First post, by failuresuccess
- Rank
- Newbie
Hello all,
I got the bug to start working on my 90s and early 2000s hardware again. I dug out my IBM PS/1 Multimedia or more specifically what's left of it (motherboard/riser card). This was my first PC going back to my childhood so I've got a fair amount of sentimental value for it so I'm hoping to breathe some life back into it. I'd like to be able to setup a couple of CF cards, one running dos 6.22/windows 3.11, one running Windows 95, and another with a heavily customized Gentoo compiled for i486. I also want to max out its specs, something I could never do back in the 90s.
First I'd like to figure out exactly which motherboard I have but my googlefoo is weak. At the moment the best I've been able to find is at uncreative labs and the page appears to cover several submodels.
http://www.uncreativelabs.de/th99/m/I-L/34755.htm
My PS/1 Motherboard
These are the following items I'm currently working through to restore my PS/1. I'll update this as I find out on my own or from feedback in this thread.
**UPDATED**
1.) Does the motherboard support AT power supplies or is it IBM proprietary?
The motherboard does support the use of an AT power supply. It originally used an LPX psu which was a compact version of an AT power supply.
I replaced it with a Mini-Box picoPSU-160-XT power supply found here.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005TWE6B8?psc=1&re … product_details
The 12volt power supply can be found here.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MXXXBV8?psc=1&re … product_details
The ATX to AT adapter can be found here.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075ZPWJBX?psc=1&re … product_details
I also needed a sata power adapter to 4 pin molex which can be found here.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QBXMYW6?psc=1&re … product_details
2.) Are there any horizontal desktop cases out there that the motherboard/riser card can be mounted into?
No, it looks like either something will need to be made or adapted.
3.) The supported memory appears to be the 72pin type. Does the motherboard care if the memory is EDO or FPM?
Use FPM memory.
4.) Can the motherboard support 64MB ram or is it limited to 32MB?
It is believed it can support up to 64MB, I bought two 16MB sticks to run at 32MB and it appears to work just fine.
5.) The motherboard appears to have a jumper(J25) to enable/disable the add on cpu socket. Does this cause any issues with OverDrive cpus that use a pin to enable/disable this feature?
This does not appear to be a problem and I have the board working with an Am5x86 @ 133Mhz.
6.) Is it worth getting the Intel 83Mhz OverDrive cpu over the AMD 586 133Mhz?
A worthwhile read
The Ultimate 486 Benchmark Comparison
I went ahead and stuck with the Am5x86 cpu as I wanted to keep the system 486 based, at least for now.
7.) The onboard video card is a Cirrus Log CL-GD5424-800C-B and I believe it has 512KB of ram. I'd like to be able to play SimCity 2000 in SVGA on windows 3.11. Is 512KB enough or is more needed.
The video card has 1MB of ram and handles color above 256 just fine.
Any feedback is appreciated and I'll update this initial post with more details as they come!