My old P3-700 that I have been using day in and day out since 1999 is finally getting retired! I have been slowly collecting parts for the new machine as they have popped up here and there.

System is built around MSI KT3 Ultra II board with onboard RAID I picked up last year around this time. I wanted to use it for a V5-6000 system but I'm still not sure about proper 3.3 volts AGP support so set it aside rather then use it for that purpose.

I liked the idea of a daily box with a mirrored RAID assembly, if one drive fails the other just keeps on going. A discarded computer from work donated a AMD 2000+ CPU and heatsink combo, and over on the HardOCP forum I found someone selling a stick of 512MB DDR400 ram for $35 shipped.

Yesterday the final pieces feel into place-

http://www.officemax.com/max/solutions/product/prodBlock.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&expansionOID=-536908016&prodBlockOID=1611334088

Seagate retail 160GB hard drives with 8MB cache on sale for $59 each!

Last night I spent several hours setting up Win98/Win2000Pro/Linux. I split the first drive into four parts, the OS's are each on their own partitions (5 gig each) with the last partiton (137 GB) being for storage and common Win98/Win2k programs.

After that I installed the second drive, went into the RAID bios and mirrored the first drive and it is fully up and running.

Did I mention it's fast? =)

Still have to tinker with the OS loader menu, Lispire makes itself the default and I have to figure out how to change it.

TIme to get ready for work, cya.

That looks nice, Gary  8)
Especially those harddrives for $59 each  :o
The abbreviation RAID clearly shows where it stands for : 'Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks'  ;D

ah look'n great Gary, but I thought you had troubles with MSI KT3 Ultra boards?

or are there many other types that are safe?

wrote on 27.12.05 at 21:32:58:

ah look'n great Gary, but I thought you had troubles with MSI KT3 Ultra boards?

As indicated in the first post 3.3 volt AGP operation is unsure, there are 3dfx boards that can operate at 1.5 volt with no problem.

ah okay like the Voodoo4 4500 AGP and Rampage for example :) okay well it's good to see you upgrad'n hehe must be alot better to work with than the P3 700 , that's for sure !

Test the 3.3V-support with another old 3.3V-card (NVidia TNT or anything similar), if the board doesn't support 3.3V it's not really sad having an NVidia-card blown to pieces. ;)

wrote on 27.12.05 at 22:00:13:

Test the 3.3V-support with another old 3.3V-card (NVidia TNT or anything similar), if the board doesn't support 3.3V it's not really sad having an NVidia-card blown to pieces. ;)

Unfortunatly you have the possibility to blow your AGP slot (or worse) to pieces, too.

wrote on 27.12.05 at 22:20:27:

Unfortunatly you have the possibility to blow your AGP slot (or worse) to pieces, too.

Well I don't think I have actually seen anything like that happen before.

I have to do some research, but there must be some AGP video card that can report actual AGP volts in software... hmm.

Doing some tinkering tonight- The board I have does not seem to support 3.3v AGP.

I have a Voodoo 3 board in it now and it gives an "alarm" tone on power up and a flashing red screen.

After that the machine proceeds and seems to run normal but the only time I have seen that before was on a motherboard that did support a video card proper.

AGP voltage tweaks in BIOS still only indicate 1.6/1.7/1.8V as options.

Bios looks to be the last available, dated 2/03. version. 5.7 board PN 6380E.

Just a FYI- The board I'm using has the RAID option, KT3 Ultras II's without might have 3.3V support.

Strange. I have the same board and it does support 3.3V.  (But I even cannot set the voltage beyond 1.8V in BIOS)

wrote on 28.12.05 at 16:04:44:

Strange. I have the same board and it does support 3.3V.  (But I even cannot set the voltage beyond 1.8V in BIOS)

When I install a 3.3 volt card like a Voodoo 3 I get a warning tone and flashing red screen during boot, when I install a Voodoo 4 or GF4 there is no warning tone nor flashing red screen.

hmm that means that that board isn.t 3.3volt friendly orsay not trustable.

maybe getting an EPoX EP-8K3A+ or an EPoX EP-8K5A2+ would be a better idea, I am willing to help you out by finding one Gary :)
ah here's one
http://cgi.ebay.com/EPoX-EP-8K3A-Socket-A-Motherboard-RAID_W0QQitemZ6834115159QQcategoryZ31496QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://i14.ebayimg.com/04/i/05/c9/82/7d_1.JPG
http://i10.ebayimg.com/02/i/05/cf/35/b0_1.JPG

It might be best to mail the seller for better quallity photo's
maybe it's not alloud to post ebay links but that board is the same we use now Gary a 3dfx friendly board ;)

wrote on 28.12.05 at 16:22:47:

When I install a 3.3 volt card like a Voodoo 3 I get a warning tone and flashing red screen during boot, when I install a Voodoo 4 or GF4 there is no warning tone nor flashing red screen.

I know. And I said, that I have the same mainboard, with 3.3V support (My Voodoo3 AGP boots flawlessly). Seems, there are existing different versions of this mb. (VIA KT33CE an CF)

anyways the MSI KT3 boarsd arn't reccomended for V6K users it's not to trust. Gary has tested more of those boards and if a V3 ain't gonna work leave it aside for the 6K or any other 3dfx AGP card besides V4 4500.

Quote:

maybe getting an EPoX EP-8K3A+ or an EPoX EP-8K5A2+ would be a better idea

Well about makin new systems, I got myself an 8K5A2+ about a month ago ;) (hopefully someday it will power a V56K)
But same case as Gary, I'm too slowly collecting the parts, so no new pc for me yet.

So Gary belive that finally is very welcome, speaking of being in a similar situation I know it is.
Anyway great system :)

wrote on 28.12.05 at 17:05:37:

anyways the MSI KT3 boarsd arn't reccomended for V6K users it's not to trust. Gary has tested more of those boards and if a V3 ain't gonna work leave it aside for the 6K or any other 3dfx AGP card besides V4 4500.

I'm not the be all and end all of testing, it's possible there was a revision change that disabled 3.3 support for the KT3 Ultra II boards.

I might try flashing it to an early bios but not inclined since this is the daily use box, a 5500 PCI or 4500 AGP will do just fine.

wrote on 28.12.05 at 16:38:03:

And I said, that I have the same mainboard, with 3.3V support (My Voodoo3 AGP boots flawlessly).

No 3-4 beeps at first power up or red screen?


Quote:

Seems, there are existing different versions of this mb. (VIA KT33CE an CF)

1) Do you have hardware monitoring via software? The MSI driver disk has a program for checking while in windows but AGP and DIMM voltages come up blank when checked.

2) What revison board do you have? Bios? Southbridge number?

Some pics-

http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/albums/album52/msi_1.jpg
http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/albums/album52/msi_2.jpg
http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/albums/album52/msi_3.jpg
http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/albums/album52/msi_4.jpg

nice new Seagates Gary :) :P

I ordered a brand new Seagate 120GB HDD ATA 7200 rpm today also, no more Maxtor for me my firend  8) it is that the 3rd Maxtor HDD died :-X

I was most impresed by the segate photo too. They are also my favourite disk brand.

well the 4th Maxtor died today, where is the world leading to, @ least my 6K is okay,, it's unharmed :)

the only Maxtor that is working is my 120GB 7200 rpm 2MB lol

I hope I get some Seagate HDD's around here.

Now I understand that everyone says that Seagate is more reliable lol

the gigabyte ga7dxe amd 761+686b chipset is a rock solid board ran a v55000 agp on it for a year or more
runs up to 2100 xp no raid though

wrote on 28.12.05 at 23:24:54:

No 3-4 beeps at first power up or red screen?

After all, unfortunatly YES  :-[ I have 3-4 beeps. But the voodoo3 brings a picture...

wrote on 29.12.05 at 13:59:15:

After all, unfortunatly YES  :-[ I have 3-4 beeps. But the voodoo3 brings a picture...

Good news: I testet with 3.3V Voodoo5 AGP, and it works perfect. No multiple beeps or other strange behavior.

I hope the pictures answer your questions:
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/8456/bild0387qf.th.jpg http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/8708/bild0449mg.th.jpg http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/1356/bild0475al.th.jpg

wrote on 29.12.05 at 18:01:20:

Good news: I testet with 3.3V Voodoo5 AGP, and it works perfect. No multiple beeps or other strange behavior.

But still no 3.4, 3.5, 3.6 AGP volt options in the bios?

wrote on 29.12.05 at 23:22:00:

But still no 3.4, 3.5, 3.6 AGP volt options in the bios?

Nope.

wrote on 29.12.05 at 23:34:34:

Nope.

Doesn't sound very promising.

well every KT333 board should support AGP x2 3.3Volt as 1.5 voltages. and 3.3 Volt is the most important my ASUS A7V333-R like EPoX EP-8K3A+ both support 3.3Volt AGP x2 and x4 and 1.5 Volt AGP x2 and x4 like all other KT333's should do.

Omega_SUpreme has the MSI KT3 Ultra2 with V6K also, , maybe you had a bad one like I did have with my HDD 's these last few days.

As I understood the problem is werther the board is able (made for) to apply the chipset's AGP2x feature, KT333 definetly supports 3.3V agp the question is if the board does, for that I suppose it has to have some components more and a bios that enables the use of those components wich enable the feature (eg. a board with a southbridge that has integrated some soundblaster support and the board does not have the rest of the stuff on it to use it)

wrote on 30.12.05 at 18:57:04:

Indeed, the KT333 chipset does support 3,3V AGP. If the rest of the motherboard supports 3,3V AGP is the second question  :)

1) Just because the chipset supports 3.3 volts doesn't mean the motherboard has to, that is up to the motherboard manufacture.

2) AGP 1/2x mode does not automatic mean 3.3 support, there is all sort of reasons to change the mode down from 4x.

3) My motherboard works fine, other KT3 show the same issues.

The Voodoo 3 I was using for a test device just expired after less then a dozen reboots.

Did you kill the card, or did it just stop functioning in that Motherboard?

Has anyone had a problem running Voodoo 2 on a newer system under Windows 98 with the original 3dfx drivers?

I have tried both an Obsidian 2 and a generic V2 board and when windows clears to the desktop the machine locks up.

I've tinkered with the PCI timing and 2.1 spec, pulled all the other PCI boards, disabled the onboard sound, etc with no effect.

Well I had problems with them, the system would not get into windows ........
When I used the fastvoodoo drivers there was no problem at all.
Well I always use the fastvoodoo drivers so I didn't found it usefull at the time to figure out why I had problems with the reference driver.
Perhaps you could give those drivers a try  ;)

Well I had problems with them, the system would not get into windows ........
When I used the fastvoodoo drivers there was no problem at all.
Well I always use the fastvoodoo drivers so I didn't found it usefull at the time to figure out why I had problems with the reference driver.
Perhaps you could give those drivers a try  ;)

I tried different cards, and the machine only has 512 mb of ram.

I have been using the Win9x drivers for years now without fail, the original drivers are generally the best and most compatible.

I may load up a spare drive (rather then risk the current install) and try running the board without the VIA 4 in 1 driver.

wrote on 05.01.06 at 17:53:22:

I tried different cards, and the machine only has 512 mb of ram. I have been using the Win9x drivers for years now without fail, the original drivers are generally the best and most compatible. I may load up a spare drive (rather then risk the current install) and try running the board without the VIA 4 in 1 driver.

Are you using the Athlon compatible Voodoo2 Driver
(based on V3.02.02)?

http://www.traumatic.de/pphlogger/dlcount.php?id=FalconFly&url=http://www.planetfalconfly.de/downloads/athlon-voodoo2.zip

Well it didn't lock up at the desktop, I'm going to tinker around a bit. Turok and GLQuake seem fine, Quake 3 hard locked on exit.

Edit- Downloaded the 3dfxzone 4.0 gold drivers for Win9x and running a Q3 demo loop.

So far so good.

heeh I knew that they would work, I allways used them :)

So no Hyperion drivers Gary still odd that that wouldn't work, normally it should right?

Try using VIA Hyperion4in1 4.51 they really PWN, otherwise 4.49 beta they are good as backhand :)

I might try uninstalling the latest VIA chipset drivers and try an early set. Quake 3 locked up the OS after a few demo passes.

I'm going to try under Win2000Pro and see if the lock up happens there as well.

yes that is because the Latest version of the Hyperion is meant for the VIA KT400 and up if you use an older chip set use 4.51 or older.

I had the same thing also with Quake III Arena 1.32 under Win2K Pro + SP4 and Win98SE + un-Official SP 2.02

Win2000Pro will demoloop with no problem, locks right up when you go to exit Q3 however.

looks like you are running into the "v2 glidefreeze on newer machine" problem.I have an athlon3000 system running on a kt880 mobo and I have a similar problem,glide just freezing randomly,sometimes 15 minutes after starting a glide app,sometimes 5 hours,sometimes when exiting a glide app,sometimes not at all.try underclocking the FSB a little bit.also,try connecting your monitor to the primary graphics adapter when the freeze occurs,to see if only glide is locked up or if the entire system is down..

1) The machine is 100% stock configuration, no overclocking. Most BIOS settings have been set to their safest most conservative settings in an attempt to get stable.

2) Freezes the OS, in Win98 I have to reset, in Win2000 I have to bring up task manager and even then there is problems (no mouse) and reboot.

yeah,seems like you have the same prob.as I said,try lowering the FSB a bit,even if your system is not overclocked..

wrote on 06.01.06 at 12:23:01:

yeah,seems like you have the same prob.as I said,try lowering the FSB a bit,even if your system is not overclocked..

I'd rather replace the V2 with a 5500 PCI (and add a second monitor) then degrade system performance.

If the hardware can't run at stock specs I'd just assume replace the hardware.

The trick is making sure everything is working right before making that step.

well,glide lockup is a known problem (at least for me).some users have it,some dont.its the only (and last) issue I was not able to fix (when running v2 sli on modern machine).it probably depends on the motherboard chipset,this problem is fatal on nforce3 boards for example..

Decided to use the 200SBi just in Win98 and disable in Win2000. I'll be able to run older Glide games that way without anything odd going on under Win2k (like the OS insisting on running Q3 with the 200SBi even when I have removed the opengl32 driver from the Q3 directory.)

Last night I fired up Turok to test the 3dfx board and as soon as it launched the power supply gave up, lol.

I'm on the machine now and using it, most of my applications and files are transfered over. The hard drive access times are just so much faster then the old P3-700 =)

So everything is working fine in 98SE with the SBi?

What primary video card are you using?

I'll have one SBi soon,so I'll test it myself.wonder if I'll be able to get glide running under xp with koolsmokys driver ;D

@ ps47

Koolsmokey'ss driver cool if it works some benchmarks would be nice of Quake3 or so :)

@ Gary

How's your system going is it up and run'n yet :) I hope you are satisfied with the upgrade hehe must be alot faster than the P3/E 700 you had first :P

wrote on 09.01.06 at 03:29:30:

So everything is working fine in 98SE with the SBi? What primary video card are you using?

1) Was till the power supply blew out.

2) G-force3 Ti 200

wrote on 14.01.06 at 04:48:11:

How's your system going is it up and run'n yet :) I hope you are satisfied with the upgrade hehe must be alot faster than the P3/E 700 you had first :P

Been up and operating for several days now- The speed difference in daily use is rediculous!

ATA-133 @ 7200 RPM just smokes ATA-33 @ 5400 RPM.

I'm still adding and tweaking several applications, this machine is pretty much my "swiss army knife" that is required to do everything but high end gaming.

Edit- I still have not ordered a larger power supply so can't report on how well the 200SBi is working (it has been removed for the moment so as not to risk losing another PS)

you could use an ATi Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition AGP as main VGA :) then you can run everything @ Ultra high details :P

They aren't that expensive these days :) unless the KT333 would be the bottleneck for that card. but still the idea is nice.

Glad to hear that everything is working the way you wanted it to be Gary :)

wrote on 14.01.06 at 16:36:16:

you could use an ATi Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition AGP as main VGA :) then you can run everything @ Ultra high details :P

1) I have another box for that.

2) The ATI Win9x drivers suck worse then anything has ever sucked before.

BSOD just clicking on the driver control panel is a joke, no thanks.

and a GeForce 6800 Ultra AGP then :) hehe that's the best AGP card from the other brand, if you want it for high ed stuff that is :)

Well the GeForce 6800 GS AGP's are good also they are very cheap and can mostly be unlocked to GeForce 6800GT/Ultra specs from 12 pipes to 16 and from 5 vertex units to 6 :) thanx to Riva Tuner this is a possibillity :)

What games are you going to test on it? or is it mre for backup work and so on?

*sigh*

What part of "I have another box for high end gaming" isn't clear?

I have no need for this machine to turn into a money pit.

well this confused me alittle hehe

wrote on 14.01.06 at 14:53:15:

I'm still adding and tweaking several applications, this machine is pretty much my "swiss army knife" that is required to do everything but high end gaming.

talk'n about High end so thought a high end card was also the idea :-X

wrote on 14.01.06 at 18:45:18:

well this confused me alittle hehe talk'n about High end so thought a high end card was also the idea :-X

everything *but* high end gaming.

Doesn't take much pixel pushing power for Photoshop, Front Page, Outlook, FTP, Digital camera software, MSN, CD & DVD ripping, faxing, etc, etc.