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itomato
Joined: 27 Dec 2005
Posts: 236
Location: Dallas, TX
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brams
Joined: 27 Dec 2005
Posts: 506
Location: Blackburn, England
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 Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 12:41 am Post subject: Re: I'm building an Intel Openstep machine.. |
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| itomato wrote: | I'm about to go to Dallas' 3rd Saturday computer sidewalk sale..
I'm going to build up a top (or nearly top) notch machine for Openstep.
PIII 600MHz + (P4?)
Matrox AGP video
9GB SCSI Hard Disk (on Adaptec 2940UW)
Supported CD Recorder
SoundBlaster AWE64 (Gold)
Intel, DEC, or 3Com 100Mb NIC
OHCI USB controller
We'll see how close I get.. |
That mirrors basically what I choose.
I got an Epox dual slot 1 Intel 440BX mobo with 1gb ram and dual coppermine 700mhz PIII's
Matrox G400 AGP 32mb and ATI Rage Pro AGP (see which one works best)
18gb Quantum Atlas 10k2
Adaptec 2940U2W
SB AWE64 Gold with 4mb
Intel 82559B NIC
Adaptec firewire 400 card
Gonna run BeOS 5.1d0 Dan0/PhOS on this along with OPENSTEP 4.2 and some flavour of Linux or BSD, maybe even Solaris.
_________________
NeXTcube Turbo Dimension, NeXTstation Turbo Color, MP2100, Q840av, Q650, WS G4 500, Pismo G4 550, SGI Octane R12K MXE, BeBox 133.
Last edited by brams on Sat Nov 18, 2006 2:08 am; edited 1 time in total |
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itomato
Joined: 27 Dec 2005
Posts: 236
Location: Dallas, TX
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| Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 1:08 am Post subject: |
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I had a G200 and an ATI Xpert 98 in a PIII 600 I had several years ago.
I prefered the responsiveness and Gamma on the Matrox - plus the driver supports a larger amount of RAM, higher refresh, and more resolutions. |
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brams
Joined: 27 Dec 2005
Posts: 506
Location: Blackburn, England
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| Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 2:40 am Post subject: |
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| itomato wrote: | I had a G200 and an ATI Xpert 98 in a PIII 600 I had several years ago.
I prefered the responsiveness and Gamma on the Matrox - plus the driver supports a larger amount of RAM, higher refresh, and more resolutions. |
I know the Matrox G400 is supposed to be a really good card, but I'm gonna use this box for playing with various operating systems and I think the Rage Pro has got better support in some of them. I'm hoping the Matrox will work with all that I need but I read the Matrox G400 does not play too well with SMP kernels (causing random lock ups), Matrox where aware of the problem and where going to fix it with a firmware fix, but having gone through all the release notes I never found out if they did or not. I read it affected Windows 2000 & BeOS and some kind of BSD.
I was going to try and get a dual slot 2 Intel 440GX with dual slot 2 Xeons, CPU's are very cheap here not found a board, I reckon BeOS would roar on a couple of Xeons with big caches.
I think you can run very recent hardware with OS 4.2 I know Intel 865 Springdale logicboards work fine, from that I'd guess that an 875 Canterwood would work as well, thus you should be able to use a decent PIV. I think it's best to use Intel boards, I tried to use OS 4.2 once on an Abit board with nForce II chipset and AMD Barton 2800+ and it KP'd during boot.
_________________
NeXTcube Turbo Dimension, NeXTstation Turbo Color, MP2100, Q840av, Q650, WS G4 500, Pismo G4 550, SGI Octane R12K MXE, BeBox 133. |
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itomato
Joined: 27 Dec 2005
Posts: 236
Location: Dallas, TX
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 7:23 pm Post subject: |
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I wound up with two systems:
1) Compaq Personal Workstation AP550 (P III, i840 chipset [RAMBUS  }, Matrox dual-head 32M AGP video, built-on Intel e100 NIC, SB-compatible sound, built-in speaker, 160 SCSI, etc..)
2) ASUS P3B-F (Slot 1 P III, 133MHz bus, AGP, PCI, ISA - Sound Blaster Awe64, Intel e100 NIC, etc)
I cannot get Openstep 4.2 to install!!
It will not get past the disk initialzation portion of the installer - I get a message:
"Disk Initialialization Failed"
I have tried 8 different hard disks ranging from 18GB U160 drives, to 9.1 GB UW drives, to >8 GB IDE laptop drives connected with an adapter, on different IDE ports, on an Adaptec 2940 card, on the U160 (just to see)..
I'm out of options and almost out of patience. I'm limited to the Compaq workstation until the next Flea Market because the only SDRAM I have is ECC, and the ASUS refuses to POST.
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Two things I haven't tried are:
1) booting and loading drivers from old-fashioned floppies (I'm using El Torrito CDROMS)
2) making a ~2GB partition and installing to that.
Advice? I'm thinking the i840 chipset is bewitching me..
P.S.
I picked up two ATI Rage AGP cards with RAM expansion for a buck a piece.. I can look for others next time if anybody is interested.. The Matrox was $15.. |
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helf
Joined: 29 Dec 2005
Posts: 1093
Location: Alabama, USA
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| Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 12:57 am Post subject: |
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| tad off topic... is there a list of supported x86 hardware anywhere? |
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itomato
Joined: 27 Dec 2005
Posts: 236
Location: Dallas, TX
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| Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 1:01 am Post subject: |
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This is Apple's last OPENSTEP Compatibility Guide.
It's basically the same for NeXTSTEP, but it has the hardware covered with the last patches - VESA video, etc.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=70027 |
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helf
Joined: 29 Dec 2005
Posts: 1093
Location: Alabama, USA
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| Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 1:06 am Post subject: |
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ah, cool, thanks  |
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brams
Joined: 27 Dec 2005
Posts: 506
Location: Blackburn, England
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| Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 1:10 am Post subject: |
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| itomato wrote: |
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Two things I haven't tried are:
1) booting and loading drivers from old-fashioned floppies (I'm using El Torrito CDROMS)
2) making a ~2GB partition and installing to that.
Advice? I'm thinking the i840 chipset is bewitching me..
P.S.
I picked up two ATI Rage AGP cards with RAM expansion for a buck a piece.. I can look for others next time if anybody is interested.. The Matrox was $15.. |
Personally before I went crazy trying to figure what is going on with this I'd go back to basics and try good old floppies.
I'd also check what happens on a 2gb partition
| itomato wrote: | | I have tried 8 different hard disks ranging from 18GB U160 drives, to 9.1 GB UW drives, to >8 GB IDE laptop drives connected with an adapter, on different IDE ports, on an Adaptec 2940 card, on the U160 (just to see).. |
When you select the drivers floppy/cd after the boot floppy/cd, are you using the dual channel IDE or the PIIX?, maybe try using that, not that it should make a lot of difference but is the 2940 an OEM card like a Dell or a Compaq with a weird BIOS?, some of the OEM cards are crippled.
I'd think the ASUS should play fine as it's i440BX and that is what OS 4.2 loves, in fact that's what Virtual PC emmulates.
Which 2940 card are you using the U2W or U2 or narrow?
Could you not install OS 4.2 on the Compaq and then swap the disk to the ASUS and see what happens?
_________________
NeXTcube Turbo Dimension, NeXTstation Turbo Color, MP2100, Q840av, Q650, WS G4 500, Pismo G4 550, SGI Octane R12K MXE, BeBox 133. |
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brams
Joined: 27 Dec 2005
Posts: 506
Location: Blackburn, England
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| Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 12:07 pm Post subject: |
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itomato
Did you make any progress with this?, I'm eager to find out as I'm going to start with building my box within the next couple of months.
_________________
NeXTcube Turbo Dimension, NeXTstation Turbo Color, MP2100, Q840av, Q650, WS G4 500, Pismo G4 550, SGI Octane R12K MXE, BeBox 133. |
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helf
Joined: 29 Dec 2005
Posts: 1093
Location: Alabama, USA
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| Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 1:52 pm Post subject: |
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| brams, have you thought about buying 2 slot1-> socket 370 converters and using two tualatin CPUs? be a lot faster than your coppermines, even with FSB starvation. I'm assuming your FSB is 100mhz, if its 133 then you can run a 1.4 tualatin-S |
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brams
Joined: 27 Dec 2005
Posts: 506
Location: Blackburn, England
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 1:09 am Post subject: |
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| helf wrote: | | brams, have you thought about buying 2 slot1-> socket 370 converters and using two tualatin CPUs? be a lot faster than your coppermines, even with FSB starvation. I'm assuming your FSB is 100mhz, if its 133 then you can run a 1.4 tualatin-S |
I had a look for Pentium III-S on eBay but they seem to be a scarce thing. I actually had another objective, I set my self of getting decent components at cheap prices, I set myself an upper limit of 100 pounds for everything without screen, which I ended up going past, think it stands me at around 140 put I had not realised how much a SCSI cable might cost, plus I went to a 73gb Atlas 10k3 which put 50 pounds into it.
Tualatin-S that's the father of Pentium M IIRC, I'm not sure if my EPOX KP6-BS supports fast PIII's, but I guess thats the job of the slocket to sort out. Can you personally recommend a slocket as I read up on them and they seem very confusing a lot seem orientated towards Celeron-A'a
I was actually looking for a dual slot 2 i440GX with a couple of big cache PIII Xeons.
Can you tell me, assuming my board won't run it's FSB at 133mhz, can I still use 133 FSB PIII's though technically they'd be underclocked?.
I went for the EPOX as it was on eBay, cw with dual P3's 700 or 800 (I forgot which) and 1gb of ram and CPU heatsinks for 26 pounds which seemed like a decent starting point. I would have preferred a decent server board like a geniune Intel or Tyan or Supermicro.
Do you know a a dual socket 370 board with i440 BX/GX? or has anybody got any experience with a dual socket 370 board and OS 4.2 & BeOS
_________________
NeXTcube Turbo Dimension, NeXTstation Turbo Color, MP2100, Q840av, Q650, WS G4 500, Pismo G4 550, SGI Octane R12K MXE, BeBox 133. |
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itomato
Joined: 27 Dec 2005
Posts: 236
Location: Dallas, TX
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 9:47 am Post subject: |
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I missed the big Computer Swap this month because of my other new toy, so I didn't get any (Non-ECC) PC133 SDRAM for the ASUS board.
The only signs of life I get from it are beeps when I power it up with *no* memory installed.
I did try to install with floppies, though I got the same results. I've never had such a tough time getting OS installed..
It will recognize the drive, no matter which one I use (ATA/SCSI on the 2940UW). I have swapped CDROM and HD to [Master PRI/ Master SEC] and [Master PRI/Slave PRI].. Always with similar results.
I can select the disk, make partitions (tried one 2GB partition just because my memory is not as sharp as it used to be), though after the partition is made, it doesn't register the new partition as an option to install. (Perhaps I should make the partition, save it, power off and restart the install process?)
If I accept the option to "Use the existing NNNN Mb NEXTSTEP partition..." the installer attempts to format the partition, but complains that Nextstep cannot find a disk to install on - needs a disk with at least 120MB free space, etc.
Then it bails and restarts.
Darwin will give a similar result locating disks to install on. No disk is given as an option. The 79XX controller is recognized, but the drive is not and no ATA disk ever appears.
I need coffee now.. |
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itomato
Joined: 27 Dec 2005
Posts: 236
Location: Dallas, TX
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 9:59 am Post subject: |
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Brams -
Back in the day, I bought an ABIT BP6 (Socket 370 board tweaked to run dual Celerons) specifically to run BeOS and Linux.
It absolutely screamed. I don't think I ever ran NS/OS on it, though. I can't bear to let a CPU sit unrecognized.. ;)
As long as you have in Intel (non i840 apparently) chipset, you should be OK.
I have a 4-way Xeon with a ServerWorks chipset that is a PITA with everything but Linux. Openstep, Darwin, Solaris - all barf or refuse to boot. |
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helf
Joined: 29 Dec 2005
Posts: 1093
Location: Alabama, USA
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 10:09 am Post subject: |
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| brams wrote: |
Tualatin-S that's the father of Pentium M IIRC, I'm not sure if my EPOX KP6-BS supports fast PIII's, but I guess thats the job of the slocket to sort out. Can you personally recommend a slocket as I read up on them and they seem very confusing a lot seem orientated towards Celeron-A'a
...
Can you tell me, assuming my board won't run it's FSB at 133mhz, can I still use 133 FSB PIII's though technically they'd be underclocked?.
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First off, yes, the tualatins are the forfathers on the pentium M arch.
You *can* run a 133fsb tualatin on a 100 system. I'm typing on a socket37 0 100mhz FSB system thats running a 1.4ghz Tualatin-S with 512kb of L2. The converter I bought lets you set FSB jumper settings on it. at 100mhz the chip is running at 1045mhz. Which is fine imo, lets it run cooler Either way its a lot faster than my old 667mhz coppermine.
most likely you will need to get a FC-PGA to FC-PGA2 adapter to be able to use the tualatin. Theres a slightly different pin layout between the two. Most later socket 370 boards supported both.
The adapter actually lets you adjust voltage and fsb settings on it, so you can run the chip at higher speeds than what the motherboard lets you set. I didn't bother changing mine since I have a weak cooler on it.
I can dig around for adapters if you want. But you might be better off with those xeons.
btw, I paid 60usd for my tualatin. Amazing how much they still fetch.
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bit of a disjointed post, I was on the phone while typing it.
If you are going to stick with cheaper older machines for beos/OS4.2 then I would suggest a socket 370 board. Some let you run tualatins at 1.8ghz if you want...
Celeron-As were really popular for awhile as they aloud for massive overclocking.
I really don't know a lot about socket types... |
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