Old-school OS and new hardware

[sparkster4242]

here's an odd one - im looking for the most modern motherboard i can find, which has full driver support for all of its onboard hardware - in windows 2000. multi-processor a must, ECC memory a definite plus.

depending on how it turns out, i may be able to upgrade to XP - in which case, drivers will be slightly easier to find.

 

[puttsy]

Your best bet would *probably* be a socket 775 board with an Intel Core 2 Duo. Hit up eBay and you should be able to get a setup for <$150. By multi-processor, are you looking at multiple as in dual core processors or multiple as in dual (or greater) socket? If you are looking at dual socket, obviously a server board would be the route to go. The most recent motherboard I've come across that appears to work well (easy-to-find drivers, at least for server 2000, but win98se and win2000 also work) is the Intel S5000 series server boards. They are socket 771 boards and you can pick up CPU's (Dual core Xeon 5000 processor series) for super cheap on eBay. If you want more than that (i.e. quad cores) they still cost quite a bit.

If the server route is the one you want to take, we can discuss that further (my preferred field of discussion) but if you are looking for a more common, cost effective solution, we are looking at a desktop or workstation board. (consumer/desktop motherboards) Please elaborate on why this is needed and we might have even better solutions.

 

[Pyree]

Is there a particular reason for this set up? If you have a program which only run on window 2000, I suggest using virtual machine.

 

[megamanx00]

I believe windows 2000 only used up to two cores and it didn't do it to well either (or was that NT4 I forget). It was a good little work station OS for web development back in the day though ^_^. Anyway, since you want dual processing your best bet might be an Athlon MP dual CPU work station or an older "Foster" series Xeon Workstation

 

[sparkster4242]

most of the difficulty lies in the legacy user - he has spent roughly the last 20 years customizing the hardware, OSes, and software of this machine, and is extremely reluctant to disturb the delicate ecosystem thus produced.

due to the sordid details of its evolution from its 80386 roots, the current primary OS is installed on H:, with extra storage stacked as high as R:. OSes run the gamut from DOS/WFWG3.11 to Win2000, with special highlights including 2 non-MS DOSes, and two linux distros. the effort required to convert this mess to a virtual machine would be extensive.
the work required to convince him to give up, god help me, the ISA-bus modem and ZIP drive interfaces would be no small task, either.

im going to keep trying to convince him to start completely clean, and see how it works out - im pretty sure i can put together a decent opteron box, and rebuild enough of his win2000 install to make it happy by itself in a virtual machine.

since i dont have alot of hope along those lines, however, im also going to keep looking for a hardware solution.

puttsy:
as far as i know, the OS doesnt distinguish between cores and sockets, and physical space isnt at a premium in the room, so that should be a non-issue.

two cores would be plenty, and you may never hear anyone say this ever again - 'performance is not an issue'. the only reason my guy is even considering upgrading is that he just swapped in his last spare cpu, and katmai slot1 pentium 3s are getting hard to find. the greater reliability of a server board (ECC) would i think be best.

pyree:
oh, if only.

megamanx00:
the pro version topped out at 2 cores, the server, advanced, and datacenter editions could handle more.

i rather liked it myself, it was in my experience alot more stable than anything MS has put out since; i shut mine down every 6 months for cleaning, not because the OS needed to reboot.

 

[Pyree]

That is like equipping a F-22 raptor with a caveman slingshot, a Roman catapult, a Chinese gun powder arrow thrower and an English longbow to where the missile should be. LOL! I am of no use in legacy support. 20 years ago I am still a baby.

 

[megamanx00]

20 years ago I was in 4th grade using 386s in school . Anyway, that all sounds pretty nuts to me. I mean whatever kind of crazy program he has can probably be recreated with Visual Studio (heck even the free express version) or Netbeans be it a bit more bloated, but on modern hardware that wouldn't matter. Oh well.

 

[spookyman]

Best bet would to "Virtualize" the Windows 2000 system. That way you do not have to worry about hardware. You can customize the virtualization software to trick Windows 2000 in to thinking its on its own system. In fact we use VM ware for many of our legacy systems that cannot be replaced for one reason or another.

 

[megamanx00]

If you really want to stick to the hardware these older Athlon MP and Xenon boards should work. Of course, research that they do indeed have proper drivers first

http://cgi.ebay.com/Tyan-S2460-Motherboard-Excellent-Working-Condition-OEM-/140570814480?pt=Motherboards&hash=item20baac6810#ht_1474wt_1396

http://cgi.ebay.com/Supermicro-P4DS6-Dual-Xeon-Server-Board-PC2100-ECC-/160603470999?pt=AU_Components&hash=item2564b67c97#ht_3269wt_1396

The nice thing about the MP board is that you should be able to use any Socket A CPUs in there so heck you can slap in two Durons if you want. Here's an old article demonstrating just that

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/dualduron/

Of course, such low cost servers is one of the reasons AMD started using different sockets for Opteron.

 

[megamanx00]

If you really need ISA and ECC memory then I don't know what you are going to do. You can go non-ECC by going with something like a KT 133/133a board and an AMD CPU (Intel phased out ISA early in the P3 life I believe). Of course latter AMD chipsets removed ISA and the same was true for P4s.

 

[sparkster4242]

pyree:
well - yes.
but since catapult parts and chinese alchemists are getting hard to come by, ill just have to muddle thru as best i can.

megamanx00:
yeah, i too have fond memories of my first 386 - man, it _flew_ back in the day
many thanks for your suggestions, i shall investigate them thoroughly.
ECC would be my preference, but if it comes down to it... we'll take what we can get.

 

[sparkster4242]

update:
well, i finally managed to ditch the need for an ISA bus, so finding an answer got alot easier. i ended up going with a nice intel server board from a local recycler - dual 3.2GHz xeons (irwindales, most likely), a versatile enuff bios to masquerade the sata and pic-x/ex controllers as something win2k can use, and full driver support for the onboard hardware.

thank you all for your input, folks!

 

[sparkster4242]

update:
well, i finally managed to ditch the need for an ISA bus, so finding an answer got alot easier. i ended up going with a nice intel server board from a local recycler - dual 3.2GHz xeons (irwindales, most likely), a versatile enuff bios to masquerade the sata and pic-x/ex controllers as something win2k can use, and full driver support for the onboard hardware.

thank you all for your input, folks!

 

[sparkster4242]

update:
well, i finally managed to ditch the need for an ISA bus, so finding an answer got alot easier. i ended up going with a nice intel server board from a local recycler - dual 3.2GHz xeons (irwindales, most likely), a versatile enuff bios to masquerade the sata and pic-x/ex controllers as something win2k can use, and full driver support for the onboard hardware.

thank you all for your input, folks!

 

[sparkster4242]

update:
well, i finally managed to ditch the need for an ISA bus, so finding an answer got alot easier. i ended up going with a nice intel server board from a local recycler - dual 3.2GHz xeons (irwindales, most likely), a versatile enuff bios to masquerade the sata and pic-x/ex controllers as something win2k can use, and full driver support for the onboard hardware.

thank you all for your input, folks!

 

[megamanx00]

Well that's good. It's alot harder to find old stuff with ISA slots, and you got to pick something faster .