HighTreason wrote:

I don't see what's wrong with that. Description sucks, yeah, but the price is good, the photos are good and it is listed as working... You can do your own research on the board anyway, especially these days as Google is especially good at getting results now... Or I would, interestingly my clipboard just pasted random text I never copied when I was refining a search, I suspect something is broken (or someone has compromised my computer, in which case, good luck to them, ain't nothing but pr0n, rubbish and technical documents here) - either way, would be able to track down info within the hour I'd bet.

Though I'd also bet you could find a better board... Bit like this one which is seemingly based on the same reference design as the ones I had/have with a different branding, essentially the same as the Aquarius I have now.

Edit: Ah, the carpet... I do that all the time, nothing bad has happened yet. But I guess I can see why you wouldn't want to risk it.

A few hours ago i seen and seriously thought about buying that motherboard you just linked too, however it looks like the I/O floppy, hdd, etc controller is an ISA card and the video card looks like it is too.

smeezekitty wrote:

soviet conscript wrote:

I'm surprised so many people are suggesting a 486 PCI board. I'm not one to talk as I have two currently running two (a m919 and a shuttle hot-433 based one) but to be honest they are kinda buggy and way overpriced.

Buggy how?

well....good question. I myself hear people say this all the time so I just assume it to be true. anyone want to give examples?

but, I can say most of my experience is with a M919 and a little with the shuttle hot-433. personally Ive found my 486 PCI boards to be seemingly way more picky with RAM then my VLB boards. and sometimes they do odd things for instance if I use EDO in my m919 or even certain FPM RAM that it doesn't like the L2 cache simply will not work. the annoying part is it took me forever to figure this out since in the post it actually detects the L2 cache and claims its working but in actuality it isn't.

also read some posts about pci video cards that will work on some boards and then not on others even if they are the same revision.

HighTreason wrote:

Edit: Ah, the carpet... I do that all the time, nothing bad has happened yet. But I guess I can see why you wouldn't want to risk it.

I've done it too. Never killed a board by ESD as far as I know.

but, I can say most of my experience is with a M919 and a little with the shuttle hot-433. personally Ive found my 486 PCI boards to be seemingly way more picky with RAM then my VLB boards. and sometimes they do odd things for instance if I use EDO in my m919 or even certain FPM RAM that it doesn't like the L2 cache simply will not work. the annoying part is it took me forever to figure this out since in the post it actually detects the L2 cache and claims its working but in actuality it isn't.

Some boards are picky about RAM. But that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with PCI. In general, 486s want FPM rather than EDO.

smeezekitty wrote:

HighTreason wrote:

Some boards are picky about RAM. But that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with PCI. In general, 486s want FPM rather than EDO.

true but if a manufacturer says their board works with EDO and supports L2 cache and then when you have that board and in fact it only seems to support one or the other at any given time that probably qualifies as buggy. granted that has nothing to do with the PCI bus but its still a PCI board being buggy. are there even any non pci 486 boards that support EDO?

this brings up a good point though. Id say it may even be deserving of its own thread. "how exactly are 486 PCI boards supposedly buggy?" I know I've read it many many times. but your correct, I was never given specific examples.

In response to some of the comments in this thread:

The PC Chips M919 COAST-like cache module is not fake; it contains 256KB of real cache. It also works.

soviet conscript wrote:

I'm surprised so many people are suggesting a 486 PCI board. I'm not one to talk as I have two currently running two (a m919 and a shuttle hot-433 based one) but to be honest they are kinda buggy and way overpriced.

That is because you are using known buggy motherboards. I have had nothing but trouble with Shuttle HOT-433 boards. SCSI bus mastering issues and issues with reliable cache operation. I also determined that the HOT-433 boards are not wired correctly for a PS/2 mouse for, neither, the chipset-based PS/2 mouse, nor the dedicated KBC and inverter DIPs. I find the M919 to be even less flakey than the HOT-433. The Biostar MB-8433UUD has been the most trouble-free PCI socket 3 board I have ever used, and I have tried around 2 dozen different PCI-based socket 3 boards. It is also the only board I could find to work reliably with a 66 MHz FSB. I have 2 systems built around this board and another system built around a DTK PKM-0033S.

I tend to be on the opposite side of the spectrum when people say if you want to play Quake, get an early Pentium, or there is no point in a socket 3 with PCI when you can use a socket 5/7. I am not sure what kind of frame rates you all demand, but for me, I don't mind giving up on some frames per second to have the feel of playing Quake or other 3D games on a 486. The trick is to use accelerated 3D graphics, which is what the PCI platform brings to the table compared to VLB-only 486's. A Voodoo3 or GeForce2 in a MB-8433UUD 486 will yield 27.5 fps in GLQuake when using an Am5x86-160 at 640x480 (subtract a few fps for 1280x1024). If that is not good enough, then use a Pentium or K6-III, but know that you will no longer be playing on a 4-8-6.

Tend to agree with Feipoa. I have two 486 PCI motherboards, namely the Asus PVI-486SP3 & the Lucky Star LS-486E.
Both seem to run fine and I've tested these with different hardware and in different configurations. The only hiccup is that the Asus, like many other 486 motherboards, only supports FPM RAM. The Lucky Star supports both EDO & FPM RAM.

But, I'm just as happy with my Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 VLB motherboard.

jesolo wrote:

Yes, those are the benefits of the Pentium overdrive CPU.
As a matter of interest. What's the performance of the overdrive CPU if you use the turbo button (de-turbo)?
On my AMD 486 DX4-100 I get the equivalent performance of an Intel 486 DX-33.

My 486 with P83OD does not have a turbo button (it's in a Compaq Deskpro XL466).
Other than that, I think it depends on the board. Some boards drop the bus to 8 MHz (so a regular DX2 would run at 8*2 = 16 MHz), but that may not go for all.

The DX4-100 is actually 33*3. So disabling turbo may get you 8*3 = 24 MHz. Combined with larger/faster caches, that may be roughly equivalent to a DX-33.

FPM memory on PCI 486 boards can handle faster L2 and DRAM timings compared to EDO. I'm not sure why the use of EDO memory also alters L2 timings, but it seems to have this affect.

The reason I prefer the PCI platform compared to the VLB one is because of 3D acceleration. This allows you to push the 486 beyond its normal abilities. There was the Creative 3D Blaster VLB card, but the games list was somewhat limited. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7tTYwNDWlU

I am confused what is wrong with fpm. it is a little harder to get but not über rare or particularly problematic

Intresting. I was under the impression the hot-433 was a better board. Didn't know about the ps/2 issue. Guess I'll stop looking for a header. I still stick with what I said before. Socket 7 certainly is not a 486 but I think it's better for very late DOS stuff and less hassle. Cheaper, more powerful and built amd reliable I/0. Of course the OP wants a 486 so that said yes a "good" PCI 486 board would be the highest end but keep in mind for the cost of a 486 pci board you can probably buy a whole VLB based machine case and video/sound included unless you get rather lucky. A vlb machine with a cheap amd 5x86 is pretty powerful easy to get a hold of and will play most any DOS game just fine. If you have deep pockets and/or dont mind waiting for a good deal though by all means go PCI

A bit of a tangent from the main topic, but I just wanted to say to those that have put motherboards or other ESD-sensitive components on surfaces such as carpet, please don't. There is a limited quantity of vintage components, and that quantity will dwindle over the years for various reasons. ESD doesn't have to be one of those reasons. ESD can and will damage computer components. Sometimes the damage will completely kill a component. And sometimes damage is only partial, where some junction in the component is weakened, making it easier to fail in the future. And unlike dropping a barbel on the component, you won't necessary know you've damaged it, especially if you're in the process of boxing it up for storage or shipping.

AllUrBaseRBelong2Us wrote:

A bit of a tangent from the main topic, but I just wanted to say to those that have put motherboards or other ESD-sensitive components on surfaces such as carpet, please don't. There is a limited quantity of vintage components, and that quantity will dwindle over the years for various reasons. ESD doesn't have to be one of those reasons. ESD can and will damage computer components. Sometimes the damage will completely kill a component. And sometimes damage is only partial, where some junction in the component is weakened, making it easier to fail in the future. And unlike dropping a barbel on the component, you won't necessary know you've damaged it, especially if you're in the process of boxing it up for storage or shipping.

As I said, I have yet to fry anything because of ESD. If you are worried about the amount of remaining components, then a better target would be the "thrower-outers"

jesolo wrote:

SVGA modes (640x400 or higher) places much more strain on a 486's graphics system as it has to draw almost 5x more pixels onto t […]
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SVGA modes (640x400 or higher) places much more strain on a 486's graphics system as it has to draw almost 5x more pixels onto the screen than standard VGA (320x200).
As such, performance is generally poor (at least on my AMD 486DX4-100 WT CPU).
Examples I can think of are Duke Nukem 3D and the Need for Speed 1. However, these games do allow you play at a lower resolution as well.
Generally, any DOS/Windows 3.1 game that is standard VGA will run fine on a high end 486 system (I recommend at least a 486DX4-100). If your CPU is too fast, then you can use the turbo button to slow it down to 486DX-33 speeds.
Rather opt for a Pentium I if you're planning on playing later DOS games that also supports higher resolutions.

I'm also not a fan of emulation (although, the emulation is very good these days). I just prefer the real hardware as I like to play around with the components as well and try out different configurations.

He is probably thinking of SVGA modes for 2D games like adventure games. Those will run well on a 486.

m1so wrote:

He is probably thinking of SVGA modes for 2D games like adventure games. Those will run well on a 486.

I remember playing Crusader: No Remorse (640x480) in my 486 DX2-66 and it ran well, according to my memory which may not be the most accurate thing in the world.

BTW, "period-correct high-end" is a bit difficult to quantify since you could have a PCI motherboard and use a good 1997 video card which will be high-end and still period-correct because 486's were still common at that time, although they were no longer considered high-end.

If you want a 486 from the time when a 486 was high-end (early to mid 1993 probably) then you'll have to go with a VLB motherboard, and an early one at that, since the PCI ones came out when the Pentium was the high-end product, and 486 the mainstream option. Also, if you are aiming for period-correctness above all else it should have 8MB of RAM. That was very good in 1993. I think that 16MB was already a bit on the ultra high-end/workstation end of the scale.

devius wrote:

I remember playing Crusader: No Remorse (640x480) in my 486 DX2-66 and it ran well, according to my memory which may not be the […]
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m1so wrote:

He is probably thinking of SVGA modes for 2D games like adventure games. Those will run well on a 486.

I remember playing Crusader: No Remorse (640x480) in my 486 DX2-66 and it ran well, according to my memory which may not be the most accurate thing in the world.

BTW, "period-correct high-end" is a bit difficult to quantify since you could have a PCI motherboard and use a good 1997 video card which will be high-end and still period-correct because 486's were still common at that time, although they were no longer considered high-end.

If you want a 486 from the time when a 486 was high-end (early to mid 1993 probably) then you'll have to go with a VLB motherboard, and an early one at that, since the PCI ones came out when the Pentium was the high-end product, and 486 the mainstream option. Also, if you are aiming for period-correctness above all else it should have 8MB of RAM. That was very good in 1993. I think that 16MB was already a bit on the ultra high-end/workstation end of the scale.

True, 2D games do run well on a 486 system in SVGA mode (Space Quest 6, King's Quest VII comes to mind).
Although, you do require either a Vesa Local Bus or PCI graphics card to ensure smooth animation (it will run with a standard ISA card but, the animation sequences can then sometimes be very jerky).

I played Syndicate Plus, Sim City 2000, Myst, Jewels of the Oracle, Space Quest 6 and some Windows specific games in 640x480x256 on a 486DX-33 with ISA 1mb video. It wasn't the fastest, but it was tolerable.

OK so a local person has several 486 motherboards he is willing to sell/part ways with and will include some accessories and I'd like your opinion(s).

1.) ASUS 486SP3 v1.21 ISA/VLB/PCI motherboard + AMD DX4 @ 100mhz + crappy pci video card (he says the chip states Trident and i know trident cards suck!) + HDD + isa sb16. All for $125 USD.

2.) Gigabyte 486vs rev. 6 ISA/VLB only motherboard + AMD DX @ 40mhz + vlb cirrus logic video card + vlb io board + HDD. All for $70 USD.

3.) Biostar 1450UIV ISA/VLB motherboard + AMD DX2 @ 80mhz + PCI cirrus logic video card + io board + soundcard. All for $99 USD.

4.) "Generic" MP060 ISA/PCI motherboard he said it has an ALi chipset + AMD DX4 @ 100mhz + S3 Virge/VX with 4mb video memory board + HDD + soundcard. All for $85 USD.

5.) Shuttle HOT-433 v4 motherboard + AMD Am5x86-P75 @ 133mhz. Doesn't include serial, parallel etc ribbons . $50 USD.

Hah, looks like he really loved those AMD cpus. He said all of the bundles except the Shuttle HOT-433 will include serial, parallel, etc ribbons for the boards that require them and that any of the bundles will include system RAM too but he's not sure how many megabytes they are but he knows for sure at least 8mb. Guess I'll find out when I go to test and check them out.

Anyways good deals or no? Thanks in advance.

Chaniyth wrote:

OK so a local person has several 486 motherboards he is willing to sell/part ways with and will include some accessories and I'd […]
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OK so a local person has several 486 motherboards he is willing to sell/part ways with and will include some accessories and I'd like your opinion(s).

1.) ASUS 486SP3 v1.21 ISA/VLB/PCI motherboard + AMD DX4 @ 100mhz + crappy pci video card (he says the chip states Trident and i know trident cards suck!) + HDD + isa sb16. All for $125 USD.

2.) Gigabyte 486vs rev. 6 ISA/VLB only motherboard + AMD DX @ 40mhz + vlb cirrus logic video card + vlb io board + HDD. All for $70 USD.

3.) Biostar 1450UIV ISA/VLB motherboard + AMD DX2 @ 80mhz + PCI cirrus logic video card + io board + soundcard. All for $99 USD.

4.) "Generic" MP060 ISA/PCI motherboard he said it has an ALi chipset + AMD DX4 @ 100mhz + S3 Virge/VX with 4mb video memory board + HDD + soundcard. All for $85 USD.

5.) Shuttle HOT-433 v4 motherboard + AMD Am5x86-P75 @ 133mhz. Doesn't include serial, parallel etc ribbons . $50 USD.

Hah, looks like he really loved those AMD cpus. He said all of the bundles except the Shuttle HOT-433 will include serial, parallel, etc ribbons for the boards that require them and that any of the bundles will include system RAM too but he's not sure how many megabytes they are but he knows for sure at least 8mb. Guess I'll find out when I go to test and check them out.

Anyways good deals or no? Thanks in advance.

Get all of them because reasons! /not a serious answer as I don't know how much 486 gear is worth nowadays in US$

I got a Gigabyte GA-486AM/S motherboard with 32MB of RAM and an Intel DX4/100 ODPR for AU$80 a while back, I was happy with that deal.

They are all over-priced.

The GA-486VS has the closest component set as the loved VL/I-486SV2GX4, except it is lacking the PS/2 mouse header. However, upon looking at google images of the GA-486VS, it can probably be hardware modified to take a PS/2 mouse. Both motherboards share the SiS 471 chipset. Be sure to remove the rechargeable battery if your particular layout has this style of battery and modify it to accept a coin cell battery.

Many users here have the 486SP3. It seems like a solid board with the exception of slower PCI bandwidth. But if you use a VLB graphics card, perhaps this issue is not of concern. But $125? Ouch.

I am somewhat partial to Biostar motherboards as I've had nothing but success with them - I have two PCI 486 and a 430TX AMD K6-III system built around Biostar boards. I believe the Biostar 1450UIV is built around the UMC UM8494/8496 chipset. I do not have any experience with this chipset. I would not pay $99 USD for this board.

I could not locate the photo of the MP060. I do not have much experience with the ALi 486 PCI chipset with the exception of the M918, which I recalled having sub-stellar L2 performance. $85? I wouldn't.

HOT-433 v4. Although the chipset dates used on this v4 boards are much newer than v1-3 HOT-433 boards, I do not think the bugs were worked out. The HOT-433 V4 would have made a nice board [for my desires] had it worked well with a 66 MHz FSB, but it does not. The problem with single-banked L2 cache boards is that they cannot reliably handle as fast as L2 cache timings compared to their double-banked counterparts for a 40+ MHz FSB. I do have 2 of these motherboards and they can be modified to acccept 512 KB of single-banked cache if your DIP's are soldered in. If all you are planning only to run an Am5x86 at 133 MHz and not experiment with a 40 MHz FSB, not use SCSI, and want to take a gamble with reliability, perhaps this board is for you? I wouldn't pay $50 for it though.

In short, if money is of little concern, you are set on a VLB system, and the GA-486VS performs as well as the VL/I-486SV2GX4, I would be inclined to try out the GA-486VS. But if it doesn't work well for you, that is a lot of money to sink.

feipoa wrote:

They are all over-priced.
...
But if it doesn't work well for you, that is a lot of money to sink.

Just to add that there will be some kind of problem with whatever motherboard this old you purchase. Rarely do things "just work" with hardware this old, so feipoa is right that you should think very well if you want to risk this much money. Personally I would never pay anywhere near that much for old hardware, but I can get full 486/Pentium systems for 15€ or less (with some patience), so you should check what kind of prices are considered normal in your area.