VOGONS


First post, by ceeker

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Rank Newbie
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Newbie

Hey guys! Bit of advice needed please. 😀

I have a 486dx/33 machine running an OPTI-486WB motherboard.

I hunted around for a working 486 machine or motherboard for quite a while as I was hoping to build a dx2/66 or dx4/100 (I actually ended up with an AMD dx4 chip). I had a pretty tough run of luck with stuff not working and ended up with this board, which works fine, but am limited to ISA slots - no VLB sadly.

However, I'm wondering if I actually can upgrade this processor to squeeze a little more performance out of it for things like Aces Over Europe, which runs and is playable, just a bit slow.

What are my odds? I am not sure if this board will be able to handle much else. It does say in that description I have linked that the board is limited to 33mhz. Is that likely to be a hard limit? What happens if I throw a dx2 in there (assuming they have the same pin configuration - do they?) I also know little about overdrive upgrade chips and the like, are they an option for me?

It's a great machine and lots of fun. If it can't be upgraded I'll keep it around but probably wont bother investing the cash for another 486 build given how difficult it was to get going the first time around.

Reply 1 of 3, by Deksor

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Rank l33t
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l33t

All the 486 computers I've seen supported CPU at least up to the DX 2-66. The reason to this is that almost all the 486s up to the DX2 use 5v. After this, they use 3.3v so if you put the DX4 in there, all you risk is to fry it.

You can try to put a 3.3v adapter inbetween or a n overdrive, but that's rather hard to find and expensive and isn't guaranteed to work

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Reply 3 of 3, by cj_reha

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My go to tip to see if it supports DX4s and up is to see if there's a voltage regulator module on the board. It looks like a black square with three legs and a possible nut and bolt holding it to the board.

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