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Ziggy587
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DEAL ALERT: Socket 7 Motherboard w/ CPU & RAM

by Ziggy587 Tue Jan 03, 2023 3:33 pm

:lol: Some of you are probably sick of seeing me post about Socket 7 motherboards, but I found a really good deal and wanted to share it here!

With AMD K5 75 Mhz: https://www.ebay.com/itm/115635886689 ($23.64 plus shipping)

With Intel Pentium 100 Mhz: https://www.ebay.com/itm/115496737782 ($38.64 plus shipping)

Most Socket 7 motherboards on eBay are currently going for $50-100, with the more desirable ones more often going for $75-125, and that's usually for a board without any other components. So this is a really good deal! Personally, I think the one with the AMD is a better deal especially if you plan to upgrade the CPU, but either of these are well below the going eBay price. And either of these would be perfect for DOS or early-mid Win98 machines.

It's a DTK brand Socket 7 motherboard that comes with a CPU, HSF, and RAM. The seller currently has several of them in stock. Most of which come with an AMD K5 75 Mhz CPU, but they also have one with an Intel Pentium 100 Mhz CPU (they seemed to have copy/pasted the description from the Pentium listed into the AMD listing). The seller has over 6K feedback score at 100%. They are located in IL, USA. But here's the catch: The condition is not specified (I would assume untested) and there's a lack of specs as well. Judging by the seller's other items for sale, I think they're a buy-and-sell merchant that deals in whatever. They have some nice looking things for sale, and from a large variety of stuff. So since they don't seem to be a second hand electronics dealer, it's unlikely that they would be able to test the board or answer many questions about it. My guess is that they came upon a lot of these boards and decided to price them to sell. I decided for the price that I would take the gamble.

I purchased one of the ones that comes with the AMD CPU. I've tested the board to POST, and poked around in the BIOS, but nothing else so far. Looks like it came with 8 MB of RAM and 512 KB of cache installed. Judging from the way the board looks, I think it might be new-old-stock. And it was definitely stored well (no warpage, bent caps, scratched traces, corrosion, etc). Unknown if the CPU and RAM are new or used, but the HSF is most likely new. The board was shipped in an anti-static bag, with proper packaging inside a cardboard box. The seller did an adequate job packing it for shipping. I cannot guarantee that ALL of the boards will be in working condition, or the success of your transaction. But I can say that my board was shipped out right away, was well packed, and tested to POST OK.

Here's the board on The Retro Web: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/dtk-pam-0055i-e0

The above link has downloads for the manual and BIOS images.

Here's some quick takeaways to anyone interested in this board: There are a few revisions. Jumper Manual 1.50 matches the board that I got (I'm assuming all of the boards the seller has in stock are the same revision but you never know) so that's the manual you'll need to use to set the jumpers for the CPU and whatnot (the jumpers were set correctly for the bundled CPU, but you should always double check). This revision is missing some circuitry and jumpers that a later revision seems to have, so be sure to check the 1.50 manual for possible CPU upgrades (looks like Intel/Cyrix 200 Mhz or AMD 166 Mhz is the max upgrade options). This revision comes with a coin cell battery instead of the Dallas RTC, which is a definitely bonus. There's two cache ICs that are unpopulated, so it was unknown if the board would come with 256 or 512 K of cache memory, but I can confirm that mine has 512K. The jumper to clear the CMOS is strangely absent, but that's not a problem. If you ever really need it, you can install a pin header for it since the spot is still present on the board. If you lack soldering skills, you could just bridge those two solder points with a bit of wire or a paperclip or whatever (AFTER removing the battery, of course) which would be the same thing as jumpering them. This is a baby AT form factor, which can fit in an ATX case (you can get a blank I/O shield and just cutout for the keyboard port). It has IDE, floppy, serial and parallel all integrated on the board. It has a header for a PS/2 mouse port (you can get an adapter that mounts on a PCI bracket). And if you didn't already know, you can get an adapter to use an ATX power supply, and a passive adapter to use a PS/2 keyboard.

With a video and sound card, this would make a great DOS machine as-is, maybe upgrade to 16 or 32 MB of RAM if need be. Or if you max out the CPU with a Pentium 200 MHz and max the RAM out at 256 MB, this could make a decent mid era Win98 machine as well (or DOS/Win hybrid).

If you're at all interested in building a retro PC, I would highly recommend getting one of these before they're sold out!
I'm parting with some duplicate Blu-Ray and DVD movies. Check out this thread if interested.
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