keropi wrote:

but it has!! that big AMIKEY 2+ chip on the bottom left is for PS2 mouse support!

Yeah...but it seems he's completely lacks a PS2 header on the motherboard

btw. very nice layout on that motherboard 😁
Except for the case cable connector placement maybe...might obstruct long cards

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Swaaye, I really like that heatsink on your MSI board. To me it appears that you used a large socket7 heatsink and used a special clip. Did you fashion the metal clip yourself?

Amigaz, if you need the EISA config file for that board I have a generic one for SiS chipsets that should work just fine. I am also using an everex EISA board with the same chipset, only mine is baby AT formfactor. I suspect that the full sized board you bought can use either 72-pin SIMMs or 30-pin SIMMs, and perhaps even together. I have a TMC EISA board like this too.

I would really appreciate if you could help me out with the EISA config files 😀
You Everex board...is that the one you have displayed in your Picasa web album?
It looks like those other simm slots are 30pin too....?

I guess I have to migrate my UM4980 board to another case since it occupies my only full AT tower
😜

Yes, the motherboard in my Picasa was used in an Everex system, though it was actually manufactured by NICE. I'm pretty sure it has the same EISA chips as yours. I believe there was only one SIS EISA chipset. I think the files you need are either !SIS0000.CFG and/or !SIS0001.CFG. You can get them here:

http://web.archive.org/web/19990821080517/htt … p/drivers/eisa/

The empty memory banks on my board are for 30-pin SIMMs. I'd like to fill them, but I'm short on 30-pin memory at the moment.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Swaaye, I really like that heatsink on your MSI board. To me it appears that you used a large socket7 heatsink and used a special clip. Did you fashion the metal clip yourself?

The heatsink must be from a Pentium, but the clip is from some other 486 cooler I had once. Works nicely, that's for sure. I have a drawer full of heatsinks that I've collected over the years. Mix and match!

keropi wrote:

but it has!! that big AMIKEY 2+ chip on the bottom left is for PS2 mouse support!

I got very ambitious last night and desoldered a PS2 port from the Socket 4 board that I'm never going to use (and probably doesn't work) and soldered it via some ribbon cable to the MSI board's blank PS2 mouse spot. Unfortunately, it isn't being seen by MS Mouse driver. So there must be some components that they didn't put on the board, or perhaps missing BIOS support due to this being the AT DIN layout version. Bummer. There is a BIOS option for "mouse support" but it didn't do anything.

It seems like PS2 ports usually come on OEM boards and that retail boards go AT DIN.

Thanks for all responses. An EISA mainboard seems to be a tempting choice 😀. Unfortunately I can't see any offers neither for them nor for EISA based expansion cards here, in Poland.

I won the bidding for a Intel 486 Ninja MB. Although the seller didn't knew what he was selling, he e-mailed me all numbers he found on the board and fortunately one of them led me to list, saying it was an unknown Intel MB, and then on stason.org I found the matching picture. It seems most Intel MBs are for OEMs, so they don't contain any visible information about being manufactured by Intel. Unfortunately the cache chips are missing, also there are no cables for the COM/LPT headers. But the board comes with a IntelDX4 CPU (write-back enabled) and some SIMMs.

Now a few more questions:
1. Are the LPT and COM headers standardized? Will cables from other motherboards fit them?
2. For what cache modules should I look (I mean what timings should they have?). Also what should I put in the 'TAG' and 'U1' sockets in this motherboard?
3. How much cache should I use? The manual on stason.org states the motherboard can either use 128 kB or 256 kB. But I cant find any information about how much memory will be cached. Here I found information about the Saturn Chipsets - both cache 128 MB RAM with 512 kB cache, but it seems that my mainboard is using the Aries (420EX) chipset. I can't find any manual for this board. Here I found a list of Intel mainboards with links to manuals, but there is only a link to the 'Alfredo' 486 Intel Mainboard.
4. How much RAM can be handled by DOS/WfW 3.11? Does it matter whether I use ECC enabled modules or not? (For example the Intel 'Alfredo' Mainboard reference lists only configurations consisting of 36-bit modules - so they use ECC).
5. Might it work with an AMD 5x86?
6. Does anyone know, where I can find a manual for this board?
7. Should I use a fan/heatsink for the IntelDX4 or AMD5x86?

GL1zdA wrote:

4. How much RAM can be handled by DOS/WfW 3.11?

Win 3.1/WfW 3.11 look like they are limited to 256mb of extended memory:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/84388/en-us

For DOS it's going to depend on what memory extender you plan to use but I believe the theoritical max for EMS is 16mb and XMS is 4Gb. But most extenders will have parms to limit how much memory they see, so they will still work on systems with more memory installed.

jthieme wrote:

Win 3.1/WfW 3.11 look like they are limited to 256mb of extended memory: […]
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GL1zdA wrote:

4. How much RAM can be handled by DOS/WfW 3.11?

Win 3.1/WfW 3.11 look like they are limited to 256mb of extended memory:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/84388/en-us

For DOS it's going to depend on what memory extender you plan to use but I believe the theoritical max for EMS is 16mb and XMS is 4Gb. But most extenders will have parms to limit how much memory they see, so they will still work on systems with more memory installed.

Thanks for reply. It seems even a very expanded 486 would work well in DOS/WfW.

GL1zdA wrote:

6. Does anyone know, where I can find a manual for this board?

elhvb.com has set up a mirror of the currently defunct MOBOKIVE Archive: A manual for your board can be found here: Classic-PCI-ED_4317.pdf

GL1zdA wrote:

1. Are the LPT and COM headers standardized? Will cables from other motherboards fit them?

Nope, as far as I know there is no standard for COM/LPT headers, but most of them use the same layout anyway, at least those headers present on mainboards. On the other hand I've encountered cables taken from ancient ISA I/O cards, which had a different pinout.
The manual mentioned above has a pinout for the headers, so it shouldn't be difficult to find a matching cable.

GL1zdA wrote:

2. For what cache modules should I look (I mean what timings should they have?). Also what should I put in the 'TAG' and 'U1' sockets in this motherboard?
3. How much cache should I use? The manual on stason.org states the motherboard can either use 128 kB or 256 kB. But I cant find any information about how much memory will be cached. Here I found information about the Saturn Chipsets - both cache 128 MB RAM with 512 kB cache, but it seems that my mainboard is using the Aries (420EX) chipset.

According to the TULARC page and the MOBOKIVE manual the maximum cache possible on this board is 256 kB, consisting of eight 32Kx8 chips, with another one added as TAG RAM. These chips should be easy to find, as they were used on most 486 boards. I don't think this board will be able to cache more than 64 MB of main memory.
The 'U1' socket is rather strange, I reckon this is for the dirty bit needed for L2 cache write-back mode. If my theory is correct, you may leave this socket empty, but then you could only use the L2 cache in write-through mode, which costs a bit of performance. TULARC lists a 16Kx1 chip for this socket, good luck finding one of those!
Since the board only supports bus speeds up to 33 MHz, chips with 20ns timings will suffice, but to be on the safe side I'd suggest getting 15ns chips.

GL1zdA wrote:

5. Might it work with an AMD 5x86?

Theoretically it might be possible, but don't count on it, this board was made by Intel...

GL1zdA wrote:

7. Should I use a fan/heatsink for the IntelDX4 or AMD5x86?

A heatsink is definitely required. You can omit the fan in case the heatsink is big enough, although typical 486 heatsinks are too inefficient to cool a DX4 or 5x86 without a fan.

Big thanks 5u3 for all answers. Now I only need a nice AT case to test my 486 machine...

Thrift shops, wonderful places to find AT cases. The one I am using now I found at a DI store in Salt Lake. It came with a turbo button and 200 Watt power supply. 😁

swaaye wrote:

I've had a few 486 mobos. Back in the day, I went from a ISA only board that came with a OEM sys to a MTI R407e mobo with VLB+IS […]
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I've had a few 486 mobos. Back in the day, I went from a ISA only board that came with a OEM sys to a MTI R407e mobo with VLB+ISA. But I really prefer the boards with PCI because, if they work well, they support most (if not all) Socket 3 CPUs and also work with most PCI cards (meaning lots of options.)

Here's my MSI MS4144 board. SiS 496/497 chipset, 256K cache, 64MB 72-pin SIMMs, and a AMD 5x86 133 @ 160. I don't really use it because I hate being stuck with only a serial mouse. I really wish it had PS2 ports.

Looks like this SIS 49x chipset layout was popular 😁

Hadn't heard about the company Gemlight before I got this motherboard.
The documentation for it is awesome...it's as good as the the manuals for the Asus motherboard of the same era

Amigaz wrote:

Looks like this SIS 49x chipset layout was popular 😁

Hmmm. Well whenever I see similar designs across manufacturers, I think that they were all following reference designs from the chipset maker.

BTW, I'm fairly sure that the reason my uber-homebrew PS/2 mouse port doesn't work is that they use a different Winbond IO chip on the PS2 supporting mobos vs. these with just the AT DIN. I was looking up PDF datasheets for those chips.

swaaye wrote:

I don't really use it because I hate being stuck with only a serial mouse. ]

Why don't you use a PS/2 to COM adapter?

GL1zdA wrote:

swaaye wrote:

I don't really use it because I hate being stuck with only a serial mouse. ]

Why don't you use a PS/2 to COM adapter?

Because I found out that the mouse needs to still support serial. It doesn't work with mice that are USB+PS2. I had to buy a cheap Labtec serial+PS2 ball mouse.

At one time Gemlight boards were used in all DTK systems, which used to be a pretty big PC clone company. DTK used to manufacturer all of their own boards, but something bad happened. I forget exactly, but as far as I know at some time in the early 90s the CEO of DTK ran off with all the money and fled the country. I guess the company couldn't afford the development costs at that point and outsourced the MBs to a taiwanese company. I don't think DTK ever really recovered from the loss, but the systems made with the gemlight boards were still pretty good. I lived in a DTK town and all the schools and businesses had tonnes of them.

Most of what I said is heresay since there isn't really much info on wikipedia. I'd be really interested to read more about what happened to DTK and gemlight.

Malik wrote:

I just got two 486 motherboards, bought via eBay :

1) 486 Motherboard MP4-P4U885P3 V2.0 PCI UM8881F with a AMD DX4 120MHz

Hello Malik,

I'd be grateful if you could let me know the following info:

• Did it work fine with an AM486 DX4-120 WB?
• If you set the motherboard at 40 MHz, does the PCI bus hold 40 MHz, or does it have to be decreased to 2/3, that is 27 MHz?

Thanks so much!!!

Hello, does anyone has the M Technology R407e motherboard manual? If so, can you please scan it and post it here please!! I'm trying to set the jumpers for a CPU and found some info online but is inaccurate and don't want to fry something.
Thank You!

Dusko wrote:

Hello, does anyone has the M Technology R407e motherboard manual? If so, can you please scan it and post it here please!! I'm trying to set the jumpers for a CPU and found some info online but is inaccurate and don't want to fry something.
Thank You!

Hello, I suggest you ask by creating a specific thread with a title like "M Technology R407e motherboard manual" or something like that. I wish you'll find it. Also, try on eBay.

Dusko wrote:

Hello, does anyone has the M Technology R407e motherboard manual? If so, can you please scan it and post it here please!! I'm trying to set the jumpers for a CPU and found some info online but is inaccurate and don't want to fry something.
Thank You!

Are you sure you have the R407E? Please post a picture. There is information on R407E on the net, and all pictures out there seem to match the information for the R407E whether it's called R407 or R407E.
https://web.archive.org/web/19970204091257/ht … com/mupdate.htm
I have a copy of the R407E manual from the m tech ftp somewhere, and it matches what's on TH99.

If TH99 doesn't match your board, and big red flags are with JP2 and JP15, then you might have an older rev R407 like I do, which is missing 3.3V CPU support.