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386DX-40 Build

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Reply 20 of 28, by TheMobRules

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Brickpad wrote:

Edom board was not keeping proper time. I replaced the batteries, but the clock would stop counting when the machine was powered off, and retained only the time at power-down. Swapped out the board with a Magitronic A-B345G and all things are normal.

I had the same problem with some 486 motherboards not keeping time after power-off, but I managed to get it working by using 3 or 4 AA batteries (4.5V or 6V). I noticed that your battery holder only contains 2, I have found that many boards from that era need more voltage on the external battery, in fact most of the battery packs sold at the time were 6V I think.

Reply 21 of 28, by Brickpad

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TheMobRules wrote:
Brickpad wrote:

Edom board was not keeping proper time. I replaced the batteries, but the clock would stop counting when the machine was powered off, and retained only the time at power-down. Swapped out the board with a Magitronic A-B345G and all things are normal.

I had the same problem with some 486 motherboards not keeping time after power-off, but I managed to get it working by using 3 or 4 AA batteries (4.5V or 6V). I noticed that your battery holder only contains 2, I have found that many boards from that era need more voltage on the external battery, in fact most of the battery packs sold at the time were 6V I think.

That's a good point. This other board doesn't seem to be having that much trouble, although I left it off for about 2-3 days and the time clock lost about 5 or 6 minutes. These batteries are old, but they still show a charge of ~1.45v.

[UPDATE]

Received my IIT 4C87DLC co-processor yesterday and installed it. I'll be running some Quake benchmarks once I upgrade the memory from 8MB to 16MB. Once the benchmarking phase is over I'll be upgrading to SCSI, and swapping out my 8x IDE drive to a Compaq 4x SCSI; Maxtor 7120AT IDE to a Conner 340S 345MB SCSI, and the generic IDE controller to an Adaptec 1542C.

Reply 22 of 28, by elod

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Tetrium wrote:

modular PSUs do make more of a mess when you have to keep order to your storage of unused cables, especially since I don't like mixing up cables of different brands (not even sure if these are all the same though, but I'd prefer to use the cables that came with its original unit).

I tend to avoid modular PSUs. It just adds another contact that can fail. Also see a lot of sales without the cables which is just sad.

Reply 23 of 28, by chinny22

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Tetrium wrote:

Weren't rounded cables more susceptible to noise due to the data wires not being separated anymore by ground lines?

I remember reading the same thing somewhere, and makes sense, but have never run into trouble so not worried

Tetrium wrote:

modular PSUs do make more of a mess when you have to keep order to your storage of unused cables, especially since I don't like mixing up cables of different brands (not even sure if these are all the same though, but I'd prefer to use the cables that came with its original unit).

That's alright, I prefer keeping unused cables along with my other spare parts rather then in the case obstructing airflow and looking untidy.
I only get Corsair PSU's as don't like the idea of mixing brand either, worked out well as 1 system needed more molex connectors so used some spares form another system. Its not fool proof though as my first 2 (750 and 1200 Watt) actually uses different cables and newer ones are different again, but at least it looks like they are all 1 standard now.

Reply 24 of 28, by Neco

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I love modular PSUs

idk what people are doing so often that they need to worry about connection failure or mixing up cables. You should be keeping track of your stuff and storing it properly anyway

Reply 25 of 28, by boxpressed

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TheMobRules wrote:
Brickpad wrote:

Edom board was not keeping proper time. I replaced the batteries, but the clock would stop counting when the machine was powered off, and retained only the time at power-down. Swapped out the board with a Magitronic A-B345G and all things are normal.

I had the same problem with some 486 motherboards not keeping time after power-off, but I managed to get it working by using 3 or 4 AA batteries (4.5V or 6V). I noticed that your battery holder only contains 2, I have found that many boards from that era need more voltage on the external battery, in fact most of the battery packs sold at the time were 6V I think.

This. I just replaced the external battery on a Wang 386SX. The stock battery was a 4.5v Ray-O-Vac. I bought five battery holders for 3 AA batteries (4.5v total) for about $7. I had a bag of cables for Arduino projects. Already had a one pin header on one end and a male connector on the other. I stripped the end with the male connector and braided it to the leads on the battery holder. No soldering needed.

Reply 26 of 28, by Brickpad

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boxpressed wrote:
TheMobRules wrote:
Brickpad wrote:

Edom board was not keeping proper time. I replaced the batteries, but the clock would stop counting when the machine was powered off, and retained only the time at power-down. Swapped out the board with a Magitronic A-B345G and all things are normal.

I had the same problem with some 486 motherboards not keeping time after power-off, but I managed to get it working by using 3 or 4 AA batteries (4.5V or 6V). I noticed that your battery holder only contains 2, I have found that many boards from that era need more voltage on the external battery, in fact most of the battery packs sold at the time were 6V I think.

This. I just replaced the external battery on a Wang 386SX. The stock battery was a 4.5v Ray-O-Vac. I bought five battery holders for 3 AA batteries (4.5v total) for about $7. I had a bag of cables for Arduino projects. Already had a one pin header on one end and a male connector on the other. I stripped the end with the male connector and braided it to the leads on the battery holder. No soldering needed.

Yeah, I've seen quite a few of those 4.5v batteries. The clock on this board is doing the same thing as well, but only losing maybe 5 minutes if I don't power it on in a few days. A minor inconvenience.

Reply 27 of 28, by Tetrium

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chinny22 wrote:
Tetrium wrote:

Weren't rounded cables more susceptible to noise due to the data wires not being separated anymore by ground lines?

I remember reading the same thing somewhere, and makes sense, but have never run into trouble so not worried

I do remember having had odd stability problems with my Barton 3200+ rig and for some reason I ended up using flat 80-wire ATA cables and it may have been the fix for these stability problems (it had to do with odd errors related to reading/writing from the HDD I guess), but I don't know for sure as I was messing around with other stuff as well to try and make it stable and it was maybe 10 years ago or so.

Other than this example, I cannot say for sure I ever experienced this problem.

I do reckon using the rounded cables with slower motherboard ATA interfaces (like ATA-33) will reduce crosstalk a bit and make this possible problem less problematic.

chinny22 wrote:
Tetrium wrote:

modular PSUs do make more of a mess when you have to keep order to your storage of unused cables, especially since I don't like mixing up cables of different brands (not even sure if these are all the same though, but I'd prefer to use the cables that came with its original unit).

That's alright, I prefer keeping unused cables along with my other spare parts rather then in the case obstructing airflow and looking untidy.
I only get Corsair PSU's as don't like the idea of mixing brand either, worked out well as 1 system needed more molex connectors so used some spares form another system. Its not fool proof though as my first 2 (750 and 1200 Watt) actually uses different cables and newer ones are different again, but at least it looks like they are all 1 standard now.

I guess I shouldn't have started with modular OCZ PSUs 🤣!

But then again, I was never too serious about cable management (even though I do tie everything up a bit so I'll at least have a single bush of cables instead of having a web of loose cables 😊 ).

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