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"New" toy

CoreDuoCoreDuo
edited July 2011 in Hardware
Finally something that's actually relevant.

I've just bought a Gigabyte GA-586SG for $7.95 on eBay, and as far as I can tell it was made in March or April of 1998.

Specifications

Things that stuck out to me:

It has USB, takes both SIMM and DIMM up to 768MB of RAM, has both AT Keyboard and PS/2 ports (this might be a little bit more common), AGP 2x, and all of this was on a board that wasn't Super Socket 7 as far as I can tell.

The only thing that I'm a little worried about is a sloppy AGP implementation that is connected by a PCI bridge. I can't find anything conclusive to support this though.

Comments

  • meb5749meb5749
    That was a nice board. I used one in a test system. It would support Pentium, MMX/Cyrix/IBM 6x86MX & AMD K5,K6 CPUs as well as a WIDE range of memory. All you had to do was keep track of the manual to adjust for voltages, chip type and memory usage. Tested alot of CPU's on the silly thing. I do think the AGP was a little shakey at times and it was only good for AGP 1.0. It was an expensive board back in the day.
  • Ka0sKa0s
    you could totally run a 3dfx voodoo 3 in that thing and have a top of the line system if you ever traveled back to 1997/1998
  • CoreDuoCoreDuo
    meb5749 wrote:
    That was a nice board. I used one in a test system. It would support Pentium, MMX/Cyrix/IBM 6x86MX & AMD K5,K6 CPUs as well as a WIDE range of memory. All you had to do was keep track of the manual to adjust for voltages, chip type and memory usage. Tested alot of CPU's on the silly thing. I do think the AGP was a little shakey at times and it was only good for AGP 1.0. It was an expensive board back in the day.

    Actually, a recent (well, recent for that board) BIOS update allowed it to support the K6-2 400 which ran at 66 FSB * 6x multiplier. Something I'm going to try is running a K6-2 500 at 83 FSB * 6x multiplier. The nice thing about the manual is that Gigabyte still has it available online.
    Ka0s wrote:
    you could totally run a 3dfx voodoo 3 in that thing and have a top of the line system if you ever traveled back to 1997/1998

    Actually, I'll be starting a little project soon (spoilers) that I'll make a new thread about.
  • Windows7User2010Windows7User2010
    @CoreDuo, that's a very nice motheroard you got. I used to have a PC that had a DFI P5BV3+ Rev. B+ motherboard with an AMD K6-2/300 processor, 576MB PC-100/133 Memory*, 2 network 10-baseT cards (ISA & PCI)**, nVidia GeForce MX 4000 PCI Video Card*, ESS Maestro ES1968 Sound Card*, USB 2.0 PCI Card*, IBM 2115-001 15" CRT Monitor*, AT Keyboard*, Western Digital Cavalier 6.4GB PATA/IDE Hard Drive (smoked), Maxtor 80GB Hard Drive (died), Lite-On CD-ROM (broke) and a 300W ATX PSU** (switched the PSU pin settings to make the PC power up using the ATX PSU).

    Picture of my old system before it died running Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and MS-DOS 7.10: http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q134 ... 140087.jpg

    * still have (PC-100/133 Memory total: 608MB worth [2x 256MB PC-133, 1x 32MB PC-100, and 1x 64MB PC-100)
    ** either lost or destroyed
  • meb5749meb5749
    Windows7User2010

    That was another nice Socket 7 (Super 7) Board..If I'm not mistaken that board also would run a number of different Pentium MMX, AMD, IBM, IDT and Cyrix CPU's. Did that have a DIP switch setup or did you do everything through BIOS? Didn't use DFI boards much.
  • Windows7User2010Windows7User2010
    meb5749 wrote:
    Windows7User2010

    That was another nice Socket 7 (Super 7) Board..If I'm not mistaken that board also would run a number of different Pentium MMX, AMD, IBM, IDT and Cyrix CPU's. Did that have a DIP switch setup or did you do everything through BIOS? Didn't use DFI boards much.
    The DFI Board actually ran with anumber of MMX, AMD, IBM, IDT, Cyrix, and Pentium processors (Socket 7), yes; and the board came with a DIP switch to match the processor. Plus, my old case still has the switch diagram for every processor listed, and the voltage setting as well. I wish some random person dropped off the same PC I resurrected (My old PC: 1998-2009) and had the same processor, memory, CD-ROM, etc, except for the OS.
  • JoshJosh
    I had a SS7 board back in the day which I ran anything from my Pentium Pro to a K6-III 500 MHz in.

    It had the old style AT and ATX connectors on it.
  • Windows7User2010Windows7User2010
    Josh wrote:
    I had a SS7 board back in the day which I ran anything from my Pentium Pro to a K6-III 500 MHz in.

    It had the old style AT and ATX connectors on it.
    Nice. How much memory did you have in that beast?
  • JoshJosh
    384 MB I think. The board supported up to 512. I originally bought it because I thought that I could use the SIMMS and DIMMS at the same time but unfortunately found out otherwise.
  • Windows7User2010Windows7User2010
    Josh wrote:
    384 MB I think. The board supported up to 512. I originally bought it because I thought that I could use the SIMMS and DIMMS at the same time but unfortunately found out otherwise.

    Sweet. My grandpa's IBM Aptiva 2168-N71 uses 72-pin SIMM memory, but you have to fill all 4 slots for the computer to use the memory and can support up to 128MB SIMM (4x 32MB).

    My grandpa's computer specs are:
    28.8K Modem
    Sony Trinitron 15f MultiScan 15" Computer Monitor (somewhat similar to the Gateway 2000 screen)
    16MB (4x 4MB) SIMM
    1.6GB IBM PATA/IDE Hard Drive
    Windows 95
    3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Drive
    2x speed CD-ROM
    Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 Sound (built-in)
    Trident Video Card (built-in) 2MB vRAM
    IBM PSU (either it's an AT or ATX)
    IBM Keyboard (weird hookup)
    Logitech Scrolling Mouse
    Some kind of computer speakers that use the RCA Audio Connection

    All I need to do is install a bigger hard drive (at least 13.5GB), more memory, a better CD-ROM or just a DVD-ROM, better graphics card (either my old SiS 305 PCI video card or nVidia GeForce MX 4000 PCI Video Card), a USB 2.0 PCI Card, Windows 2000 Pro, and a better PSU (250 Watts or better)
  • JoshJosh
    Most likely an AT PSU. I'm guessing he doesn't use the internet.

    I know how old people can be sometimes but it may be a good idea to just throw in a $50 P3 or something instead of going through all of that trouble.

    Then again, you may be wanting to keep it around for nostalgic reasons. Thing is though, at least from what I learned, is that computer hardware is changing so fast that it's really hard to set an 'era' now-adays to make keeping old hardware around worth it.

    At least to me...
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