appiah4 wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

If it's a PODMMX, then it might support test register manipulation with Setmul. This would make it much more flexible for slowing down for older DOS games.
Just stick it back into the computer, power it on and run CHKCPU (assuming you haven't changed the motherboard jumpers that it was set to before you removed it). If so, hopefully you can remember how it was jumpered.

Changed the jumper for voltage from 3.3v to 2.8v only easy to change back.

Is a POD 166mmx better than a regular p166mmx? Why is the vcore so high? Is it basically an OCed lower Pentium?

A Pentium MMX Overdrive is basically a regular Pentium MMX with a voltage regulator and a fixed CPU multiplier. Both the boxed MMX chip and the overdrive came with a HSF attached to the CPU itself.

Pentium MMX Overdrive looks different from the bottom and the part number should tell you which one you have.

If the part number is BP80502166 it's actually a boxed Pentium 166 without MMX, but I can't tell from the pic as it isn't sharp enough.

Tetrium wrote:

A Pentium MMX Overdrive is basically a regular Pentium MMX with a voltage regulator and a fixed CPU multiplier. Both the boxed M […]
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appiah4 wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

If it's a PODMMX, then it might support test register manipulation with Setmul. This would make it much more flexible for slowing down for older DOS games.
Just stick it back into the computer, power it on and run CHKCPU (assuming you haven't changed the motherboard jumpers that it was set to before you removed it). If so, hopefully you can remember how it was jumpered.

Changed the jumper for voltage from 3.3v to 2.8v only easy to change back.

Is a POD 166mmx better than a regular p166mmx? Why is the vcore so high? Is it basically an OCed lower Pentium?

A Pentium MMX Overdrive is basically a regular Pentium MMX with a voltage regulator and a fixed CPU multiplier. Both the boxed MMX chip and the overdrive came with a HSF attached to the CPU itself.

Pentium MMX Overdrive looks different from the bottom and the part number should tell you which one you have.

If the part number is BP80502166 it's actually a boxed Pentium 166 without MMX, but I can't tell from the pic as it isn't sharp enough.

He did say it was jumpered to 3.3v, wouldn't that indicate it's an Overdrive?

Do these help?

http://image.bolterandchainsword.com/uploads/ … 1505_630856.jpg

http://image.bolterandchainsword.com/uploads/ … 1505_586811.jpg

Looks like a boxed pentium but I wonder why the board was set to 3.3v then...

Run of the mill 166mhz pent without mmx
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium/Intel-P … BP80502166.html

clueless1 wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

A Pentium MMX Overdrive is basically a regular Pentium MMX with a voltage regulator and a fixed CPU multiplier. Both the boxed MMX chip and the overdrive came with a HSF attached to the CPU itself.

Pentium MMX Overdrive looks different from the bottom and the part number should tell you which one you have.

If the part number is BP80502166 it's actually a boxed Pentium 166 without MMX, but I can't tell from the pic as it isn't sharp enough.

He did say it was jumpered to 3.3v, wouldn't that indicate it's an Overdrive?

The s5/s7 Pentium classic CPUs were also 3.3v 😜

And the part number (which is hard to read so I can't be sure) indicates a regular Pentium (without MMX). Also the POD chips looked different from the bottom and this one doesn't seem to have an additional voltage regulator (though it may be the angle or something, doing this from top of my head here 😜).

Thanks for the ID its a boxed P166. The 166MMX stays on the board then. 😀

appiah4 wrote:

Thanks for the ID its a boxed P166. The 166MMX stays on the board then. 😀

Yay! And thanks to Tetrium for setting me straight. 😉

clueless1 wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

Thanks for the ID its a boxed P166. The 166MMX stays on the board then. 😀

Yay! And thanks to Tetrium for setting me straight. 😉

And thanks to someone else who noticed the sspec which I had overlooked myself (even though I should've known that 😜).

Still checking on the parts I have coming in for the 486. Have the 128MB of RAM in there already...

- Diagnostic card is coming in today, don't need it here anymore, but I could definitely use it at work when it's not chasing problems on old x86 hardware at home.

- 486 DX4-100 with Write-Back is on it's way in today as well, toying with waiting for the heatsink to come in, or fabricating a better one using the Cyrix heatsink I have since the black heatsink won't be in until sometime next week at earliest.

- My 512KB Cache RAM finally made it to America, is in San Francisco the last time I looked, predicted to be here by Friday - which is a PERFECT day because if I choose to make my own CPU cooler (which I've done in the past) I can just get it done and won't have anything more to do regarding opening one of the vintage boxes until I order the Tandy's parts, and when I get a free moment to slip that RAMpAT card back in the 286.

Either way, I got all the ordering and budgeting done just in time to focus on the finishing touches for the Wife's birthday next week - if only I was so good at that as planning hardware upgrades.

creepingnet wrote:

Still checking on the parts I have coming in for the 486. Have the 128MB of RAM in there already... […]
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Still checking on the parts I have coming in for the 486. Have the 128MB of RAM in there already...

- Diagnostic card is coming in today, don't need it here anymore, but I could definitely use it at work when it's not chasing problems on old x86 hardware at home.

- 486 DX4-100 with Write-Back is on it's way in today as well, toying with waiting for the heatsink to come in, or fabricating a better one using the Cyrix heatsink I have since the black heatsink won't be in until sometime next week at earliest.

- My 512KB Cache RAM finally made it to America, is in San Francisco the last time I looked, predicted to be here by Friday - which is a PERFECT day because if I choose to make my own CPU cooler (which I've done in the past) I can just get it done and won't have anything more to do regarding opening one of the vintage boxes until I order the Tandy's parts, and when I get a free moment to slip that RAMpAT card back in the 286.

Either way, I got all the ordering and budgeting done just in time to focus on the finishing touches for the Wife's birthday next week - if only I was so good at that as planning hardware upgrades.

Bud do you have pictures on the forum of your 486?
I have a 486 motherboard with 4x72pin ram slots. Wonder how much ram it could take. Also have a 133mhz AMD cpu for it.

Skalabala wrote:

creepingnet wrote:

Still checking on the parts I have coming in for the 486. Have the 128MB of RAM in there already... […]
Show full quote

Still checking on the parts I have coming in for the 486. Have the 128MB of RAM in there already...

- Diagnostic card is coming in today, don't need it here anymore, but I could definitely use it at work when it's not chasing problems on old x86 hardware at home.

- 486 DX4-100 with Write-Back is on it's way in today as well, toying with waiting for the heatsink to come in, or fabricating a better one using the Cyrix heatsink I have since the black heatsink won't be in until sometime next week at earliest.

- My 512KB Cache RAM finally made it to America, is in San Francisco the last time I looked, predicted to be here by Friday - which is a PERFECT day because if I choose to make my own CPU cooler (which I've done in the past) I can just get it done and won't have anything more to do regarding opening one of the vintage boxes until I order the Tandy's parts, and when I get a free moment to slip that RAMpAT card back in the 286.

Either way, I got all the ordering and budgeting done just in time to focus on the finishing touches for the Wife's birthday next week - if only I was so good at that as planning hardware upgrades.

Bud do you have pictures on the forum of your 486?
I have a 486 motherboard with 4x72pin ram slots. Wonder how much ram it could take. Also have a 133mhz AMD cpu for it.

Oh yeah, pictures, and update as I got home tonight and the DX4-100 CPU to replace the blown one came in, and much to my surprise, it came with a heatsink. I swapped the fan out on it though with the motherboard powered one (yes, my 486 board has a FAN power connector, which is the first time I've ever seen such a thing).

Installing the CPU was a bit of a PITA as it turns out there were REVISED jumper settings for the DX4-100 AMD CPU chips for the FIC 486-PVT system boards, and the second one was the correct one to \get this one working, had to use my Diagnostic card to figure out it was starting up to the point that POST takes over and then stopping, turned out I needed a SECOND 0 Ohm jumper shunt (in my case, some tight fitting staples bent into a U shape) and populate RN19 and RN17 - as soon as I did that, it fired right up, and it's been running ever since - about 2-3 hours now. I used Arctic Silver as thermal compound, seems to be doing it's job well, I had a big old syringe of that stuff and it's just sitting around doing nothing so might as well put it to use.

Checking Tracking, looks like the L2 Cache should be in tomorrow. All five 128Kx8 modules - making for a whooping 512K L2 Cache. That's a much simpler process, in this XT case, I just remove the thumbscrews from teh back (5), then take out a screw for the CD-RW and the IDE HDD tray, and remove those, and then I can press the chips in, pull 2 jumpers, and put them in the right spots for 512K L2 Cache, and I wont' be opening this thing for probably a very long time.

To answer the question on RAM, most 486 system boards top out at 64MB, but some of the later ones like mine (mine is a 1995 model board) goes up to 128MB, I also had an old Socket 3 IBM PC-330 100DX4 (6571-W5K) system years ago that could also do 128MB of RAM, though the most that ever had was 64MB of EDO ECC RAM. That IBM was the benchmark upon which all my 486 builds since were based because that thing ran darn near everything, Postal, Diablo, Quake, I used it as my main computer off/on from 2001-2005 and it never let me down till the system board went weird.

dat AT101W, new in box.

oeuvre wrote:

dat AT101W, new in box.

Same keyboard I have. What's your opinion of it? Personally I like mine.

Managed to find an MS-DOS MP3 player optimized specifically for 486 processors and listened to some music on my 486DX4-100 system...mostly 80s music. 🤣 I'd say a DX4-100 is right on the very edge of "just powerful enough" to be able to decode and play MP3s with no issues, as quick Google searches suggest other people who have tried this same thing weren't successful with a DX2-66...no word on a DX4-75 though (I don't have either one to test, and as fiddly as my current setup was to get working I'm hesitant to start poking around inside to simulate them just for experimentation purposes).

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

oeuvre wrote:

dat AT101W, new in box.

Same keyboard I have. What's your opinion of it? Personally I like mine.

Like it a lot so far, reminds me of my IBM model m

torindkflt wrote:

Managed to find an MS-DOS MP3 player optimized specifically for 486 processors and listened to some music on my 486DX4-100 system...mostly 80s music. 🤣 I'd say a DX4-100 is right on the very edge of "just powerful enough" to be able to decode and play MP3s with no issues, as quick Google searches suggest other people who have tried this same thing weren't successful with a DX2-66...no word on a DX4-75 though (I don't have either one to test, and as fiddly as my current setup was to get working I'm hesitant to start poking around inside to simulate them just for experimentation purposes).

Just out of curiosity what was the bit rate that those MP3's were encoded as? Most of mine are 320 kbits/sec so I am wondering if a computer like yours would be powerful enough to play then without glitches?

Tommaso

Tommaso wrote:

Just out of curiosity what was the bit rate that those MP3's were encoded as? Most of mine are 320 kbits/sec so I am wondering if a computer like yours would be powerful enough to play then without glitches?

Tommaso

Mostly 128-160kbps, but I do have one at 320kbps that it seems to have no trouble with, at least not in pure DOS mode. I imagine if I were to try to play any MP3s while Windows is running it would choke.

I remember playing 128kbit MP3s on my DX4-100 in Windows 95 using.. yes.. WinPlay3..

I actually went back and tried playing MP3s while Windows was running, using the same DOS program (mpxplay) since I don't yet have an MP3 player for Windows on there. It actually worked better than I expected, but there were a few occasional skips and glitches that aren't present in pure DOS mode, but I'd say it's perhaps 90-95% normal. It also MUST be run in full-screen mode, as in windowed mode it is totally unplayable. I found the link to download the 486-optimized version of mpxplay here (bttr-software.de, which then links to SourceForge for the actual download).

torindkflt wrote:

Managed to find an MS-DOS MP3 player optimized specifically for 486 processors and listened to some music on my 486DX4-100 system...mostly 80s music. 🤣 I'd say a DX4-100 is right on the very edge of "just powerful enough" to be able to decode and play MP3s with no issues, as quick Google searches suggest other people who have tried this same thing weren't successful with a DX2-66...no word on a DX4-75 though (I don't have either one to test, and as fiddly as my current setup was to get working I'm hesitant to start poking around inside to simulate them just for experimentation purposes).

Whats the name of this MP3 Player?