new mobo arrived today :)

[piccoLEW]

its a Dell 0161E manufactured in 1998

a google search turned this website up:

http://www.bluestarusa.com/

type in 0161e cant believe it only cost me £37.50

i just hope it works :nervous:

[piccoLEW]

well, after preliminary inspection theres some things i need considering

its too big for the case i wanted to put it in.
the pci slots are sort of inset a bit due to the shape of the mobo.

Solution : need new case

its made in 1998, some of the chips are dated 1997, so i'm assuming an fsb of 100. Anyone know if a slot-1 celeron (66mhz fsb) will run on a 100mhz fsb? (i guess theres only 1 way to find out )

i may need to get a new psu, considering the one i am using is about 8 possibly 9 years old

any hints/tips/suggestions? much appreciated

[SteveI]

Looks like a dual slot one with no AGP slot.. Definitely proprietary. I think you should find a big cheap case, and be prepared to mod the heck out of the back, as well as drill new holes for the mobo screws...

Sounds like a fun challenge.

EDIT: What is the chipset?... BX came out in the second 1/2 of 1998. You may be limited to 66fsb, and Katmai cores. I recently worked on a Dell w/ LX. It had a 333 P2, and it refused to understand the cache of ar coppermine I tried to use, even at 66fsb.

[cloasters]

It's definitely a Dual Slot-1 mainboard. It's most likely a Server board and probably won't run with only one processor---unless you have a "Dummy CPU" to put in the empty processor Slot-1. This could be very difficult to find.

Intel is(or was) good about providing information about its legacy mainboards and Servers. Why not look this puppy up at Intel.com?

If the m'board doesn't sport an i440BX chipset, it will be limited to 83 Mhz FSB--or even 66 Mhz FSB. Plenty of the 66 Mhz FSB Celeron A's OC'd to 100 Mhz, FSB. Most of them needed a boost above the stock Core Voltage(2.0v) to attain 100 Mhz, FSB. User adjustable Core Voltage was an unknown then. The VID pins of the CPU needed fiddling with.

83 Mhz FSB was problematic because the PCI bus is well above spec at this speed. Everything is running at spec at 66 and 100 Mhz FSB. Please keep us posted about your adventures with this mainboard!

[piccoLEW]

well, it has a kind of agp, but its onboard (obviously) i have a gf4mx420 pci if need be

i have a few slot-1 processors, all my processors are for 66fsb

p2 233 +mmx
celeron 433
celeron 633, 700, 766 (socket 370) either one with a powerleap PL-IP3/T

the intel pci chip is from 1998,
another intel chip is from 1997
i see some chips with LX printed on them

some chips are dated 92, 95


so i think this is probably only 66mhz

also i havnt a clue as to how i would wire the thing up... i guess more research into this board is gonna be needed

this should be fun... except for the research

[piccoLEW]

so far i have been able to find out its a DELL PE1400 of some sort.

looking at the technical specs, and other documents on their support site i cant find a document that has an exact match of this, except its a PE1400 or PE1400SC of some revision, A.04 (although theres a sticker on top of this with A.07)

I think it uses the i440bx chipset

goin to bed now

[piccoLEW]

Dag nabbit!!

i seen cases here at the university that would happily house my mobo

theres a pile of them stacked up on the desk over there, but the technition aint around to answer my questions about them :| sent him an email.

the case in mind has "Dell precision 210" on it :|

/me disappears to feed appetite and hunt for music in town

[cloasters]

Dell used to make finding info about their "legacy" gear easy. Maybe I'm asking the wrong Q's in the Search feature?

Matched processors will be necessary. "Bookmatched," as in same Stepping and S-Spec would be even better.

If this mainboard is limited to 66 Mhz FSB, you may want to put this project on the back burner.

[piccoLEW]

done that already when i get a reply from my email i sent to the guy who deals with redundant equipment at the university, if i am allowed to take one of those old dell cases away would be great , most of my problems would be solved then i will try it out with one processor, it should work.