AMD Athlon XP 3000+ Retro Build

[storm-chaser]

For ram on that board you're better off with Samsung TCCD chipped sticks.

Something like this?

 

[Mr.Scott]

Did 1GB bh-5 sticks exist?

No.

Something like this?
View attachment 110562

They'll work. Try to find a CL2 or 2.5 set.

 

[DR4G00N]

Since everyone is showing off their 462 goodies I'll chip in mine as well.
Chips are 3200+, 2500+, 1800+ Palomino and in the board an 1800+ Thoroughbred.

Gotta love that metallic gold pcb.

 

[phill]

I'm a bencher. They've all been at least tested. Got dice runs over 3 gig.

Which board do you use for AMD XP overclocking?

Loving the hardware in this thread

 

[Mr.Scott]

Which board do you use for AMD XP overclocking?

Loving the hardware in this thread

3 different ones, pending the bench. NF7 v2, AN7, and DFI Ultra B. I have a bunch of other 462 boards also, but those 3 are primarily what I use.

Since everyone is showing off their 462 goodies I'll chip in mine as well.

Golden Flame. Pretty rare. I'd box that one up.

 

[DR4G00N]

3 different ones, pending the bench. NF7 v2, AN7, and DFI Ultra B. I have a bunch of other 462 boards also, but those 3 are primarily what I use.


Golden Flame. Pretty rare. I'd box that one up.

I need to scrounge up an NF7-S for oc'ing anyway, this board is a PITA with ram and you can't enter the bios when the cpu is below -5C.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Got one of these too.
Yes, those are Volcano 7's. Underneath is a pair of 2800+'s running at 2.5. They'll bench out at 2.6.

I need to scrounge up an NF7-S for oc'ing anyway, this board is a PITA with ram and you can't enter the bios when the cpu is below -5C.

A lot of 462 boards are cold bugged like that.

 

[Susquehannock]

Since everyone is showing off their 462 goodies I'll chip in mine as well.
Chips are 3200+, 2500+, 1800+ Palomino and in the board an 1800+ Thoroughbred.

Gotta love that metallic gold pcb.

Soltek FRN2 golden flame. Love it. Can tell by location of 4-pin connector and capacitor layout that is a late version board. Probably E3. Shame Soltek went bye bye. Very good company. They would even send re-cap kits free of charge if you wanted to replace the known so called "bad caps" yourself. Got a kit myself though never did a re-cap with it. Soltek was constantly improving their boards. Can think of at least seven revisions of the FRN2. Last of which, as above, was made with all non failure prone Japanese caps.

Golden Flame. Pretty rare. I'd box that one up.

Really rare ones are the purple FRN2. Extremely late. After they had shifted most production to the Athlon64 purple ray boards.
Here's a couple of mine by the way. And a purple one (not mine) where they finally put a lock on the AGP slot.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Nice boards. Brand new condition too.
I have 1 or 2 Soltek boards, both are slot A though.

 

[Susquehannock]

Nice boards. Brand new condition too.
I have 1 or 2 Soltek boards, both are slot A though.

Bought the E3 on a whim when NewEgg was clearing stock - selling them for $27. Hoped to get a purple but no dice. Never even took the stickers off or put juice to it. Told myself I'd wait until the other one died which never happened. Even after 10 years of constant use as my main system. My first FRN2 did fail though ... because I overclocked the piss out of it.

[edit]
Golden Flame tote bag that came with early retail package.

 

[INSTG8R]

Well if we showing off our future project and treasure. Here are 2 great ABIT boards. FIrst the AT8 32X stil, has the Opty 170 in the socket I have the stock coooler too and it’s a nice heatpipe job just like the current Wraiths Also it had 2 full 16x slots which even today is rare . I just need to find a case to put it in .

ABIT IP-35 Pro I wish I had a decent Core Duo or Quad for it. I’m sure I could dig up some RAM.

 

[storm-chaser]

Found a 2GB kit, G.skill CL2.5 PC 3200, think this what I'm gonna go with on the memory front..
I'm simply blown away by all this cool 462 hardware! keep it coming guys!

 

[Bones]

Cool thread. Love seeing old hardware being used and enjoyed again. Looking forward to seeing how you do.
I am very well acquainted with ASUS a7n8x Deluxe boards. Built a lot of systems with them back in the day. Durable and feature rich.

nForce was largely a failure due to poor drivers and hardware design. However, they got it right the second time. nForce2 was a huge success. They are poor overclockers as nForce2 boards go. BIOS was not set up for it. Which is OK. They were not designed with OCing in mind.

Ended up with an extra due to a shipping error. It sat in box on the shelf unopened for eleven years until I pulled it out in 2014. Much to my surprise many of the capacitors were bulging, and some were actually leaking even though the board never saw light of day. Good news is it still ran flawlessly for two years until I put the Soltek FRN2 (my favorite nForce2) back in. Go figure.

Not so fast there - I've had two that clocked things up rather well and one of those still runs.
The one I was running back in the day pushed an XP-M 2800 well over 2.7GHz, in fact almost made it to 2.8 but coudn't keep the chip cold enough.

Mr. Scott is a witness to what I can make an A7N8X do if I really want to.
BTW if it's the 1.04 version then it's not a good clocker, that is true but a 2.0 version is MUCH better for that.

 

[eidairaman1]

Found a 2GB kit, G.skill CL2.5 PC 3200, think this what I'm gonna go with on the memory front..
I'm simply blown away by all this cool 462 hardware! keep it coming guys!

View attachment 110574

Mushkin Redline and Crucial Ballistix Tracer were killer too

I still have an ultra-B ran it up to 2012

 

[Keullo-e]

I had HyperX 2x256 kit with bh-5 chips, ran at 2-2-2-5-1T DDR540 with only 3.3V

 

[Susquehannock]

I'm simply blown away by all this cool 462 hardware! keep it coming guys!

Cool. Was feeling a bit guilty for polluting your thread.

Not so fast there - I've had two that clocked things up rather well and one of those still runs.
The one I was running back in the day pushed an XP-M 2800 well over 2.7GHz, in fact almost made it to 2.8 but coudn't keep the chip cold enough.

Mr. Scott is a witness to what I can make an A7N8X do if I really want to.
BTW if it's the 1.04 version then it's not a good clocker, that is true but a 2.0 version is MUCH better for that.

Well I stand corrected then. Do remember they were not popular for overclocking. Must be a different BIOS because the ones I have don't give much for voltage adjustments. Not sure which version this a7n8x is. Was it printed on back of board? Mine is on a removable motherboard tray right now. It's an 'E' with dual gigabit network ports so should be fairly late.

Looking at my Soltek boards again seems I got it backwards before. The 'AP' is the later version not the 'E3'. Currently working on bringing my old nForce2 rig back together and really should test that virgin board.

[edit]
Went back to some old images from 2004/2005. In this one I still had the OCZ booster where you powered the RAM slots directly from PSU for higher overclocks. Lost dual channel capability though. Anyone remember that?

 

[Keullo-e]

Was it because of wiring that all nForce 2 northbridge chips were in 45 degree?

 

[Bones]

Cool. Was feeling a bit guilty for polluting your thread.

Well I stand corrected then. Do remember they were not popular for overclocking. Must be a different BIOS because the ones I have don't give much for voltage adjustments. Not sure which version this a7n8x is. Was it printed on back of board? Mine is on a removable motherboard tray right now. It's an 'E' with dual gigabit network ports so should be fairly late.

@
Susquehannock

You are right in that they weren't a preferred board but a few did OC them anyway such as myself.
The version is right where you see the model name of the board, right above the end of it's name (You'll have to look closely) and from what you described it's a 2.0 which is a good version of it.

BTW you can try these BIOS files with yours. They are for the 2.0 versions of the board only, not for the 1.04 boards. The exact models would be the A7N8X Deluxe 2.0 and the A7N8X-E these are for, not to be used with any other models.
Be sure to scan these before unzipping and using.

 

[Susquehannock]

@
Susquehannock

You are right in that they weren't a preferred board but a few did OC them anyway such as myself.
The version is right where you see the model name of the board, right above the end of it's name (You'll have to look closely) and from what you described it's a 2.0 which is a good version of it.

BTW you can try these BIOS files with yours. They are for the 2.0 versions of the board only, not for the 1.04 boards. The exact models would be the A7N8X Deluxe 2.0 and the A7N8X-E these are for, not to be used with any other models.
Be sure to scan these before unzipping and using.

I see it now. Seems this is v1.06 board. Thanks for the BIOS files. Would like to try but even if it were 2.0, with the leaking caps I would be afraid to OC this one. A friend mentioned a while back he still had the system I built for him. Perhaps it will make it's way back in my hands after all this time.

 

[Bones]

Recapping it is easy and the replacement caps are kinda cheap too.
You have a PM.

Also here's an old shot of my Asus dualie.
Pair of Volcano 11's sitting on a pair of XP-M 2800's.

 

[Outback Bronze]

Yeah a 3870 AGP never released.

The last 3 AGP cards that ATi had was the x1950 Pro, HD3850, HD4670.

Not quite true mate. They made a HD 2600 XT AGP. Got one here if you wana see? They are hard to find! The X1950 Pro is faster tho ; )

 

[stinger608]

@storm-chaser when you get ready to install drivers for this awesome build, you can jump over to the nostalgic hardware thread. Some of the amazing members have been awesome in finding sites with drivers and information.
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/tpus-nostalgic-hardware-club.108251/

As mentioned here, it might be better to install XP rather than Windows 7.

 

[Vario]

I played a lot of Diablo 2 back in the day on a Athlon XP.

 

[eidairaman1]

Not quite true mate. They made a HD 2600 XT AGP. Got one here if you wana see? They are hard to find! The X1950 Pro is faster tho ; )

6eah I was going with the fastest agp cards since 2600XT was already middle ground.

 

[Outback Bronze]

6eah I was going with the fastest agp cards since 2600XT was already middle ground.

Yeah thought you might have been. No worries. Sry matey.