Wow $135 😒 even with a CPU that's top dollar for an M919. I got an M919 with an Am5x86-120 (not sure what stepping) for about $35 USD off ebay about 6 months ago.

The M919 had decent performance but seemed to get more and more unstable as I used it, I eventually gave it to SquallStrife who I belive has stopped using it too because of its issues.

I think I've posted about these boards several times on here 😜

Tetrium wrote:

Exactly what I was thinking. For $135 you could've bought any board you wanted. If it came with a case, that's good. The 5x86ADW […]
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retro games 100 wrote:

RG100 recoils in horror! Oh no! It's a PC Chips board! Get your money back!

Exactly what I was thinking.
For $135 you could've bought any board you wanted.
If it came with a case, that's good.
The 5x86ADW isn't very valuable either, at least not anymore. I got 2 last month for 5 bucks each.

Dammith, I truly feel sorry for you!
At any rate, some users here have posted that this board isn't a total loss and could be useful.

With the case, PSU, CPU, RAM, cables, and whatever else it mitigates the price somewhat. I'm sure as hell not going to pay $135 for a bare board. There's too many people selling 486 boards for those prices as it is. If all I wanted was a bare board and didn't care about the price I would have bought one from one of them. With shipping, an AT case can cost you $40-50 by itself and maybe another $20-25 for an AT PSU. I can use the board until a better deal on another 486 PCI board comes along but I don't expect one with a UMC chipset is going to be that easy to find or even identify with the quality of some of the pictures on ebay these days.

sliderider wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

Exactly what I was thinking. For $135 you could've bought any board you wanted. If it came with a case, that's good. The 5x86ADW […]
Show full quote

retro games 100 wrote:

RG100 recoils in horror! Oh no! It's a PC Chips board! Get your money back!

Exactly what I was thinking.
For $135 you could've bought any board you wanted.
If it came with a case, that's good.
The 5x86ADW isn't very valuable either, at least not anymore. I got 2 last month for 5 bucks each.

Dammith, I truly feel sorry for you!
At any rate, some users here have posted that this board isn't a total loss and could be useful.

With the case, PSU, CPU, RAM, cables, and whatever else it mitigates the price somewhat. I'm sure as hell not going to pay $135 for a bare board. There's too many people selling 486 boards for those prices as it is. If all I wanted was a bare board and didn't care about the price I would have bought one from one of them. With shipping, an AT case can cost you $40-50 by itself and maybe another $20-25 for an AT PSU. I can use the board until a better deal on another 486 PCI board comes along but I don't expect one with a UMC chipset is going to be that easy to find or even identify with the quality of some of the pictures on ebay these days.

I agree the cases are hard to find (and if available, theres the problem of getting the case to you), but it's easy to just buy an adapter and use an old 250W ATX power supply.
Even if an AT case is unavailable, theres also the ATX2AT backplate. Then all you'd need is an old ATX case, old ATX PSU and you're almost done.

Well, I got my M919 for 0.3$ 😀 I'd never pay 135$ for such a board - only the top ones for socket 3. The COAST isn't fake - it just uses a different pinout - the traces from COAST slot connect to the FSB. As for cache chips - they are definitely fake - you can see traces on the photo on the previous page go from one chip to another - with no connection to the real world. Not even mentioned that they are pieces of plastic - they can be opened if you like.

What are the jumper settings for 60 and 66mhz bus?

sliderider wrote:

What are the jumper settings for 60 and 66mhz bus?

Key
oo = open jumper
-- = closed jumper

60 MHz
oo
--
oo

66 MHz
--
oo
--

retro games 100 wrote:

Key oo = open jumper -- = closed jumper […]
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sliderider wrote:

What are the jumper settings for 60 and 66mhz bus?

Key
oo = open jumper
-- = closed jumper

60 MHz
oo
--
oo

66 MHz
--
oo
--

Thanks. Is there one for the PCI divider, too?

Does anyone have a picture of the correct cache module that fits in the slot that clearly shows any numbers that may be needed to locate one?

sliderider wrote:

Is there one for the PCI divider, too?

I can't remember where it is on the M919 mobo. If the mobo manual doesn't mention one, then there won't be a jumper and you'll have to look in the BIOS set up area for it. However, if the BIOS set up area doesn't have this setting, then the board will probably implement some kind of "automatic" setting.

I understand from your question about the mobo's cache, that you want to track down one of those M919 COASt-like sticks. I'm fairly sure they don't do anything. I ran tests with and without the M919 specific cache stick inserted in to the cache slot. There appeared to be no difference to benchmark performances.

When I tidy up my retro junk, and when I spot this thing, I'll take a picture of it and post back to this thread. You could set up an ebay search for M919 cache, and ensure that a stick that you buy has "for M919 only" on it. I remember that my M919 cache stick had that printed on it.

Also, here are some tips to get you up and running at either 180 MHz or 200 MHz, on a 486 mobo. Very unfortunately, I doubt if you'll reach 200 MHz on the M919, but 180 MHz is achievable and would be great! 😀

* Use the ADW P75 variant, not ADZ.

* Use a good heatsink, and put a thin layer of paste over all of it, including the heatsink. Also use a fan. In order to keep my system nice and stable, I also use various fans cooling down the entire area.

* Use a good PSU. I know we're talking 486s here, but it never hurts to use a good PSU.

* Make sure your VGA card is capable of high bus speeds. Some are, some aren't. It can be trial and error to find the ones that work, but old VGA cards are cheap, and so it's fun to experiment with different ones.

* I recommend that you use a small capacity compact flash drive (eg 512MB), plugged directly on to the mobo's integrated IDE pins, rather than a cable with an old HDD plugged on to the end of it. Also, start off by not including any CD-ROM drive.

* To ensure your best chances of initial testing success, you could start off by setting the BIOS set up options to "slow" values, and then see how you get on with changing the BIOS settings to faster ones.

* Last but not least, you'll almost certainly need to over-volt your CPU, to achieve these top speeds. Find the voltage jumper on the board, and set it from ~ 3V to 5V.