Ok so I decided to put a pentium I together. I picked up a board in my ecycling business. Looked thru and found an isa video card. I like this board as it has the 72 pin and newer simms. Aswell as the 20 pin power and the older style. Isa and pci slots. Anyway I have no idea how to power it on? I was able to get it to boot up including memory count and all the way to CMOS battery error. I didn't want run it too long without a CPU fan. I really don't know what I was doing as I was just moving around the wires labeled hdd led and reset switch and turbo led. I played around some more and got the fan to spin a couple times and no video. This freaked me out as i thought i may fried something.Let it sit and got it to boot again by moving the wires around. So I left it at that. Maybe I need to look harder but shouldn't there be two pins for a power switch? Also can I run a black fiber pentium mmx chip in this board? Also what is the max ram? I have a million other questions but just one more for where can I get an older style case? I will post some pics in the morning. Thanks.
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Pentium build help
- Thread starter jdulac
- Start date
badmofo
Member
I don't mean to sound like a jerk but it sounds like you're a looong way off having a working system there, have you considered just buying a complete machine? Socket 7 PC's still kind-of common and not too expensive.
krebizfan
Veteran Member
Find your motherboard and chipset ID, search for the matching manuals and other documentation. Socket 7 systems especially have so many options with lots and lots of jumpers to set them and if jumpers are set wrong you can kill the CPU or even the entire board. Manuals are pretty close to a must.
Max memory: Check documentation. Could be 64MB or could be 512MB. Note you may also have to set a jumper depending on the type of memory installed. Some systems can install lots of memory but only cache 64 MB. Don't bother with installing extra memory on those.
CPU fan is a good idea. Which CPU model do you have? 60 and 66 MHz are scary hot.
The drives that the internal IDE (if it has internal IDE) supports will most likely have to be smaller than 8 GB.
It is common to have a block of pins which handle all the front panel (including soft power switch) functions. Every motherboard maker had multiple unique pinouts.
Which CPU is the maximum? Depends on the motherboard. The early Pentium motherboards (Socket 4) supported very little. Socket 7 towards the end supported so many different chips with different voltage needs that the manual might have 10 pages devoted to how to configure the system. In between, was Socket 5 which could handle some MMX chips.
Have fun. Take your time.
Max memory: Check documentation. Could be 64MB or could be 512MB. Note you may also have to set a jumper depending on the type of memory installed. Some systems can install lots of memory but only cache 64 MB. Don't bother with installing extra memory on those.
CPU fan is a good idea. Which CPU model do you have? 60 and 66 MHz are scary hot.
The drives that the internal IDE (if it has internal IDE) supports will most likely have to be smaller than 8 GB.
It is common to have a block of pins which handle all the front panel (including soft power switch) functions. Every motherboard maker had multiple unique pinouts.
Which CPU is the maximum? Depends on the motherboard. The early Pentium motherboards (Socket 4) supported very little. Socket 7 towards the end supported so many different chips with different voltage needs that the manual might have 10 pages devoted to how to configure the system. In between, was Socket 5 which could handle some MMX chips.
Have fun. Take your time.
Badmofo: why would I buy a complete system? I have all the parts I need from my ecycling business and the whole fun of it is putting the thing together. The funny thing is I grew up with these machines but this was 20 years ago. I just wish I would have saved the case that came with this motherboard but as soon as I get these machines I usually tear them apart. When I saw how clean the motherboard was I decided to keep it and now I am going to try and get it going. Honestly I don't think I am that far since I have already got the system to post up.
It counted 378K of ram so I am assuming I must have thrown a 256K and 128K chip.
I have plenty of vintage hard drives under 8GB.
What about operating system? I was thinking Windows 98SE.
I will post pictures in a bit. Thanks for the replies.
It counted 378K of ram so I am assuming I must have thrown a 256K and 128K chip.
I have plenty of vintage hard drives under 8GB.
What about operating system? I was thinking Windows 98SE.
I will post pictures in a bit. Thanks for the replies.
KR:
I believe its a socket 7 and I have the Pentium I 100mhz (the complete ceramic one). And yes it got hot, really hot that is why I did not go any further. I did try a a black fiber Pentium I 233 /w MMX but I never got that one to post up. That's where I am thinking I may have to change jumpers to run.
I believe its a socket 7 and I have the Pentium I 100mhz (the complete ceramic one). And yes it got hot, really hot that is why I did not go any further. I did try a a black fiber Pentium I 233 /w MMX but I never got that one to post up. That's where I am thinking I may have to change jumpers to run.
krebizfan
Veteran Member
I hope you didn't damage either chip. 100 MHz Pentium needs heat sink. 200 MHz chip got 3.3 volts but only can handle 2.8 volts.
That is a familiar board design. I have one very similar. Look at the motherboard closely. Mine has a tiny jumper listing. Yours might as well. The picture is too small for me to read.
That is a familiar board design. I have one very similar. Look at the motherboard closely. Mine has a tiny jumper listing. Yours might as well. The picture is too small for me to read.
Yeah that is what I was afraid of without a fan but I was a bit excited last night and wanted to see if could atleast get a post. I must have taken apart 100 fans for the aluminum but ofcourse have none on hand right now. I am not going to go any further until I get a processor fan. I do have plenty of processors on hand but a lot of times I get them with bent pins. Did you click on the picture it will open to a bigger size? I will try and get a better picture when I get some time the lighting was bad. Thanks KR for your help.
The manual is a must even though most of the jumper settings are also printed on the motherboard. A Pentium MMX requires dual Voltage settings. If you want to get it up and running I would not play around with the jumpers blind folded. Socket 7 motherboards have a lot of jumpers that need to be set properly. The power must always be switched off before changing any jumper settings.
SParent
Experienced Member
I see on your picture that you're running your system over an antistatic bag. I think this is not a good idea, as I believe those bags may be slightly conductive... I personnaly use a piece of cardboard which is probably safer. Right now I'm trying to resurrect a Data Expert Exp8j61 board with a Pentium 75. I totally agree with you that the fun part is brigning this old stuff back to life!
Socket 5 and socket 7 actually have much less jumper settings than previous gen 486 boards and the next super-socket 7 boards. Mine (similar to this) is fairly easy to set and completely unlikely to do damage with a bad setting. All it has is FSB setting with 3 options 50/60/66, multipliers up to 3x and a voltage control range from 3.4 to 3.6V. It doesn't have a dual-voltage, but Pentium-MMX works fine (overvolted). It is pretty easy to cool.
You need to find the documentation for the board. Here is the database: http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/mpent_1.html#.UbKVyPlkM6g . Those in the second picture you post are the case connectors. The setting-jumpers are not there.
Agreed 486 boards have more jumpers but some socket 7 and not super socket 7 motherboards also have undocumented jumpers. I prefer to always read the manual first. Also from personal experience with wrong jumper settings the CPU and even the motherboard can get damaged. One can also overclock but I only wanted to outline that the Pentium MMX is a dual voltage CPU. And we should not forget that testing was being done without CPU cooling. Thanks for comment.
RaptorZX3
Experienced Member
M571? i think you got the same board as my friend, he came by yesterday with this PC and we switched the P166 for a P166MMX, did the jumpers changes from the manual in PDF, applied thermal paste on the heatsink (always help for those CPUs, they never used thermal paste at the time on those, surprisingly, and even applied stupid stickers on them), i also switched his cdrom drive for a working one (door was opening once per 7-8 tries), removed his EDO RAMs (48mb) for a single stick of dual-sided 128mb SDRAM PC-100. We also disabled the on-board audio because he have a sound card installed (Sound Blaster Vibra16). And i gave him my Microsoft Serial and PS/2 compatible mouse (with PS/2 to Serial adapter) cos he was stuck without a mouse, but he have a serial port on it. He gave me a PC-88 game called "Duel", with everything including the big plastic box. But for now he have DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 on it, mostly for old DOS-based games right now.
Ok I went thru my processors and found the original processor that was in this board. When I started looking at the jumper settings I noticed it was set to dual voltage. So I went thru my processors and I found the original processor that came with the board knowing the jumper settings. It was a Cyrix MII blacktop. I plugged this chip in and it posts without a problem. I am sure I could use the processor I have in the picture but obviously I would have to change the jumpers.
Any way is there any advantage with an AT or ATX power supply. And again where can I find a retro case.
Any way is there any advantage with an AT or ATX power supply. And again where can I find a retro case.
RaptorZX3
Experienced Member
retro case? you can use a switch on an AT power supply if you're using an ATX case, you just have to switch it on or off from that switch you may put inside or outside the case from whatever hole you have on the case. My AT board here fit just fine in an ATX case, as some board holes line up with some ATX case holes, and back expansion ports line up fine as well.
Just try to make yourself some kind of "back plate" for your ATX case so there won't be a huge empty hole in the back because of the AT board and its single serial port for the keyboard. I'm lucky i got one in that big haul from months ago, so all i had to do is to line it with the serial port and tape it to the case.
The plus side to have AT and ATX power supplie connectors inside, there must be more than this, but all i can think of right now is it let you use better quality and newer power supplies without an adapter, you'll be able to use an ATX case properly with the front power switch, and when you'll turn the PC off, it'll turn itself off, not showing "you may now shut down your computer safely" message.
Just try to make yourself some kind of "back plate" for your ATX case so there won't be a huge empty hole in the back because of the AT board and its single serial port for the keyboard. I'm lucky i got one in that big haul from months ago, so all i had to do is to line it with the serial port and tape it to the case.
The plus side to have AT and ATX power supplie connectors inside, there must be more than this, but all i can think of right now is it let you use better quality and newer power supplies without an adapter, you'll be able to use an ATX case properly with the front power switch, and when you'll turn the PC off, it'll turn itself off, not showing "you may now shut down your computer safely" message.