kanecvr wrote:

There's also the Shuttle HOT 433. Some revisions come with a coin cell battery, but regardless of revision you can solder one on the board in the pre-defined area and you're good to go. They don't OC very well, and the AMI bios can be tricky to set up, but if you don't plan on fiddling with it too much it's a decent board. I've heard rumors some revisions have a PS/2 header as well.

Revision 4 HOT-433 boards have the PS/2 header, however I've yet to find one which works. The PCB on the board may not be wired correctly or the manufacturer couldn't figure out how to enable PS/2 mouse support in the BIOS. At some point, I would like to investigate this issue further by rewiring the board and using the Biostar 8433 AWARD BIOS.

So.... Basically these 4 boards fits the bill:

Tomato 4DPS
Lucky Star LS-486E
There's also the Shuttle HOT 433.
Biostar MB-8433UUD

Most likely the Lucky star LS-486E and the Tomato 4DPS will be the ones that will suit me the best.
Going to look through my collection of motherboards, in order to see what will be best for swapping.

I've encountered endless stability problems with the HOT 433, and I have tested about 6 of these boards over the years. Personally, I would avoid it. There are others who report stability problems with it on this forum as well.

If you can find a Biostar MB-8433UUD which is revision 3.0 or 3.1, the Dallas RTC module should already be socketed, allowing you to perform the coin-cell mod with ease.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trk … 433UUD&_sacat=0

This is the only one I can find on eBay, and comes with an insane pricetag. 😳

There are more very good boards that meet most of your requirements:

- Abit PB4 - loverly tiny PCI board, CR2032 battery, wide range CPU support, onboard controller
- ASUS PVI-486SP3 - real quality board, great layout allows long cards, has PCI / VLB / ISA slots, CR2032 battery, wide rage CPU support, PS/2 mouse header, onboard controller
- GIGABYTE GA-486AM/S - fast and simple PCI board, a bit odd layout, real time clock module, onboard controller, wide range CPU support

FGB wrote:

There are more very good boards that meet most of your requirements: […]
Show full quote

There are more very good boards that meet most of your requirements:

- Abit PB4 - loverly tiny PCI board, CR2032 battery, wide range CPU support, onboard controller
- ASUS PVI-486SP3 - real quality board, great layout allows long cards, has PCI / VLB / ISA slots, CR2032 battery, wide rage CPU support, PS/2 mouse header, onboard controller
- GIGABYTE GA-486AM/S - fast and simple PCI board, a bit odd layout, real time clock module, onboard controller, wide range CPU support

Thanks...
Will take a note of them too in my search for something somewere.

From all my 486 boards I like GIGABYTE GA-486AM/S best - I highly recommend it.

Which good 486 motherboards fit this description?
ISA + VLB expansion
3.3V CPU capable
PS/2 mouse header
something other than AMI WinBIOS

kixs wrote:

From all my 486 boards I like GIGABYTE GA-486AM/S best - I highly recommend it.

Thanks. 😀

kixs wrote:

From all my 486 boards I like GIGABYTE GA-486AM/S best - I highly recommend it.

A very nice board which can take up to 1024 KB cache. The main drawback is the lack of the PS/2 mouse port or header. There are solder pads at J12, but the pins don't trace to the locations of typical PS/2 mouse ports. In my notes, I have

1 - Vcc
2 - unknown
3 - traces to pin 95 of UM8663AF
4 - GND
5 - traces to pin 88 of UM8663AF
5 - also goes to the empty solder pad for resistor R153, the other end of which goes to Vcc

Two pins would go to UM8886BF if it was wired for PS/2 mouse support. Unfortunately, this board has the UM8886AF southbridge. I have never seen a board with the UM8886AF southbridge and a functioning PS/2 mouse port. I suspect UM8886BF added PS/2 mouse support.

For my tastes, I prefer PCI boards which can accept 1024 KB, have a PS/2 mouse port, and accept 128 MB of RAM. This way you can go silly with unnecessary upgrades.

gdjacobs wrote:

Which good 486 motherboards fit this description? ISA + VLB expansion 3.3V CPU capable PS/2 mouse header something other than AM […]
Show full quote

Which good 486 motherboards fit this description?
ISA + VLB expansion
3.3V CPU capable
PS/2 mouse header
something other than AMI WinBIOS

Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4, hands down. 64 MB max though.

feipoa wrote:

Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4, hands down. 64 MB max though.

Back in 1995, most students (I was one such), used 8mb Ram on a 486.
In jan. 1996, one of my friends had 12mb in his dx33.
64mb is kind of huge for something like a 486 system.
I would say that this barrier is of no concern as such on a 486.

maybe thats just my bad memory, but especially on a 486 one may profit a lot from going to 128mb ram;
that is with windows 9x of course or some sort of posix-alike;

mrau wrote:

maybe thats just my bad memory, but especially on a 486 one may profit a lot from going to 128mb ram;
that is with windows 9x of course or some sort of posix-alike;

Pure madness. Although we can put absurd amounts of ram in these systems I remember that at the time a good 486 had 8MB, a good Pentium had 16/32MB. Highly priced Pentium/Pentium Pro machines had 64MB.

mrau wrote:

maybe thats just my bad memory, but especially on a 486 one may profit a lot from going to 128mb ram;
that is with windows 9x of course or some sort of posix-alike;

It would need 1MB of L2 cache to cache 128mb of ram. Very few boards support 1mb of cache, most supporting 512kb tops witch can cache 64mb. Cache kits are also rare and expensive and not worth the hassle. 256KB with 32MB of ram is more then enough for a 486. Win95 runs great on 32mb. Win98 will run, but regardless on how much ram you put on it, a 486 is a 486 and it's not going to be very snappy in win98. Money wasted if you ask me.

For my interests, the purpose is not practicality - it is about taking it to the limit. I simply do not get the same high by stopping half-way to the limit.

When I bought my 486 in Jan 1997, it was a new budget system. It came with 16 MB and Win95. I noticed a tremendous performance boost when jumping to 32 MB. A few months later, I upgraded to 96 MB and ran the system like that until Dec. 1998, when I bought a dual PII-400.

I also ran WinNT 4.0 on a 486 as an everyday machine and can say that the minimum RAM for any ounce of performance is 64 MB. 128 MB came in very handy when a few web pages were open.

Define absurd. I have two workstation-class 486 boards here that can take 256MB of RAM and 1MB of L2 cache. The bus speed can be set to 66Mhz on them too.

Since the question was asked, this is rather absurd. Excessive amounts of RAM with an underpowered CPU is silly.

First, ask yourself why you need to use a Socket 3- class CPU? If it's speed sensitivity, there are better options. If it's raw power, there are better options. Nostalgia can be absurd.

I skipped the 486 and went Pentium first time round in the 90s aftet my Amiga. In retrospect, at this current time, I've skipped it again. The 486, or rather the Socket 3 platform, is in-between a rock and a hard place.

Of course, messing with hardware for nonsensical reasons can still be fun.

People tend to hold on and expect the RAM will turn the system in a mega super hyper ultra system. In the end a 486 is still a 486 and 256MB of RAM in it is kind of absurd.

But I would like to hear about the experiences and pratical side of the crazy amounts of RAM. Real examples where a 486 with 256MB is better than a Pentium with "only" 64MB or a Pentium II with 128MB.

And I say this because it's cheaper to get a complete Pentium machine with 64MB or even a Pentium II with 128 than 4 x 64MB SIMMs for a 486...

I always use 8 MB in my 486 😀

I would choose for minimal 16MB of memory. I knew that most budget friendly systems came with 8MB of ram for 486 DX systems. 486 SX systems mostly had at least 4MB of memory..

The DX was then like a Amd Athlon, and a 486 SX was more like an amd sempron.