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IDT WinChip
Posts: 237
 
Location: USA | MP6 according to wikipedia anyway. I am curious how it performs against the real MP6 chip. I am going to keep an eye out though for an STPC based micro computer like this though. Might be a cheaper way to find one of those. My idea is for this to be something that can be recommended as a cheap system for those wanting to get into vintage dos gaming but don't want to have a traditional vintage pc or don't want to spend the money building one. P133 performance levels are what I am expecting from this little box when factoring in what ever low power video chip this probably has in it. I am itching to have a look inside of this box and see if it is the same basic board design as your STPC Atlas board, with the I/O being PC/104 boards. Maybe there will be a way to add a com 1 port to this little guy without much fuss. |
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TM Crusoe
Posts: 617
Location: Hull, UK | I have seen a few MP6 boards, as well as those with MediaGX cores with niceties like Audio built in, or at least included on the board. An image search for "EBox 2300" seems to indicate that the COM ports are on headers, so you should be able to add one.
It does not appear to feature the PC/104 bus, but there is what looks like an unpopulated IDC header in some pictures which might have been intended for the interface at some point, it looks about the right size, though it also seems the board varies quite widely between the available pictures and I don't think your one has that. They do all seem to have the RS-232 headers though, so if you can find one with the smaller IDC connector somewhere, it should be easy to add one. It might not be quite as critical though I I suspect USB Legacy Support would have been implemented, meaning you could use a USB mouse and have no need for a second PS/2 port or RS-232 if the BIOS supports it.
My thoughts early on were that if a cheap enough source of such things could be found, that it could be useful for such people. Only time will tell I suppose.
Definitely worth keeping a look out for an STPC, I rather like the 66MHz one I have and am itching to start playing around with the 133MHz version. I am also curious as to how it handles next to a 5x86 (Both Cyrix and AMD) but given the UMA VGA and the fact that PC/104 appears to be basically ISA if I wanted to use an external VGA device, I think SpeedSys is going to be invaluable in that field. It should be fast enough to run Cakewalk though, letting me free up space by removing the bulky, overpowered setup I have doing that job now. |
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IDT WinChip
Posts: 237
Location: USA | I found a shot of the bios screens - http://wiki.meteohub.de/Setup_ebox#BOIS_Settings_ebox_2300
It only shows USB Device enable/disable. Usually there is an option in the bios for legacy support if such option is implemented. Maybe it is there and the option is just enabled all the time, or maybe the bios has been updated with legacy usb support option since these photos were taken. Just have to see when I get it. I am hoping the headers for the serial are the same as what would be on, say a socket 7 motherboard, and I can just use one of those cables as I have several I can use. |
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TM Crusoe
Posts: 617
Location: Hull, UK | On a completely unrelated note (being really off-topic on my own board) it is possible that some people might remember that washbasin I... err... maintained ownership over from the old house?
Well, I installed it in my garden shed, complete with water supply.
Useful for cleaning things, the water is also clean so it can be drank. The whole thing can be removed quickly as it uses a 3/4" tap connector, installed in reverse, connected to the washing machine supply as a means of tapping the existing water system at the house. As such, the whole installation can merely be unscrewed and pulled out if I ever have to move again leaving nothing but an 18mm hole in the wall that I have to seal up. I'm also quite proud of the fact the pipework survived the freezing weather not so long ago and did not ice up or rupture. For drainage it also simply taps into an existing system and can be removed simply by sawing the pipe off (as I use solvent weld) and either replacing the section it tees into or else capping the tee that it feeds into.
Pretty funny because the neighbours throw strange looks at me over the fence when they can hear water running. I also have heating out here, soon to be thermostatically controlled and needless to say, I have power. The only crappy thing is having to cart the tools back into the house every time I've worked out here as I don't fully trust alarms and locks. |
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IDT WinChip
Posts: 237
Location: USA | Did you add a wireless router to that wash basin?  You should RGB that basin, at least that would make more sense than Linus RGBing his server rack which will never be seen when the door is closed. |
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TM Crusoe
Posts: 670
| I have been testing/benching vlb vga cards on my Abit 486 board.
It is running with a dx2-66 write through, 128kb 20ns cache.
I know this is just a quick and dirty benchmarking, yet it tells me what to expect
from a final build in the future. I am quite happy with this setup with the S3.
Are these results the standard results that are to expected?
CL-5428-VLB 1mb:
3D-Bench 1.0 = 45.3
3D-Bench 1.0c = 44.3
S3-805-VLB 1mb:
3D-Bench 1.0 = 47.6
3D-Bench 1.0c = 47.4
#DXZeff:
Nice work... Been a bit off the grid, because my daughter and my son had their weekend at my place.
Great to see that you finally put that sink into use. Kudos to you man!!!  |
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TM Crusoe
Posts: 617
Location: Hull, UK | @WaybackTech; Haha, nah, the D-Link was there so I could get Ethernet out there via WiFi and hook my Toshiba laptop up the the network so I could work on my book out there. Unfortunately, that WAP is the only WiFi device that can't get a signal out there so my plan didn't work and I've had to revert to using floppy disks.
@Brostenen; I don't remember my scores for similar spec systems, nor do I currently have access to them, but it sounds about right for what I'd expect.
I've been quiet too as I really haven't had much to do lately, still trying to figure out how to get out of this total dead-end I have found myself at. Hopefully I will have a bike that I can actually ride soon, it just depends on how badly the previous owner has dismantled it as I'm hoping to take it from their garbage in a few days. |
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IDT WinChip
Posts: 237
Location: USA | 3D bench scores are about right for a DX2/66. Interestingly my sis 461 actually outpaces the 471 by about 3 fps on 3Dbench when paired with a UMC processor. |
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TM Crusoe
Posts: 670
| #DXZeff
Sounds cool. Glad to hear that you are finally planning to get out and do some biking again.
Things take time, when dealing with health, especially after what you had to endure healthwise.
If I am not mistaken, and remember correctly, you did get a surgery right?
On the board. Yes. It runs doom really well, using that dx2-66 write through cpu.
Actually running a bit better than the dx2-66 I bought back in 1995.
Back then, Doom was playable, yet it did run a bit flacky or chunky if you can put it that way.
This however, is how I remember it, fully aware that memories that old are misleading.
I might after all, be getting that dream dx2 system wich I wanted back then.
What I can't figure out, is if I have to source a desktop or a tower case for it.
I ordered a 512mb CF card for it, as the one I am using for testing this board, is only a 32mb card.
CF cards are cool solutions. Low power consumption, no noise.
Yet they tend to die faster than a real harddrive. And I will be missing the actual full speed experience.
Nice to have a fast storage solution, yet if the solution is too fast, it just do not feel the same.
Old 500 to 800 megabyte harddrives are rare, hard to source and too expensive to buy these days.
CF cards are easy to obtain, cost next to nothing. So.. Uhmmm....
Both solutions offer advantages and disadvantages. Basically comes down to what's cheapest.
EDIT:
Just realised, that if I source an ATX desktop case that I can mount AT boards in.
Then the cards will "stand up", and I can use both the AWE32 CT-3900 and the CT-6080 MPEG1 playback
card in the same machine. The playback card is one of them MP400 cards from creative.
If I use a tower case, then the cards will start to "hang" and eventually start to bend. (Not good)
Edited by Brostenen 2017-03-14 12:05 AM
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TM Crusoe
Posts: 670
| waybacktech - 2017-03-14 1:58 AM
3D bench scores are about right for a DX2/66. Interestingly my sis 461 actually outpaces the 471 by about 3 fps on 3Dbench when paired with a UMC processor.
Cool.... Thanks for the heads up. :-) |
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TM Crusoe
Posts: 617
Location: Hull, UK | No surgery for my stomach, that was for cancer. It wasn't too debilitating, the stomach problem was but can be controlled with medication. I have to do something, I can't just stare at the same four walls for much longer. I've got a long way to go to get to where I was, but I will get there.
I think I've said before how it is strange how spoiled we are now, what used to be playable is today considered a train-wreck. I think it was in the Atlantis video where I noted the game needed a much faster computer than we had in 1997, but literally nobody noticed or even cared, you were just happy that it even ran at all.
CF cards are OK, but they will never replace the charm of a clattering drive inside the machine. I still intend to find a way of rattling dead drives when the CF card is accessed. As you say though, real drives are often cost prohibitive now and I am paranoid about the ones I still have failing some day. Kinda sad to think that inevitably, there will come a time when no mechanical hard drives are left operating on this planet.
Edit: In response you your edit - I prefer Desktop cases anyway, so I'm with you 100% on that one 
Edited by DXZeff 2017-03-14 12:26 AM
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TM Crusoe
Posts: 670
| DXZeff - 2017-03-14 2:24 AM
I think I've said before how it is strange how spoiled we are now, what used to be playable is today considered a train-wreck. I think it was in the Atlantis video where I noted the game needed a much faster computer than we had in 1997, but literally nobody noticed or even cared, you were just happy that it even ran at all.
Well.. I remember Doom only being playable in half sized window. And still a bit chunky.
So I was happy when I bought that 5x86-133 cpu and mobo combi I briefly had running from 97 to 98.
I have allways bought mid to low graded spec's when looking at what's avaliable at that period. |
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TM Crusoe
Posts: 617
Location: Hull, UK | I'll dabble with nearly anything, I seem to have a lot of high-end stuff, but my real love is for low-end gear. Don't ask me why, but I always seem to end up having more fun with less powerful machines, and I like the challenges they can present.
Edited by DXZeff 2017-03-14 12:50 AM
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IDT WinChip
Posts: 237
Location: USA | Well the EBOX-2300 arrived yesterday ( THAT WAS FAST! ) and I had a look inside of the little box which took some figuring out how to get it apart aside from removing the 4 screws on the bottom of the case. The thick thermal pad between the heatsink and the casing had it stuck down pretty good. Thankfully the pad is one of those reusable types so it didn't break apart into tiny little pieces.
Windows 98 looks like it will be a challenge to install but I have a few ideas to get the job done. I am pretty sure I have figured out what this "Vortex86" SOC chip is, and am quite sure about what drivers will work with it under 98. Copying W98 setup disk to the CF card resulted in the setup just simply not launching. I know others have turned these little boxes into 98 machines, so it is just a matter of finding the right combination of things to get the job done. Dos benchmark wise, my initial guestimate of a P133 seems to be pretty close.
While Topbench scores 864 ( hot damn! ) the rest of the benchmarks point to overall being the performance level of a P133. Doom scored 82FPS, Quake was 30FPS, 3D Bench was about 124, PCP was about 43fps, NSSI scores the drystone a bit lower than a K6-2-266, Whetstone is about that of a P200.
No serial headers present on PCB. The holes are there, but no pins / connector installed. a 44 pin ide connector does exist on the bottom of the board, so an 44 pin to CF, or SATA adapter with SSD of some sort could be installed. Decent bios. Clock generator chip present on PCB may be software overclockable. 128MB of ram on board which up to 64MB can be allocated to video memory. Light speed posting. I had to add a 4 second delay for hard drive spin up in the bios just so I could actually see the AMI post screen. So far very interesting little box.
Edited by waybacktech 2017-03-14 5:07 PM
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TM Crusoe
Posts: 670
| waybacktech - 2017-03-14 7:04 PM
Windows 98 looks like it will be a challenge to install but I have a few ideas to get the job done. I am pretty sure I have figured out what this "Vortex86" SOC chip is, and am quite sure about what drivers will work with it under 98. Copying W98 setup disk to the CF card resulted in the setup just simply not launching. I know others have turned these little boxes into 98 machines, so it is just a matter of finding the right combination of things to get the job done. Dos benchmark wise, my initial guestimate of a P133 seems to be pretty close.
Have you tried to dump the complete 98 installer into a directory (c:\install\win98se\), in order to launch it directly from the drive?
EDIT:
Sorry... Read it too fast. I am tired. (00:31am here)
Edited by Brostenen 2017-03-14 11:31 PM
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TM Crusoe
Posts: 617
Location: Hull, UK | It's odd, I had problems with installers on the STPC but thought it was due to my flash cards and hard drives. I'm guessing there's no USB boot? That might let you use a USB drive to get around the problem.
My SBC is not here yet, but it has arrived in the UK so it should be here in a few days. Audio module is still in California for the time being however.
I haven't done much interesting today, all I've done is try to figure out how to rearrange the living room and I played some Street Legal on my Athlon. |
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IDT WinChip
Posts: 237
Location: USA | I have been able to install 98. I recopied the 98 install files to the CF card and it worked this time ( more fun with linux! ). My current issue is the audio. Video driver I have working, though at 10x7 resolution, any color depth, the refresh is appears to be 43hz interlaced. Changing refresh rate has no effect. 8x6 seems to be fine though. Audio driver seems to be a big ? at the moment. Supposedly this uses AC97 , but as of yet no AC97 driver ( sis included ) has worked under 98. As it appears this system originally shipped with a version of Windows CE that is XP based, it may require the HDAUDIO patch that was available for XP starting with SP2 and was included with SP3 for the realtek driver to work. Not sure though, as this particular SOC ( SIS550 ) began shipping in 2001. Unfortunately while the SIS 550 presentation / block diagram states Windows 98 driver support, I have as of time of writing this been unable to find such drivers from SIS. I was able to use the SIS Univga for the video driver, but with the aforementioned refreshrate issue at 10x7, not sure it is 100% compatible. Good news is, yes USB mouse does work perfectly under windows and dos as a PS/2 mouse, including windows 98 setup, no problems there. Cdrom booting does work, but without a usb cdrom driver present, the cdrom simply does not work under dos, no drive letter. Supposedly there is a panasonic usb cdrom dos driver that works with "most" usb cdroms, haven't downloaded it though yet. If it does work though, will have to make a custom boot disk for usb cdrom support under dos.
Edited by waybacktech 2017-03-15 2:58 AM
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TM Crusoe
Posts: 670
| #waybacktech
Nice to see you have managed to install 98 on it. :-) I did search for info on how to, yesterday evening.
For what I could see, browsing around, a lot of people have that same driver issues as you.
There were some talk about looking for them at the manufactors site (chip manufactors)
Perhaps you can find something there? |
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TM Crusoe
Posts: 617
Location: Hull, UK | I wouldn't count on it, DM&P's website is an ancient mess (says me) of broken links. Annoyingly, their FTP also doesn't allow directory listings because reasons. Perhaps you can fire them an e-mail? I doubt it would work, but it doesn't hurt. The best I can get for the VGA is that it is some kind of XGI Volari (Z9 implied) core, but D&MP modified the driver somehow.
The best I can find for the audio is SiS 7019, the XP driver on the manufacturer's site does have a $CHICAGO$ string in the INF so it may be a generic WDM that works in Windows 98, but I doubt it. I've found these newer codecs infuriating, as I have two boards using the same Intel chipset and the same RealTek codec, but their drivers are completely incompatible. This might be old enough that they were still just adequately generic so as to function. I suppose you could try to find other machines using the same processor and try their maker's website instead if all else fails. I was going to suggest ECS as they liked SiS chipsets and I am sure they used that codec on some of their early K7 boards, but they have removed the 9X drivers for the boards I checked and I appear to have lost my ECS discs from that time.
Still, at least you've got Windows 98 running.
-And they wonder why I rarely leave DOS...
I have moved some things around my living room and am looking at hooking up the Pentium D to record something. As in, record with the Xeon, the Pentium D will be playing. Mirror's Edge time. |
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IDT WinChip
Posts: 237
Location: USA | I did try the 7018 driver with no luck. I will look for the 7019 and give that a try. The only successful driver installation so far has been the C-Media 8338/8738 driver, which also adds legacy sb pro support and game port, which at least this sis550 is shown to have a game port so I thought, ok cool this might actually work, but any time a sound of any sort is played, the system freezes while it is "playing", then unfreezes afterwards. I don't hear the sound hardware being initialized during startup ( typical pop or click in headphones ) either. Behaves like an IRQ conflict almost, but it says there is no confilcts. That is as close as I came so far. DM&P purchased the SOC division from SIS, which I think explains why this box has a SIS550 chip instread of their own Vortex branded chip, probably left over stock aquired from SIS, bios date is 2006 which is about when the acquisition took place. I had the idea that this SIS550 chip was mearly just a SIS540 with a MP6 core attached, which SIS licenced from RISE in 2001, but none of the 540 drivers worked so they must have done some changes. I don't even know if the integrated DAC on this chip is worth a damn to be able to handle more than 43 hz interlaced at 10x7.
I think at this point I am probably going to have to load XP on this thing and see what the hardware id is on both the video and sound hardware and go from there. Booting into mini-xp from my hiren's disk resulted in a ramdisk error during boot, so that idea was a bust too Puppy Linux from a USB thumb drive might tell me the hardware too.
Ethernet was a breeze, just a comon realtek 8110.
... and no FIST bug present either!
Edited by waybacktech 2017-03-16 2:23 AM
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TM Crusoe
Posts: 617
Location: Hull, UK | It just occurred to me... Doesn't Everest run under Windows 98SE?
http://filehippo.com/download_everest_home/
It might shed some light. |
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TM Crusoe
Posts: 617
Location: Hull, UK | If all goes to plan, I'll be back in the world of K6 goodness soon!
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IDT WinChip
Posts: 237
Location: USA | .... K6-2-500 goodness from what I see. 384Mb ram. TNT2 32MB. Curious what TNT2 that ends up being.
edit: nevermind, TNT2 M64 is what the listing says. Heck of a heatsink for an M64 card.
Edited by waybacktech 2017-03-16 10:39 PM
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TM Crusoe
Posts: 670
| DXZeff - 2017-03-16 10:40 PM
If all goes to plan, I'll be back in the world of K6 goodness soon!
To me, these kind of motherboards seem cool. They are a bit of this and a bit of that. An AT board with some ATX technology.
Really a kind of frankenstein-type of product, wich are just off and cool in it's self. Yeah.... Love them.
On the other hand, I have allways had a hard time, figuring out what to make of them, as K6's scream ATX in my mind.
And yet.... It is there... Clearly on an AT style board. Hmmm.... Confusing, cool and awesome.
I had one such board at one time. I traded it for something else. It was an Epox board, and it even had a SB-Link header.
Most confusing. Most fun to play with. Yeah.... It's a bit like a 440bx, running a P-III in an AT case. A strange and cool creature.
Edited by Brostenen 2017-03-16 11:14 PM
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TM Crusoe
Posts: 617
Location: Hull, UK | @waybacktech; I'm guessing you've been fiddling around with the completed listings page? Then you'll know how grossly expensive these were with this being the cheapest one to come with any decent hardware. It cost the same for a 5AGM2 with nothing and almost the same for another with low-end hardware that was in poor shape. I figured that as it was already configured much the same as my old K6 (which did use a Chaintech 5AGM and not a TMC like this one) it was probably worth it. The only thing I won't be getting back is the Rage and the data on my hard drive. I am currently unsure of if I want to use it with the TNT or substitute one of my other Rage cards, I will probably keep the TNT for a while as I would probably be disappointed with how my remaining Rages are much slower than the one I had. It's nice to have a second FM801 though, these are surprisingly useful and it will probably find a place somewhere else, this thing will likely get an AWE64 or something, probably from my Dual P3 as I've never found myself utilising it in there, it was fine with the cheap ESS card I was using.
@Brostenen; Odd indeed, the ATX form factor boards seem rare and expensive now, though I saw a few regular Socket 7 boards in ATX when I was looking. I was actually looking for someone else, but he didn't buy anything so I snagged this. What is equally strange to this AT-with-ATX board (Super AT I guess you could call them) is how my PPro does the reverse and provides an AT power connector on an ATX board. I did see some of those AT Slot 1 boards around too, mostly LX-based ones. Brought back memories of a computer that was donated to one of the kid's homes, where they had a board like that, but in an AT case which the previous owner had decorated liberally, it seemed "Mr. Paulton The Vigilante" thought highly of himself, he's even made his own desktop wallpaper in Paint... I guess I'm just as bad for sticking DXZeff logos on everything though.
I saw a Chaintech 5TTM when I was browsing too. This was the first motherboard I ever saw new and I still have the manual, but it was not for my machine. It was an object of fascination back then and I was tempted to get the one I saw, but I thought better of it. I shall stick to my Intel branded 430TX board for plain Socket 7 Pentium MMX stuff.
I am hoping this TMC will be good, I ran a TMC board some years ago and it was the fastest P75 I ever used, given it was basically an updated Socket 5 board. Sadly it died due to battery problems and I've never gotten it to run again, nor have I ever seen another for sale. But if it was anything to go on, then I have high hopes for their Super Socket 7 entry.
Assuming this thing works, it may also signal that the Voodoo project is back on for some date in the future, if I can be bothered to replace the missing nVidia and ATI cards I wanted to test them against.
Edited by DXZeff 2017-03-16 11:49 PM
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