Very Computer

Hi, all -
  I'm selling off some older machines as I move to a newer, smaller
place, splitting it with my girlfriend, with only one medium-sized
bedroom for computers, and now only needing one home LAN, not two - and
want to upgrade my Linux/Dos box from a slow 486 to a Pentium (or
better!) - Need to get a few things done, first, but -

  I have 64 Mb SDRam (2 3v DIMMs) sitting here waiting for a momboard,
and a few HDs (WDAC34000 for one,) ready to put in the machine; an S3
765 {Trio64V+} or 864 PCI SVGA card (I can pick which, the other goes
into the Win95 box), a few Hitachi CDR-7730 ATAPI CD-Rom drives and a
couple NEC 7-CD SCSI changers, a Future Domain TMC-1680 ISA SCSI
controller (for now), a SMC 8216C ISA NIC, and a SCM PCMCIA Docking
adapter (May get a second, too).  External USR Sportster 33.6 Modem.
And a MediaVision Wavetable IDE CD-Rom sound card I may use, or may stay
with a MV / Sanyo H94A combo or a MV SCSI PAS sound card.  And a bunch
of huge old SCSI-2 FH drives in external cases, that I may connect up.
Plus some smaller SCSI drives (for Swap, etc.)  Home LAN is 10Base-2,
and I have bunches of parts (some pretty obsolete.  Anyone want a 256k
XT with a 11 Mb HD?)

  I'm interested in an UDMA motherboard for speed, the obvious reason;
One store (specializes in Win95 mainly) has a nice special on this
Jetway Pentium UDMA motherboard (with the SIS all-in-one chipset.) This
is reasonably priced ($170 with a Cx 6x PR200 CPU, or equivalent) &
would be a really good step up from the old 486DX50 ISA box, but maybe
something better exists for my purposes?  (I wish there was a Linux
mini-HowTo on choosing a motherboard, but I'd better shut up before I
volunteer <G>!)

  If I plug in the TMC-1680, the SCM PCMCIA dock, the SMC NIC, and the
sound card, I need at least 4 ISA slots; a space for another ISA card
would be nice.  I'm told ASUS makes a pricey, 5-ISA slot, Pentium
momboard (with 3 PCI slots?) but I don't know the model number (Asus'
web site won't give me any model information, it just gives me a
"Product Information" header?!)

  I don't mind getting a better SCSI card (plan to eventually) but want
to wait until after the move (My girlfriend's disabled, so guess who
gets to pay for both of us to move?) - I can get a PCI NIC that should
be Linux compatible, for not too much, if I only have 3 ISA slots, and
make things work out.  And the PCMCIA dock CAN stay with the 486DX50,
but I'd like it to be on a Linux machine.

  Up to now, all my Linux boxes have been "s*pieces" machines, old
and/or obsolete, slow machines, and it's just time to find a nice home
for those DIMMs & put it all together...

  I'm thinking a 213 Mb (Maxtor 7213SY) SCSI drive for Linux swap space,
probably put WFW 3.11's swap partition on there too, and a couple EIDE
drives inside the case for User space, set up to boot Dos;  put Linux in
one 540 Mb internal SCSI drive & put whatever needs more room out there
on the external (600 Mb & 1.3 Gb) SCSI-2 hard drives, for now, and I'll
have enough space easily.  Leave the other big SCSI's running the news
and mail server <G>...

  Mark Willis

Quote:> and I have bunches of parts (some pretty obsolete.  Anyone want a 256k
> XT with a 11 Mb HD?)

Quote:>   I'm interested in an UDMA motherboard for speed, the obvious reason;
> One store (specializes in Win95 mainly) has a nice special on this
> Jetway Pentium UDMA motherboard (with the SIS all-in-one chipset.) This
> is reasonably priced ($170 with a Cx 6x PR200 CPU, or equivalent) &
> would be a really good step up from the old 486DX50 ISA box, but maybe
> something better exists for my purposes?  (I wish there was a Linux
> mini-HowTo on choosing a motherboard, but I'd better shut up before I
> volunteer <G>!)

I generally don't care for Cyrix processors, due to the poor FPU. K6's
are
usually OK.  

Quote:>   If I plug in the TMC-1680, the SCM PCMCIA dock, the SMC NIC, and the
> sound card, I need at least 4 ISA slots; a space for another ISA card
> would be nice.  I'm told ASUS makes a pricey, 5-ISA slot, Pentium
> momboard (with 3 PCI slots?) but I don't know the model number (Asus'
> web site won't give me any model information, it just gives me a
> "Product Information" header?!)

Quote:>   Up to now, all my Linux boxes have been "s*pieces" machines, old
> and/or obsolete, slow machines, and it's just time to find a nice home
> for those DIMMs & put it all together...

Quote:>   I'm thinking a 213 Mb (Maxtor 7213SY) SCSI drive for Linux swap space,
> probably put WFW 3.11's swap partition on there too, and a couple EIDE
> drives inside the case for User space, set up to boot Dos;  put Linux in
> one 540 Mb internal SCSI drive & put whatever needs more room out there
> on the external (600 Mb & 1.3 Gb) SCSI-2 hard drives, for now, and I'll
> have enough space easily.  Leave the other big SCSI's running the news
> and mail server <G>...

Quote:> (I am probably wrong :) I  use a P200MMX with an ASUS TX97-XE
> motherboard.
> It supports UDMA and  has the 430TX chipset.

Boards based on the VIA Apollo VP-2 (aka AMD 640) and Apollo VP-3
chipsets, OTOH, can cache much more than this, and so are more suitable.
I don't know what the status is with cacheable RAM for current SiS
chipsets.  I do know that my current board (an MTI R526 with SiS 5511
chipset) can only cache up to 64MB, but that limit may have been lifted in
more recent SiS chipsets.

Quote:> If you plan on "packing it in" the case (as you do) you might want to
> buy
> extra fans for the case.(The TX-97XE motherboard can power 3 fans)

--
Rod Smith                                 Author of:

http://www.users.fast.net/~rodsmith       "OS/2 Soundcard Summary"
NOTE: Remove the digit and following word from my address to mail me

(Interesting, Michael Wise's article hasn't shown up here yet, I can
see pieces of it though, in Rod's message.  And I guess the sickly
browser on the girlfriends' machine did post it before crashing the one
time, I figured it didn't get posted...)  Thanks for the info, guys -

  I'm going to try the Global GCT-8IT motherboard for this, as I
probably won't upgrade this machine past 64 Mb (it has i430TX chipset, &
64 Mb of SDRam in it right now.) Got a Cyrix 200 MMX clone for it, that
should push things along...

  It'll be quite noticeably faster than the old 486DX-50 ISA momboard
(has had 32 just upgraded to 48Mb of 30-pin SIMMs, 600 Mb total in 2 old
IDE hard drives, no LBA in the original BIOS, my first 486 & I'm fond of
it but it's outdated!) machine, when this new box gets too slow for what
I do with it I'll get something newer & faster & make this a server or
something.  I use the DX50 for compiles & text editing, mainly, and I'll
add web browsing now, with IDE Primary Master a Western Digital 540 Mb
IDE, Secondary Master a Western Digital 4 Gb EIDE, and on the SCSI chain
a Quantum Maverick 540 Mb, and a 7-CD Changer or two, plus probably a
few older slow SCSI-2 disks.  Probably add more UDMA HD's as time goes
on.  The DX50 will be re-used for something or other {e-mail server,
it'd be nice to automate that next, maybe?}

  I'm not trying to make a super-fast machine here, just something
reasonably nicer than the old 486, at a reasonable cost.  (Next
programming project will have budget for a far faster machine, if the
company ever gets going to where they can afford me! <G>  I'll play with
multiple processors then, most likely.)  I mono-task to a very large
degree, just a habit & style thing;  This'll do all I need it to do.

  BTW, this momboard does have a fan power (your choice of 5V or 12V)
connector onboard, and even says it power conserves (turns off the fan)
there - I'll probably just plug the fan in to a drive power connector,
though.  I'd just as soon let it run always...  One friend (A tech at a
computer store) had someone plug a 5-1/4" full height SCSI drive into a
motherboard fan power plug, apparently - vaporizing the traces on the

on some of those big old monsters.)  Probably voids the warranty...

  I agree about adding extra fans to the case to augment the power
supply fan, even if not absolutely needed it can be a good idea - I've
been known to turn power supply fans around to route air the way I want
to route it through the case! <G>  I have a spare fan sitting here
waiting for the task, I need an extra power connector for it is all...
If I can, I'll set the extra fan up to draw air in throught a filter, I
think.  Shouldn't have huge heat problems with 1 SCSI and 2 IDE drives,
better safe than smouldering though...

  Mark Willis

Quote:>  The reason is that the 430TX, like all
>current Intel Pentium (Socket 7) chipsets, can cache only 64MB >of RAM.

--
Michael Meissner, Cygnus Solutions (Massachusetts office)
4th floor, 955 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA