TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[MachineLearning]

A newer dated BIOS does not mean it's better.
Some later BIOS files are actually worse than older ones - Do try the one he let you get and just see how it does.

There's a month's difference, so it actually could be the same (I didn't look at my version, just the date). I'll flash it anyway in case it has optimizations, either later tonight or tomorrow.

So, I tested it out because I was extremely curious. I did validate that it's an older BIOS, not the same one.

New CPU-Z Validation (with multiplier 9.5 instead of 9, T-Bios)

It didn't change any options that I could notice, and RAM timings are still broken to CPU-Z even after installing the latest version. Interestingly, the imaginary RAM overclocking is slightly worse, I could do CL4 before but now it has to be CL5 (all else equal). FSB was unable to budge. Seems like the newer version could be marginally better, but both are busted

Oh also, the board doesn't do 1T. At any frequency, at any timings...

Gonna reflash the newer one and roll with that

 

[Dinnercore]

My first and only DFI board: the Lanparty Jr. GF9400 T2RS.

Uhh nice board. I wished I had more SFF 775 boards, but all of the decent ones are tricky to find.

The temps on these JR boards from DFI seem to be a little weak point in general. I personally would not trust these with an overclocked X5470 e.g. inside a case. Small VRM, small heatsink, little airflow if you use a big tower cooler for the CPU... good chance for trouble. My P45 JR initially hit 60°C+ on the VRM sensor just with an overclocked dual core. I gave it some 'thermal armor' with a surprisingly good result on the VRM. I'll have to take a picture and make a post about that later.

Also, any specific reason you choose the pads over classic paste application for the MCH and its extra heatsink?

 

[MachineLearning]

Uhh nice board. I wished I had more SFF 775 boards, but all of the decent ones are tricky to find.

The temps on these JR boards from DFI seem to be a little weak point in general. I personally would not trust these with an overclocked X5470 e.g. inside a case. Small VRM, small heatsink, little airflow if you use a big tower cooler for the CPU... good chance for trouble. My P45 JR initially hit 60°C+ on the VRM sensor just with an overclocked dual core. I gave it some 'thermal armor' with a surprisingly good result on the VRM. I'll have to take a picture and make a post about that later.

Also, any specific reason you choose the pads over classic paste application for the MCH and its extra heatsink?

Totally agree on that, without a fan directly screwed to the MCH heatsink I wouldn't trust this in a classic [read: low-airflow] case. Please do post the "thermal armor" - was it like a metal backplate, or heatsinks attached on top of the pre-existing one?

I went with pads for the MCH assembly for a few admittedly minor reasons:
- hoping the pad helps even out the mounting pressure on the silicon
- preventing any paste overflow over the sides if I mess up. Would really just be an annoyance more than anything
- Nobody ever has to do it again, MX-2 / 4 / 5 all last 8 years but I reckon a pad would even outdo that (if this otherwise makes it that long)
- heat transfer with the pad is still quite good, more than enough for such silicon which doesn't have large fluctuations in power draw and heat. Vs for example a full-fat GPU, which can have insane temp deltas within mere seconds

 

[Greenslade]

Just collected my Dell 3020 mt i3 4150 8gb it all so came with a wifi card, not that i use WHFI anyway.But the best thing was it had a Samsung 850 EVO 500GB that is worth the 30 pounds i got the PC for See the Crystal dick info on the EVO.As you can see from the case has a ton of dust in it.I will have to wait tell we get a dry day to get rid of all that dust outside.I just ordered a 8 to 24 pin so i can put a new PSU in .And replace the i3 for a i5 4570 which i am taking out of the 3020 SFF and putting the i3 in there. I want try it until i get that dust out.I think i need one of those dust blowers to get rid of all that dust in there. When i got it home, i found out the Dell 580 mt was heavyer than the 3020 mt which is lighter i am nor sure why though. I see whfi cards are as cheap as chips and the one in the PC has no Anteners.

 

[Dinnercore]

was it like a metal backplate, or heatsinks attached on top of the pre-existing one?

I attached heatsinks to anything that remotely looked like it would produce heat. And I also cut a super low profile heatsink into fitting pieces for the back of VRM areas.

Top

Bottom

The cute sinks on the top did nothing noticable with the onboard sensors, but that backside heatsink on the VRMs was a measurable improvement. Purely passive it dropped load temps by ~3°C but on my bench I can also cool boards from the underside, and just a little airflow over it did wonders:

40°C VRM after 10 minutes pulling ~ 175W system power. In a setup like this I wouldn't mind overclocking a quad core on the poor 4 phase.

 

[MachineLearning]

I attached heatsinks to anything that remotely looked like it would produce heat. And I also cut a super low profile heatsink into fitting pieces for the back of VRM areas.

Top
View attachment 239480 View attachment 239483

Bottom
View attachment 239484

The cute sinks on the top did nothing noticable with the onboard sensors, but that backside heatsink on the VRMs was a measurable improvement. Purely passive it dropped load temps by ~3°C but on my bench I can also cool boards from the underside, and just a little airflow over it did wonders:

View attachment 239485

40°C VRM after 10 minutes pulling ~ 175W system power. In a setup like this I wouldn't mind overclocking a quad core on the poor 4 phase.

Quite good results. What thermal adhesive did you use for the rear attachment? Adhesive thermal pads? I like the 4-color VRM, lol.

Also is that a Zalman CNPS9900 Max I see? Got one of those as well, I just need to find mounting brackets for it.

 

[Dinnercore]

Quite good results. What thermal adhesive did you use for the rear attachment? Adhesive thermal pads? I like the 4-color VRM, lol.

Also is that a Zalman CNPS9900 Max I see? Got one of those as well, I just need to find mounting brackets for it.

I used this white glue. It is a bit more permanent compared to the adhesive pads, but also you can squish it very thin and it transfers heat better. Plus it can still be removed safely.

And yes, the cooler is a Zalman CNPS 9900 but without the MAX. I think the MAX is nickel plated or something.

 

[MachineLearning]

Kindly, @Mr.Scott (who must want to block me by now ) found yet another BIOS for that LP Jr. board.

It's the newest so far, dated 04/21/2009.

CPU-Z Validation

FSB @ 1696 QDR! Unstable, but I was just barely able to validate. 1698 booted, but 1700 refused to POST. This was how I got there:

I only ran this briefly, so I'm not concerned about damaging components. The voltage for the MCH was maxed out at 1.66v (typical ~1.2v). I am even more sure now that "Core Aux +1.2V Dual" = vMCH; raising it past 1.6v was absolutely required to POST > 1690FSB. This BIOS is clearly an improvement, marginal but still existant.

DRAM timings are still messed up, unfortunately, and 1T does not POST at all.

I'm happy to see any improvement, at all.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Kindly, @Mr.Scott (who must want to block me by now ) found yet another BIOS for that LP Jr. board.

It's the newest so far, dated 04/21/2009.

CPU-Z Validation

FSB @ 1696 QDR! Unstable, but I was just barely able to validate. 1698 booted, but 1700 refused to POST. This was how I got there:
View attachment 239495
I only ran this briefly, so I'm not concerned about damaging components. The voltage for the MCH was maxed out at 1.66v (typical ~1.2v). I am even more sure now that "Core Aux +1.2V Dual" = vMCH; raising it past 1.6v was absolutely required to POST > 1690FSB. This BIOS is clearly an improvement, marginal but still existant.

View attachment 239496
DRAM timings are still messed up, unfortunately, and 1T does not POST at all.

I'm happy to see any improvement, at all.

Why would I block you? You're a good guy.
After a ton of digging, I believe that is the last bios for that board. There were only a couple released along with 5 or 6 betas that are non existent now..
Board was not popular or stellar at all.

 

[MachineLearning]

Why would I block you? You're a good guy.
After a ton of digging, I believe that is the last bios for that board. There were only a couple released along with 5 or 6 betas that are non existent now..
Board was not popular or stellar at all.

Just joshin' around thank you for the kind words.

I'm not surprised by that, I'm not sure what could have really helped this poor thing not worth trying to fix for them, clearly.

 

[seth1911]

Board will run 2 dimm max of 8GB DDR3
or
4 dimm max of 16GB DDR2

Although i have never seen 4 gig sticks of DDR2.

A good friend use 4x Gskill 4GB 800 per dimm on its Q8300

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Like I said, for building a sleeper.

Sometime I want to do this. I lack any remotely modern hardware just lying around, though. About the fastest stuff I have just lying around is maybe Sandy Bridge era.

Alternatively something like this would be very neat indeed.

 

[Ruru]

Sometime I want to do this. I lack any remotely modern hardware just lying around, though. About the fastest stuff I have just lying around is maybe Sandy Bridge era.

Alternatively something like this would be very neat indeed.

I have 2x AM2, 1x AM2+ and 3x LGA 775 boards in my closet so I have some stuff to play around should just get a good Socket A board for older stuff.

 

[Splinterdog]

my mostly '99 permanent build

View attachment 237118View attachment 237119View attachment 237120View attachment 237121

• ASUS P3B-F
• Pentium III 600/100
• 128MB PC100 2-2-2-5
• 3dfx Voodoo3 3000 w/ active cooling
• Sound Blaster Live!
• Adaptec SCSI Controller
• IBM 30GB HDD
• Iomega Zip 250
• Plextor PX-708A CD/DVD RW
• HP CD-40X (SCSI)
• Intel PRO/1000 GT

P.S. yep the front cover of the case needs a second retrobright cycle

The photography here is just sublime. Are you using a pro camera or a phone? Curious...

 

[MaxiPro800]

Just built this "retro" (can I call it that...?) and wondering if I should bite the bullet and upgrade it to a i3 540 + GB H55M-S2V kit (with the same RAM amount, which is 4GB)

MB: ASUS P5E-VM DO
CPU: Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz
RAM: 4x1GB, 4GB total DDR2-800
GPU: ASUS Radeon R7 265 2GB GDDR5 DirectCU II (basically a rebranded HD7850 - exactly the R7 version of the HD7850-DC2-2GD5)
PSU: heavily modified Allied AL-8500BTX w/ 12cm fan
Case: some Delux I was given for free, dunno the model.
ODD: Hitachi-LG GH24NS SATA
HDD: Seagate ST3500630AS 500GB

Running Windows 10 with latest Adrenalin drivers. I wonder if my old 7870 from GB still suffers from black screens when trying to play NFS Hot Pursuit (the 2010 version)?

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Just built this "retro" (can I call it that...?) and wondering if I should bite the bullet and upgrade it to a i3 540 + GB H55M-S2V kit (with the same RAM amount, which is 4GB)

MB: ASUS P5E-VM DO
CPU: Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz
RAM: 4x1GB, 4GB total DDR2-800
GPU: ASUS Radeon R7 265 2GB GDDR5 DirectCU II (basically a rebranded HD7850 - exactly the R7 version of the HD7850-DC2-2GD5)
PSU: heavily modified Allied AL-8500BTX w/ 12cm fan
Case: some Delux I was given for free, dunno the model.
ODD: Hitachi-LG GH24NS SATA
HDD: Seagate ST3500630AS 500GB

Running Windows 10 with latest Adrenalin drivers. I wonder if my old 7870 from GB still suffers from black screens when trying to play NFS Hot Pursuit (the 2010 version)?

The i3 540 would be a bit better for retro games since it has better single core, but the Q9400 is fast enough that you probably wont realize much of a difference in 00s games.

If you are having performance issues I would upgrade to dual channel ram and maybe try some ocing before spending money on a platform upgrade. Your board is pretty low end and the VRM might not tolerate CPU ocing much, but you could probably overclock ram.

 

[Ruru]

Just built this "retro" (can I call it that...?) and wondering if I should bite the bullet and upgrade it to a i3 540 + GB H55M-S2V kit (with the same RAM amount, which is 4GB)

MB: ASUS P5E-VM DO
CPU: Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz
RAM: 4x1GB, 4GB total DDR2-800
GPU: ASUS Radeon R7 265 2GB GDDR5 DirectCU II (basically a rebranded HD7850 - exactly the R7 version of the HD7850-DC2-2GD5)
PSU: heavily modified Allied AL-8500BTX w/ 12cm fan
Case: some Delux I was given for free, dunno the model.
ODD: Hitachi-LG GH24NS SATA
HDD: Seagate ST3500630AS 500GB

Running Windows 10 with latest Adrenalin drivers. I wonder if my old 7870 from GB still suffers from black screens when trying to play NFS Hot Pursuit (the 2010 version)?

My LGA775 setup is pretty damn similar.

MB: Asus P5QL Pro (P43 chipset)
CPU: Core 2 Quad Q9500 @ 3.1GHz (clocks more, I have the stock cooler though)
RAM: 4x1GB DDR2-800
GPU: Powercolor HD 7850 1GB
PSU: HP branded Lite-On 365W
Case: Slightly modified HP dc7600c case
ODD: DVD-ROM SATA
HDD: Samsung 80GB & Samsung 160GB

I run Win7 on that as my X58 rig is a Win10 rig.

edit: I'd also put the H55 + i3 setup if I were you, also on 1st gen the H-chipset boards are also able to overclock the CPU. Those i3s OC pretty fine and the Q9400 will be left in the dust.

 

[Trekkie4]

Just joshin' around thank you for the kind words.

I'm not surprised by that, I'm not sure what could have really helped this poor thing not worth trying to fix for them, clearly.

All the joke aside, @Mr.Scott is truly one of the nicest guys around here, so I doubt he would block you for whatever the reason. Even when we had different opinions of something, we always found that common, diplomatic way to agree & comment on things

So there you have it! Leave blocking to me, I'm already doing a pretty good job so far (but let's leave it at that)

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Today my boxed copy of Crysis arrived. I had never owned nor played crysis before and have always wanted too.View attachment 239405

Fired up my period correct system:
View attachment 239408

Core 2 Quad Q9550
Deepcool Ice Matrix 400
4gb (2x2) OCZ 800 5-5-5
Asus P5q-e
EVGA GTX 295
Superflower 650w Bronze
Cooler Master HAF XB Evo
Windows 7 (both drives temporarily thrown in)

Crysis looks great but ran poorly at first with 1080p high detail. I reduced a few settings to medium and it ran better. Very playable but still not the smoothest. Fired up MSI afterburner to find the fps in the mid 40s and one of the CPU threads was pegged to 100%.

Time to overclock!

I was initially very limited with what overclocking I could do. As I raised the fsb the memory frequency also had to come up, and going at all past the 800mhz rated kept causing crashing. The OCZ kit couldn't even do 850mhz with default timings and 2v. Not worth my time even bothering with that junk. Threw in my trusty and ugly green PNY 2x2 800 5-5-5-5 kit and went to town.

View attachment 239407

Ended up getting
CPU: 4ghz all core @1.35v
470mhz FSB
Mem: 1129mhz 6-7-4-18 2.0v
I may spend a bit more time dialing this OC in, but I don't think I can get much further. But the CPU and ram are basically at hard wall territory.

Loading save game at same exact location I'm getting around 60fps over ~45, so a nice improvement, although I'll have to increase some settings to get the 295 to stretch it's legs still.

Turns out I have more work to do. Although Prime 95, Testmem5, Ycruncher and Cinebench were all stable initially, the oc must not have been 100% stable.

First I was getting some odd stutters in Crysis. Then Tomb Raider crashed after about 15 min of gameplay. Then finally it blue screened with "page fault in non paged area" after I let prime blend run for an extended period of time.

I believe the CPU is stable, but the dram is not. I have been tinkering with settings and timings and the like but haven't had success getting it stable just yet.

This ram is a mystery. It's PNY 2x2gb 6-6-6-24 DDR2 800. From some testing I was advised elsewhere to do, it is possibly nanya, but I have no idea really.

On the positive, the CPU runs super cool even with the Deepcool Ice Matrix 400 I got on Amazon for a whopping $16 a few months back.

 

[MachineLearning]

Turns out I have more work to do. Although Prime 95, Testmem5, Ycruncher and Cinebench were all stable initially, the oc must not have been 100% stable.

First I was getting some odd stutters in Crysis. Then Tomb Raider crashed after about 15 min of gameplay. Then finally it blue screened with "page fault in non paged area" after I let prime blend run for an extended period of time.

I believe the CPU is stable, but the dram is not. I have been tinkering with settings and timings and the like but haven't had success getting it stable just yet.

This ram is a mystery. It's PNY 2x2gb 6-6-6-24 DDR2 800. From some testing I was advised elsewhere to do, it is possibly nanya, but I have no idea really.
View attachment 239577


On the positive, the CPU runs super cool even with the Deepcool Ice Matrix 400 I got on Amazon for a whopping $16 a few months back.

Too low CPU VTT and/or MCH?

 

[DR4G00N]

Just built this "retro" (can I call it that...?) and wondering if I should bite the bullet and upgrade it to a i3 540 + GB H55M-S2V kit (with the same RAM amount, which is 4GB)

If you've got it then why not, certainly wouldn't hurt anything. 1156 chips are very cheap too so something like an i5 750 would be a nice upgrade.

 

[Ruru]

If you've got it then why not, certainly wouldn't hurt anything. 1156 chips are very cheap too so something like an i5 750 would be a nice upgrade.

Aren't the Xeons also very cheap? I'd go even for 4c/8t

Products formerly Lynnfield

Products formerly Lynnfield product listing with links to detailed product features and specifications.

ark.intel.com

 

[MachineLearning]

If you've got it then why not, certainly wouldn't hurt anything. 1156 chips are very cheap too so something like an i5 750 would be a nice upgrade.

Aren't the Xeons also very cheap? I'd go even for 4c/8t

Products formerly Lynnfield

Products formerly Lynnfield product listing with links to detailed product features and specifications.

ark.intel.com

I second that, X3470 all the way.
Can be found for just a hair over $20, I've dropped them directly into two ASUS P55 boards with no problem. Binned higher, probably never been OC'd before. @MaxiPro800 I think X3470 + H55 / H57 are your best bet (or P55 if you want to spend a little extra). Otherwise, you could always keep your current CPU and look for a decent P35 / P45 motherboard to wring out some more performance.

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Even the i7s aren't an arm and a leg for that platform.

32nm chips will be the best for a retro system and provide the most overclocking fun, however. You will be able to get much more clockspeed out of them than a 45nm quad core would ever get you.

I got an i7 860 atop an Intel H55TC board included with a big lot of boards I got aboth 6 months ago now. It has fsb adjustment but no voltage control, so it's limited in what it can do. I also have an i3 550.

Some day I'll get a proper board for the platform and crack 5ghz out of the i3.

 

[DR4G00N]

32nm chips will be the best for a retro system and provide the most overclocking fun, however. You will be able to get much more clockspeed out of them than a 45nm quad core would ever get you.

They do clock better but are worse in performance, roughly 4.7GHz Clarkdale = 4GHz Lynnfield. I think it has to do with the memory performance which is about half of Lynnfield.