Reese Riverson

I’ve been wanting to build an Intel Pentium system for some time, and finally got around to it after obtaining a AT style socket 7 motherboard. Our very first computer was an Acer, which I think was an AcerPower style system I grew up with as a kid, with Windows 3.1 with A.C.E. (Acer Computer Explorer)

What A.C.E. looks like:

It had either a 66MHz or a 75MHz Intel Pentium processor. I wish I still had that system, but I hope to find another one or the same case. However, for the time being, I will have to be content with this latest build!

After obtaining a nice AT style case for the hardware, I began assembly rather quickly, as I began to be pretty excited. However I ran into an issue with the system actually wanting to boot. At first I would have to hit reset a time or two after it was already powered on. It was thanks to a member at Vogons, by the name of Mau1wurf1977, who helped me realize I needed to verify the jumper settings, and what would be appropriate for the CPU. Which I spent some time researching the CPU itself, which is a Intel Pentium 133 – A80502133. Then after finding the right motherboard chart (Which wasn’t necessary due to the settings being listed on my board itself.) but the PA-2005 I have, has two setups for the voltage. Single and dual. Dual being for separate Vcore. Thus having caused some instability. After getting this situated, it powers on quite well!

Here’s a close up, of the voltage selection, it was originally set to P55C (2.7V-2.9V/3.3V). Which is a dual voltage setting, former voltage being for the vcore and the latter being the I/O. Which is completely irrelevant to the Intel Pentium A80502133 CPU’s need, it is a single volt chip. So the proper setting on this board, is P54C/STD(3.3V). I recommend anyone building their own system to double check this, even if the board you may obtain has the CPU. Mine had come with it’s CPU, but the voltage wasn’t set correctly when I got it. Just be sure to verify the settings. 😉

So here, we shall begin with the motherboard, which is a First International Corp. PA-2005 board:

Then into the case it goes, having the PS/2 mouse port and serial ports hooked up and mounted on the lower slots. I wanted to help keep the wires neatly tucked away, and this seemed quite ideal:

Then I decided to choose an S3 Virge DX video card, which came with 2MB of VRAM, however I added a couple of RAM chips I stole from my Mach64 (Since I think it may be a dead card.). So I think this may be 3 megs total on this S3 now, if I were to guess…

Then next up, is my Diamond Multimedia Voodoo 3DFX card, I was going to put a Voodoo 2 in, but I decided to go ahead and put this one in instead:

As for my audio, I went with a Soundblaster AWE64 Gold, I have. This one I don’t have an add on SimmCon memory module like I do for my 486 DX4 system, but I don’t think I will worry about it for now:

Then I wanted to use an NIC here, as well, which is a 3Com EtherLink XL PCI – 3C900-COMBO:

Then all the goodies installed, and some wire management done:

How it looks on the back side:

Then going through some trial and error, which I never fully figured out why, but I ended up having some difficulty with my CD drivers loading, hanging on me after I seem to update the autoexec file, whether by memmaker or adding my mouse driver. Sometimes it seems like it started after I install my 3Com drivers, but after I managed to get things through with memmaker, and me leaving things alone, it won’t hang while trying to load the current CD drive. It had been more of a pain with a DVD drive I had that originally worked until I did a fresh install of MS-DOS 6.22. I don’t know if there’s some conflict going on or what, but right now it seems fine. 😮

Anyway, here’s the system running Day of the Tentacle from the CD drive!:

Then a picture showing more of the tower itself 🙂 :

Motherboard originally had 32MB of RAM on it, but during testing process, I ended up sticking 64MB in it, and hadn’t changed that. 😀

Specifications:
First International Corp. PA-2005 Motherboard
Intel Pentium 133MHz A80502133 CPU
64MB of 72-Pin SIMM RAM
S3 Virge DX Graphics card
Diamond Multimedia Voodoo 3DFX card
Creative Soundblaster AWE64 Gold ISA audio card.
3Com EtherLink XL PCI – 3C900-COMBO card.
Samsung 3.2GB IDE Harddrive in a 5.25″ removable HDD Bay.
Some CDRW drive I have.
3.5″ Floppy Drive
MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1.