was a Cyrix 5x86-120 on an SIS based vlb board, had 3 vlb slots. And I had all 3 populated with graphics, superIO and a scsi card. I don't recall it ever being an issue to stability. I just put it together and it all worked. At 40mhz as well. The scsi contained my 340mb performance boot drive a not so performant 210mb drive, a 2x CDrom, and external scanner. My IDE controller had a 540mb IDE drive on the primary and a faster cdrom drive on the secondary. My graphics board was a Cirrus Logic 5426. Other cards I had in the machine were an AWE32, some NE2000 nic, and ISA framegrabber/video capture board with MJPeg Daughtercard. It was a full machine! At the time I was not very familiar with building computers, but muddled through anyhow. Later on when I was thinking about it, i think the only reason it worked out of the box, was due to the board having its 1WS jumper enabled by default for the VLB, and another jumper which sets it to async speed. Which would explain why it seemed like it was a bit slower than my friends computer in graphics. But at the time I didn't realize it. By the time I had the knowledge to test it, most of the hardware was long gone. The shop I got the parts from, had the CPU pre-installed on the board and jumpered for me. But it does prove you can indeed have 3 VLB cards running at once and be stable. Even if they are potentially only running 25mhz with 1ws.

[@PixelPipes]

So it was bad RAM, *and* a bad VGA card. No wonder it was acting weird.

[@RETROHardware]

main problem with RAM was full 4 modules assembly to boot with right slot combination of classic ISA VGA ... VLB card will be probably OK, cursed VLB bus as always

[@xsc1000]

@@RETROHardware I think that original 2 modules would be OK when inserted to the same bank (there is description on board)

[@RETROHardware]

@@xsc1000 they are at bank 0 ... marking is 0 1 0 1, for sure I used all modules

[@chystyanochmara1928]

hoooo yes nice

[@Adssat]

🎉👏👏