Re: Replacing the battery on a 486 - some issues

Posted on 2015-05-17, 00:42

by

by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

On my 386 board, which I switched from a soldered in barrel battery to a coin cell (CR2032) I used 2 cells in series (giving me 6v.) I also had the problem where after a few hours I would still lose the CMOS. Turned out I had to ground the negative lead to the case. Then everything worked perfectly.

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Re: Advice / Help needed: 486 + Win 3.11

Posted on 2015-04-20, 18:45

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Did you ever get DOS 6.22 to boot up from the hdd?

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Re: Are 486 computers easier to work with than 386 machines?

Posted on 2015-03-10, 14:11

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't see that there is any inherent problem with 386 vs 486 vs Pentium etc, providing you have the mobo directions. I have two 386s. One is from 1989, @ 20 Mhz and has 2 MB of Ram. It seems very ancient compared to my other 386 which is an AMD 386 @ 40 Mhz from 1993 and has 32 MB of RAM. The …

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Re: Advantages of having 128MB on a 486

Posted on 2015-02-05, 02:20

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm not saying you NEED this much RAM, but my Gateway 2000 P4D-66 with a 66Mhz 486 is running great with 128 MB RAM, and 256k of L2 cache. That is the way the Anigma Board is fully populated. With Windows 95b it isn't such a bad idea either. My Windows 3.11 system running an Acer board with an AMD …

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Re: First computers you've used

Posted on 2015-01-30, 14:17

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Back in '83 I was working in the Paging industry. Some of you tykes probably don't remember the days before cell phones when all of the doctors and drug-lords carried beepers. Anyhoo, our mainframe terminal had actual magnetic core memory. Large 10 X 20" double layered boards with hundreds of little …

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Re: How did you solve your CMOS battery issue?

Posted on 2015-01-08, 21:22

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Half-Saint wrote: Just one question, why 6 volts? On my mobo, and many others like it, the RTC will work with between 3-6 volts. Having 6 volts means it will take longer for the battery to drain to the point of needing a replacement.

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Re: Will RAM update in Win9x automatically?

Posted on 2015-01-08, 13:43

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

(something funny-- just as intel deliberately crippled the pentiums to 64 MB of RAM-- so too have they crippled the Core i7s to 64 GB of RAM) That seems stupid since there were several 486 boards that could cache 128MB I have one. :happy: It's a Gateway 2000 Anigma board with a 486 DX2 @66Mhz. I …

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How did you solve your CMOS battery issue?

Posted on 2015-01-07, 22:46

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I was lucky in that only one computer in my collection (the AM386-40) used the soldered in 3.6 V Ni-Cad. I was doubly lucky in that it never leaked, even though I had misplaced the computer for almost 15 yrs! When I finally found it again, and fired it up, it actually still worked. After upgrading …

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Re: Post your 'current' PC

Posted on 2015-01-06, 23:06

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

My current: Asus Maximus V Extreme Intel Core I7 3770k @3500 Mhz 32 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 @1600 Mhz Sapphire HD 7970 Dual X OC OCZ Vertex 4 256 GB SSD Seagate 1 TB 7200 SATA III hdd (RMAing right now, failed Seagate tools test) WL 750 GB SATA III hdd Corsair H80i CPU Liquid Cooler Thermaltake …

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Re: My new 99 build. (picture heavy)

Posted on 2015-01-06, 13:48

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Leadtek A250 is a geforce 4 ti4600 right? That's a 2002 card (and awesome) but not exactly a 1999 correct card.... The op's system has the correct 1999 card. OMG I forgot that! :blush: Other choices for correct GFX cards, would be Voodoo3 or geForce-256. Even geForce-2 is incorrect, as it was …

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Re: weird DOS install issue on my 486 DX2-66

Posted on 2015-01-05, 22:09

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

nemail wrote: i have everything backed up so no russian roulette here. so far everything is still working (as many months before)... 😀 didn't try DDO on the 486 yet, don't need more than 500MB of space there... Avoid if possible. Can fubar imaging, and even destroy hdd like it did to one of mine. 😒 …

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Re: My new 99 build. (picture heavy)

Posted on 2015-01-05, 22:05

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

meljor wrote: Leadtek A250 is a geforce 4 ti4600 right? That's a 2002 card (and awesome) but not exactly a 1999 correct card.... The op's system has the correct 1999 card. OMG I forgot that! 😊

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Re: My new 99 build. (picture heavy)

Posted on 2015-01-05, 17:02

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That is a truly 1999 setup. It looks almost exactly like mine, which I bought in 1999. It has an Intel SE440BX-2 mobo with a P3 @ 450 Mhz and 768 MB of RAM. VGA is a period correct Leadtech Winfast A-250 Ultra Graphics card. Running Windows 98 SE of course! :cool: http://emblemagic.com/Apicturehost/ …

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Re: Reese's Gateway 2000 Desktop Project!

Posted on 2015-01-02, 16:39

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I just created a logon here, after someone who bought Gateway kit from me many years ago told me about it. Here is what I have available for owners of Gateway 486s and other similar mythological beasts: 1. Complete cache memory kits, including the oddball 64Kx1 chip needed for the Gateway/Anigma …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2015-01-02, 14:54

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yesterday I got a new Sound Blaster 16 sound card. It's a CT2910 with OPL on board and it sounds freaking amazing, I installed it in my Packard Bell Platinum 55 and made a quick video of it playing Handel's Watermusic - Air from a mid file. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zSlHgRWxIk&feature=youtu. …

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Re: Just curious..what is your oldest computer still in daily use for actual work?

Posted on 2014-12-31, 17:42

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here's mine sitting under my work bench. It's a 2002 Gateway 500s, Pentium IV @ 2 Ghz, 2 GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9800 XT 256MB graphics card connected to the 19” NEC LCD flat panel with 1280x1024 resolution monitor with a DVI cable. Upgraded front panel with HDD activity light and Reset button. Added DVD …

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Re: Reese's Gateway 2000 Desktop Project!

Posted on 2014-12-31, 15:42

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

ReeseRiverson wrote: Here is what I did to an RTC chip on one computer... it was a pain, but it worked out in the end. 🤣 It's hard to tell from the pic, Did you just add the battery voltage to two pins? That's a lot easier than desoldering it. 😎

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Re: Reese's Gateway 2000 Desktop Project!

Posted on 2014-12-31, 15:17

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Your Dallas RTC is not socketed?! That's surprising. My P4D-66 Gateway 2000 tower has a socket for it. The RTC is still available too. :happy: I have a pretty new one in mine, and it's been keeping excellent time. Just checked and I'm pretty sure it's soldered. Any idea if this board has a 4-pin …

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Re: Reese's Gateway 2000 Desktop Project!

Posted on 2014-12-30, 23:17

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by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Your Dallas RTC is not socketed?! That's surprising. My P4D-66 Gateway 2000 tower has a socket for it. The RTC is still available too. 😀 I have a pretty new one in mine, and it's been keeping excellent time.

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Re: Reese's Gateway 2000 Desktop Project!

Posted on 2014-12-30, 18:45

by

by Billyray520

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks for the welcome. :blush: Your Gateway is almost exactly 2 yrs. older than mine. (Mine is date coded 2/9/95) I doubt if your mobo has the same sram as mine. But for what its worth, I have "ISSI IS61C256A-20N (9323)" I added 4 chips to get the full 256k of cache. It looks like you have to add 8 …

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