First post, by flakes
Hi All
I have a new to me 386sx that I am starting to put together. This is my oldest system to date as the 286 never eventuated......
Why build a SX? Why not!
Parts so far are:
*WH386 Motherboard with AMD 33MHz SX https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/E/E … 6-WH-386SX.html
*Diamond Speedstar24 (Tseng ET4000 1MB) http://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/component … -tseng-et4000ax
*Generic Goldstar Prime 2 Controller https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-disk-floppy … -IDE-AT-32.html
*4 x 1MB Goldstar Sims (70Ns)
*Creative Vibra16 with Yamaha OPL
*not sure on fixed disk or case yet
I obtained the Motherboard with the 33MHz CPU and 16KB of cache. It works well and shows real promis to be a good SX system.
I started by changing the cache from 16KB to the Maxed out Huge amount of 64KB 🤣
System Performance definatly improved alot.
I have been toying with the Jumpers on the board. I have 2 questions to put out to the more learned:
1. JP7. Its listed as different things depending where i look.
and https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/E/E … 6-WH-386SX.html
This is the motherboard manual and states that this for enabling the cache. Well from my testing with the jumper off Cache check shows the cache is enabled already!
When the jumper is installed the system wont post. It shows the Diamond ET4000 VGA banner and then hangs.
Stason and the clone websites say this jumper is "Pipeline Mode Enable" when Jumpered. I am confused as to what this is trying to do... Any Ideas?
2. System Clock. Currently it is jumpered as:
JP4 1-2, JP6 2-3
This gives me a ISA bus speed of 8.25MHz (66MHz / 😎.
What would happend if i set the jumpers for a /6 ratio (11MHz) will this affect the isa bus or improce things? what is the most common problems with clocking a ISA bus that fast or is it safe??? to do so or will it affect things to overclock them.
So far the system is running well but just want to extract all the potential with out going over the top!
Thanks All....