Pentium 166MHz Tower
In 1996 Pentium MMX line became more and more popular.
They were sold with mainboards for P55C (Pentium MMX) which sometimes
had interesting capabilities like DIMM support or some built-in
components. MMX machines were usually equipped with better PCI video
cards like S3 Trio and network cards or modems.
This computer has a Shuttle HOT-555 mainboard. Although Shuttle
Technology got some poor reputation later, this mainboard is very well
finished - it has even rounded edges instead of typical sharp angles to
make assembly easier.
The casing is not very standard. It has "INVAR" sticker, so it comes
from Polish shop "Invar PC" (see
this
flyer). The floppy drive bay is missing, and I added the covers for
it. Entire bay is missing from inside - and hard disk is mounted using
two metal brackets. Some tape drives were installed this way.
Approx. year | 1996 | |
Class | AT | |
CPU | Pentium MMX | |
Speed | 166MHz | |
RAM | 48MB (32MB DIMM + 2x8MB SIMM) |
|
ROM | Award BIOS | |
Mainboard | Shuttle HOT-555 (Intel chipset) | |
Graphics | S3 Trio64 V2 (PCI) (800x600x24bit) |
|
Sound | Creative SoundBlaster AWE64 (16-bit ISA) |
|
Ports I/O | On-board (2x COM, 2x LPT, PS/2, 2x IDE, FDD) |
|
Network | Realtek RTL8029AS | |
System expansion bus | 3x PCI slots 3x ISA slots |
|
Floppy/removable media drives | 1x 3.5" 1.44MB floppy disk drive | |
Hard disks/ATA devices: |
Fujitsu
M1624TAU (2.1GB, IDE, C/H/S: 3298/16/63 40X PATA CD-ROM drive |
|
Peripherals in collection: |
||
Other boards:
|
None | |
Casing | Standard small AT tower | |
Non-standard expansions: | None | |
Operating system(s): | Windows 98SE |
Contents: | Starting, usage | Drivers | Links |
The only problem in this mainboard is the RTC, it's built-in between slots. If battery fails, it will be hard to rework it. The only way I think is unsoldering the chip and soldering socket. Because everything there is tightly packed, it will be hard to put a CR2032 socket there. A good solution will be soldering few centimeters of wires and mounting CR2032 socket somewhere else.
The combination with S3 Trio, SoundBlaster and Realtek RTL8029 is quite friendly in Win98SE and everything works from the installation of OS.
BIOS for HOT-555 | |
HOT-555 Manual |
https://www.shuttle.eu/_archive/older/de/555.htm - Shuttle HOT-555
Support. Most files don't work.