Nice choice of components except the AWE64 card which imho is too "new" for this machine since you'd want a card with better Adlib support for the games this machine is capable of and the AWE64's Adlib capabilities isn't the best around

btw. no Roland LA midi synth for it? 😉

nice one!!!! I must aggree with Amigaz, ditch the AWE64!

Is that a 'boardkiller torpedo' in there?

Yeah, I was wondering about the AWE64. I have no experience with anything other then Sound Blasters though. I do have an original Sound Blaster Pro card I could install, would that be a bit better for the games from the machine's era? What cards would you guys specifically recommend that can be found at a reasonable cost? Yeah, that is a board killer in there, but the original one was dead and never leaked, so I soldered in a brand new one that I picked up a few months ago off ebay. It is made by Saft and the part number is 14250. 😊

I think the only issues with AWE64 are 1) no real OPL3 chip meaning it uses Creative's fake (cheap) OPL3 wannabe synth 2) PnP annoyance. It still is SB16 compatible. An AWE64 is basically an AWE32 PnP with a new name and a different RAM expansion setup. It's not a bad card and if it works for you that's cool. AWE64s have cleaner output than the SB16s and AWE32s that I've used.

SBPro 2.0 has a real Yamaha OPL3 chip and does 22 KHz 8-bit stereo PCM which is a great match for almost every DOS game out there. It also has superb compatibility, doesn't need any drivers most of the time, and is too old to have PnP nonsense. So you can't go wrong with it IMO. The SBPro 1.0 with dual OPL2 chips is a bit different and I don't know if it's better or what.

DOS sound card choice is part personal choice and part compatibility concerns. There is no best setup.

That's some seriously high-end hardware for a 386 (CD-ROM drive, etc.). A lot of it could be carried forward to a low-end Pentium and still be era-appropriate.

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

Is that a 'boardkiller torpedo' in there?

Huh?

SBPro is a great fit for a 386, I'd definitely go with that over an AWE64. If you really want the best setup then probably go with one device from each of the following lists:
- SB16
- External Roland MT-32, CM-32 or CM-64 *or* ISA LAPC-I
- External Roland Sound Canvas SC55/SC55MkII/SC88/SC88Pro *or* ISA SCC-1 *or* Roland Sound Canvas wavetable daughterboard for the SB16 (although I guess the SB16 isn't the best daughterboard host from what I've read here on VOGONS)

I think I've spotted a very minor error with your tech spec. You say: "9. Lite-On 32x CD-ROM drive.", but the CD-ROM drive front bezel says: "24x"

HunterZ: The CMOS battery 😉

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

HunterZ: The CMOS battery 😉

Ah. Yeah I haven't seen a battery like that on a motherboard before. Sounds like there's a reason why that is the case >.>

Lol, I just noticed the error about the CD-ROM drive too! The sticker on the top of the drive says 32x 😁 ! Guess the factory was confused that day. I think I will pick up a SoundBlaster Pro2, as that seems more period correct. I'm not that fussy about midi, so the Yamaha OPL3 chip will be fine with me. Thanks to everyone pointing out the AWE64 issues, after some research I can see why it's not a good card for such low end hardware. Yeah, this really is high end hardware for a 386, but I figure that if the board dies (I did have alot of problems getting this board going again originally) then this hardware will be great for a Pentium 1 era setup. Does everyone think Wing Commander will play OK on this system, or is it possibly too fast/slow? That is the game I really want to try first when I have time, as I have heard so much about it!

386DX40 wrote:

Lol, I just noticed the error about the CD-ROM drive too! The sticker on the top of the drive says 32x 😁 ! Guess the factory was confused that day. I think I will pick up a SoundBlaster Pro2, as that seems more period correct. I'm not that fussy about midi, so the Yamaha OPL3 chip will be fine with me. Thanks to everyone pointing out the AWE64 issues, after some research I can see why it's not a good card for such low end hardware. Yeah, this really is high end hardware for a 386, but I figure that if the board dies (I did have alot of problems getting this board going again originally) then this hardware will be great for a Pentium 1 era setup. Does everyone think Wing Commander will play OK on this system, or is it possibly too fast/slow? That is the game I really want to try first when I have time, as I have heard so much about it!

WC1 will run a tad too fast.
But I guess if you use a Trident chip gfx card it will run fine 😉

In my experience after testing WC1 on different 386/486 systems it runs at ideal speed on a 386DX 33mhz with a mobo that has cache

Does it have a turbo button?

HunterZ wrote:

Does it have a turbo button?

Doesn't look like it has one

On most boards you can adjust the speed with CTRL+ALT+KP MINUS & CTRL+ALT KP PLUS

No, this board doesn't seem to have any type of turbo / de-turbo feature either via switch or keyboard combos that you suggested. It can however be jumpered to run at 33MHz or 25MHz.

I have also tracked down a real SoundBlaster Pro 2.0, and boy does it sound better then the AWE64!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Have been playing Wolfenstein 3D and Doom on this system and all is running well. Will have to try out Wing Commander soon.

I have also ditched Windows 95 and installed DOS 6.22 with Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. I installed DOS from my original floppies, then a universal CD-ROM driver, then installed Windows 3.11 from CD. With 32MB of RAM, I have made a large smartdrv cache and boy Windows 3.11 runs fantastic! Too bad the Tseng ET4000 can't seem to do more then 16 colors with any of the drivers I have found!