I really like your case! Even though it's a bit yellowed!

I couldn't find any pics on the net, but does your CPU socket have any of those HSF notches? If so, then you could use one of those "Z" clips to mount one of those larger passive Pentium coolers to the CPU.
And it's really nice to see your board has a coincell battery and support for 3.3v CPU's
Theres so much to like about your rig! The caddy drive is very neat to have, particularly since it can read burned disks. Never heard of a caddy optical drive before that could do that.

Tetrium wrote:

The caddy drive is very neat to have, particularly since it can read burned disks. Never heard of a caddy optical drive before that could do that.

Our Sony 6x2 CD-R was caddy-loaded, but yeah, they went out of vogue pretty early in the piece.

I'm a huge fan of this build too, the case is reminiscent of a computer my grandad used to have.

I like the black 5.25" floppy drive too. Very nifty. Obviously it doesn't fit this build, but could you imagine an all-black 486 build complete with black 5.25" floppy drive? That would be nuts!! 😀

SquallStrife wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

The caddy drive is very neat to have, particularly since it can read burned disks. Never heard of a caddy optical drive before that could do that.

but could you imagine an all-black 486 build complete with black 5.25" floppy drive? That would be nuts!! 😀

That would've been so cool to have! But afaik I've never even seen a black AT case before (except for pictures on the net I believe so I think they were made).
I also like the flip switch on the case 😁

I noticed that the thread is doubled-up in the System Specs forum? You can delete it yourself if you get in there before someone replies to it...

Damn! That is one nice build. and I want that case!

Good to see that others like my build too 😀

I couldn't find any pics on the net, but does your CPU socket have any of those HSF notches? If so, then you could use one of those "Z" clips to mount one of those larger passive Pentium coolers to the CPU.

Yes it does, it looks exactly like in this picture:

I haven't seen anything that fits these notches, but perhaps someone knows?

The caddy drive is very neat to have, particularly since it can read burned disks. Never heard of a caddy optical drive before that could do that.

I was very surprised it was reading all my burned discs. I did not expect that! I bought it because of the novelty and since I think it looks pretty cool. I was expecting to either use an newer external SCSI drive or replace the 5.25" drive with a newer internal CD drive for burned discs, but luckily this was all avoided.

I like the black 5.25" floppy drive too. Very nifty. Obviously it doesn't fit this build, but could you imagine an all-black 486 build complete with black 5.25" floppy drive?

While older 5.25" floppy drives from the early 80's with the IBM computer are more common, finding a black 1.2MB drive is a bit rare I think. When I bought it I didn't know it was black. I was surprised and a bit annoyed since I knew I would have to get a white one to match the system 😜 Anyway, I'm moving it over to my all black ATX case with my 440BX system when I get a white one.

I noticed that the thread is doubled-up in the System Specs forum? You can delete it yourself if you get in there before someone replies to it...

I tried to delete it, but I couldn't find any way to do it. Luckily some kind moderator have fixed it now 😀

Also forgot to mention it has 128k x 8 = 1024kb of L2 cache 😀

Plans for the future:
- Learn all the different 486 BIOS settings so that Feipoa won't strangle me when he sees the current BIOS as I'm pretty sure there are some settings that could be changed to improve performance. (I never owned a 486 back in the days so this is pretty much new stuff for me).
- Get a white matching 5.25" drive
- Fix the Power On LED
- Get a proper heatsink
- Play around with an AMD 5x86-P75 133mhz (on the way in the mail)

Dream hardware to install:
- 3D Blaster VLB
- Roland LAPC
- Creative 3DO Blaster[/url]

vetz wrote:

Good to see that others like my build too :) […]
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Good to see that others like my build too 😀

I couldn't find any pics on the net, but does your CPU socket have any of those HSF notches? If so, then you could use one of those "Z" clips to mount one of those larger passive Pentium coolers to the CPU.

Yes it does, it looks exactly like in this picture:

I haven't seen anything that fits these notches, but perhaps someone knows?

Yes, it looks something like this here (clicky to expand to a larger size):

The metal clip looks somewhat like a "Z"

Really nice 486.

I'm pretty sure that the 3-hole clips for Athlon coolers match up with the notches on socket 3.

These are probably what you see most often as far as 486 fansinks go.

I wouldn't try overclocking with them, though. The heatsink is shallow, so not a lot of surface area for conducting heat and the fans are weak so not a lot of airflow.

They clip directly onto the 486 chip itself and not the socket tabs.

Where do you guys get those Z-wire clamps for the socket 3/5 heatsinks? I've only ever come across one. They are a lot easier to attach to socket 3's than the 3 notched typical heatsink clamp.

feipoa wrote:

Where do you guys get those Z-wire clamps for the socket 3/5 heatsinks? I've only ever come across one. They are a lot easier to attach to socket 3's than the 3 notched typical heatsink clamp.

Over 10 years ago I did a LOT of dumpsterdiving (I found over a hundred AT systems back then) and dismantled almost every computer I found. As I was dumpsterdiving by bike, I couldn't take every computer case home with me.
Those Z wire clamps were usually found in OEM boxes like Compac's with those very large passive coolers in Pentium systems. I took all of them home as I thought those big heatsinks looked impressive.
I later found out those wire clamps were ideal for attaching to the Socket 3 sockets that had those notches.

I never found lots of those clamps though, most of those passive heatsinks were attached using only thermal compound. I got maybe 3 or 4 of those clamps?

I have occasionally considered making them myself, but you'd need some kind of special steel wire for that as it has to be flexible, yet bendable to give it it's final shape. I just never got around to actually make some of those clamps myself.

Edit:I'm not sure if it's a coincidence, but the POD83's and Socket 5/Socket 7 Pentiums have the exact same size. So if it weren't for those POD's, Socket 3 probably would've been smaller and thus those wire clamps wouldn't have fit.
It would've been very nice if such clamps existed for Socket 8! 😁

I think I have 4 or 5 rather large (2/3" high) 486 heatsinks with z-wire clamps, but they do not use the plastic tabs on the 486 socket, rather there is a plastic frame that sits between the CPU and socket that has it's own tabs. This way you even use it with plain old 168pin sockets. I got them from a friend many years ago, and I am not sure where they originally came from. Best heatsinks I've ever seen that were designed specifically for socket3.

You can kind of see it a bit in this photo.

Replaced the 5 1/2 floppy drive with a Mitsumi Single Speed CD-ROM drive:

Made a short Youtube video with the drive in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUBeHWVHh9U

Speedsys with EMM/HIMEM Disabled:

Enabled:

What the hell is going on with hard drive transfer speed?

I'm pretty sure that the 3-hole clips for Athlon coolers match up with the notches on socket 3.

Some of them do, some of them don't. The spacing is right, but the outer tabs on Socket A aren't as wide as the Socket 3 tabs, so if the clip on the Athlon heatsink was made to tight tolerances, it won't quite fit.

I suppose you could take a file to the edges of the tabs to make it work, but that's a little risky.

That CD ROM drive looks cool, but 1x speed? Yuck.

I am not really using it for games or other the software. It is more a curiosity that makes the computer a bit more special 😉 The Sony SCSI drive is much quicker in both access time and transfer speed.

Weirdly is that i have the same case in possession

I can't speak for the mitsumi, but Sony SCSI 1X drivers were almost as good as the Sony interface 2X drives. I really like the old 1X and 2X drives. They're solid and have a lot of character.

I would also like to point out that since you are running a VLB SCSI controller you should be careful about enabling L1 writeback cache. Writeback and VLB busmastering SCSI doesn't work.