Looks like one of the better boards for sure. Even comes with a standard Intel DX4 hehe. You going to bid on it?

Edit:PS2 mouse and CPU socket notches == nice!

I probably will not bid on it - I am not really sure what I would really do with it. Did you notice one of the corners is broken?

ncmark wrote:

I probably will not bid on it - I am not really sure what I would really do with it. Did you notice one of the corners is broken?

I think the broken corner gives it personality. The greatest warriors all had scars 😉

Sounds like a cool board to bid on, i possibly would, but that seller doesnt ship outside USA.

ncmark wrote:

I probably will not bid on it - I am not really sure what I would really do with it. Did you notice one of the corners is broken?

It's not broken, part of that carpet thing-like thing is in front of it 😜
Would've been really bad as it's all over the bottom!

I hadn't taken a close look on it, but it's cache chips are soldered?

You know - I do believe you are right - it's covered up, not broken 😦

Hahaha, right i scrolled down the page and there is a zoomed view, its not really broken it was an illusion. I doubt however that placing a mobo on cloth towel is a good practice for preventing ESD damage.

[Thread moved to Marvin Section]

For $20, I'd probably buy it.

Current bid is $40. It is way over-priced for what you get. I'll list out my feeings on this particular HOT-433 v4.0

Cons
1) HOT-433 v1.0 - 3.0 motherboards do not have a working PS/2 port, even though they have the PS/2 headers. I've not heard anyone having experience with the v4.0 PS/2 port, so it is a gamble if the PS/2 port is functional.

2) The cache is soldered on and it only has 256 KB in place. HOT-433 v4.0's are known for accepting up to 512 KB cache, so it is very suspicous to me that these cache modules are soldered. You could desolder them and put in DIP sockets to contain the 512KB cache, but desoldering so many pins can be problematic and a hassle.

3) The author of that eBay auction flaunts 256 MB of RAM being supported, however with 256 KB cache soldered in, you're limited to a cacheable RAM range of 32 MB in write-back mode, or 64 MB in write-through mode (some motherboards of this era do not support WT cache mode at all, only write-back mode).

4) The RTC battery/clock is dead. Desoldering again. A pain, but doable. I've done this job 4 times and find it somewhat problematic. It is difficult to suck out all the old solder, but be gentle, if you try to pull out the chip too hard (i.e. with an IC puller), you can rip up the traces. At any rate, I bought some RTC DIP sockets on Digikey to fascilitate ease of replacement for dead RTCs. There are also links online about how to solder-in a coin style battery onto the RTC once you remove the plastic cover. It is fairly simple, but I think it takes away a lot of the historical appeal of the board. I've gotten replacement Dallas RTC's for about $5 each.

5) The cracked corner is somewhat concerning. This board may have been thrown, dropped, or reclaimed from a recycle pile.

Pros
1) If you can desolder the cache and RTC, put in DIP sockets, can cache in WT mode for 128 MB of cacheable RAM (preferably EDO), the cache/RAM combination works on 2-1-1-1 and 0/0 ws timing, and the PS/2 mouse port works, then I'd go for it. But if the HOT-433 v1-3 is any predictor to v4.0's functionality, I'd say save your money.

While I have this board on my hotlist as a canditate for the World's Fastest 486, I'd not pay more than $20 for it in its current condition. I might pay $40 for this board if all the Pros from 1) were met prior to buying and it came with a 2 week return policy.

in my personal experience, I would never pay any significant sum for a 486 board with hard-soldered cache. or bios chip.

The problem I see, how many 486 boards come around that support the cyrix 5x86? maybe once a month if your lucky unless you count those boards around the $200 mark, the pickings are very slim.

I am looking for a cyrix 5x86 compatible 486 board and this one certainly sparks my interest, the earlier revision Hot 433s dont support the cyrix 5x86

For future reference, what would be a good board to consider? I almost thought about getting this one (although the bid is far too high now)

The board has a pad already on it for mounting a coin cell holder, which means there is probably a jumper for bypassing the Dallas RTC and using the coin cell instead.

The board has a pad already on it for mounting a coin cell holder, which means there is probably a jumper for bypassing the Dallas RTC and using the coin cell instead.

You would need to confirm that the coin battery traces lead up to the approrpiate battery pins on the RTC module, or to another on-board time keeping circuit. An RTC is not just a battery, it also contains the logic for keeping time, has some memory, and provides an output to the BIOS. The spec sheets are out there still. It would be highly irregular for a motherboard manufactorer to layout two time keeping circuits, whereby only one (the RTC, in this case) is used.

The earlier revision Hot 433s dont support the cyrix 5x86

Where did you get the information that earlier HOT 433's don't support the Cyrix 5x86? The HOT-433 rev1 manual that I am looking at has specific jumper settings for Cyrix 5x86 100, 120, and 133. One user of this board has run the HOT-433 rev 1-3 to overclock a Cyrix 5x86-100 to 150 MHz and run some benchmarks. If you have had bad experiences with HOT-433 rev1 w/Cyrix 5x86, it may be that your particular chipset (northbridge/southbridge) was of an older revision? I too, however, haven't had the best of luck with HOT-433's in general. I've tested half a dozen of them in the past and determined that they were all kinda flakey. For this reason, and the 5 reasons I mentioned above, I wouldn't pay much for a rev4 board.

I think we decided the broken corner was really just being covered by the cloth.

The DALLAS thing is a really big deal - deal breaker that is. I'm sure it could be de-soldered - but not sure I would want to try.

Something is telling me there are better 486 boards. Or for that matter pentium boards are are lot more available (and cheaper) - and a low-end pentium would be just as good for DOS

feipoa wrote:

The earlier revision Hot 433s dont support the cyrix 5x86

Where did you get the information that earlier HOT 433's don't support the Cyrix 5x86? The HOT-433 rev1 manual that I am looking at has specific jumper settings for Cyrix 5x86 100, 120, and 133. One user of this board has run the HOT-433 rev 1-3 to overclock a Cyrix 5x86-100 to 150 MHz and run some benchmarks. If you have had bad experiences with HOT-433 rev1 w/Cyrix 5x86, it may be that your particular chipset (northbridge/southbridge) was of an older revision? I too, however, haven't had the best of luck with HOT-433's in general. I've tested half a dozen of them in the past and determined that they were all kinda flakey. For this reason, and the 5 reasons I mentioned above, I wouldn't pay much for a rev4 board.

I was making an assumption after I found 2 pages of jumper settings on stason.org, one makes no mention of cyrix 5x86 settings, the other page listed as revision 4.0 has the cyrix 5x86 jumper setings, I thought it was a safe assumption that a later revision board would have support for later cpus and the earlier ones would'nt have, otherwise I might have bid on another shuttle that sold a few weeks ago.

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/S/SH … 86-HOT-433.html

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/S/SH … OT-433-VER.html

Stason isn't always right though, they often omit info that's easy to gather otherwise (which is logical of course! 😜)

I'm curious - did someone from here get it?

I'm curious too. I know it wasn't me.