VOGONS


First post, by BetaC

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I have managed to get a deal that I at least think is good. I snagged a GA-486VT on ebay that had a heatsinked 486DX2-66, seemingly full cache, and an unknown quantity of RAM for $100 after shipping and taxes. When it eventually gets here, I am planning on dropping it directly in to my Gateway P-75 since it just uses their old 486 case. I already have a VLB Mach32, a known good PSU, and as of today I have a working ISA IO card that includes Parallel, Serial, Floppy and IDE. I am aware that I would be getting better speeds with a VLB IO card, but realistically speaking, games that will actually need to increased speed will be better played on one of my Pentiums anyways.

As for why I am asking for advice, it's simple. I have no real experience with a PC machine of this age, and I am wondering if I am technically missing anything in my setup. I have a serial mouse, and an AT keyboard, so input is good. I don't have any ISA networking, but I don't really have a reason to need it connected to anything. I am possibly using a WD Caviar drive for my HDD, since I don't anticipate needing more than 1GB for a 486 and below system, but can throw in an unused SD-IDE adapter if I do end up needing more.

For sound I will be using my SB-16 2740 instead of my YMF based card, as TIE fighter plays perfectly "slow" on my pentium machine at 640*480, and that is the only game where the MIDI bugs caused by lolcreative actually bug me. For that card, I am unable to figure out if it genuinely has an IDE header, or if the 40 pins are not actually IDE. Also, since it is a partially plug and play card, will I need to do anything special with it when I try to set it up? I have been using Unisound for my other systems, so should I continue with that instead of the creative drivers?

As for more pressing issues, how should I go about circumventing the battery? I have been attempting to do research on my own for this topic, but I seem to be finding more arguing about the best way to do it instead of a "so long as you have this and this, you are good" kind of answer. I do know it's one of the blue 3.6v batteries. When it comes to this specifically, would using a 1/2 height AA PRAM battery work well as a replacement?

Also, if I were to swap in my 486 SX-33 for the sake of it, would I need to go about cooling that as well? the gateway case I am using does have a fan that blows over roughly where the chip will be, so it won't be sitting there, baking with only a PSU fan to slowly suck air out. Even then, would I even want to put the SX in for any real reason? Can I force the DX2 to run at a lower speed using the jumper settings the board comes with?

Thanks in advance for any help. I know I am partially overthinking, and that I can probably find a few answers when my brain isn't solder-fogged. Yes, I used breathing protection, so I'm only inhaling a little bit of, well, everything.

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Reply 1 of 6, by Claris

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Just my two cents:

VLB IDE controllers are nice to have, but sometimes more trouble. Iv had a system with both VLB video and IDE corrupt on me randomly mid game multiple times. The more VLB you add the more unstable things *may* get. ymmv

I don't think many early SB16s had IDE on them. Pretty sure most where those weird IDE-like proprietary interfaces for CD Drives. A partial PNP SB16 should only need the drivers to initiate the card. I believe unisound does the samething.

I think you'd be better off using the turbo on a DX2 instead of messing with an SX chip if your after speed sensitive games. Should just be a wire from the case you attach to the front IO section of the board.

Finally. Its never worth skimping on cooling. Anything to keep these older chips living long is a must.

Reply 2 of 6, by MN_Moody

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https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/G/G … 6-GA-486VT.html

Here is an overview of your board, including information on the battery header (J2 near the edge of the board right next to the only 8-bit ISA slot). You should be fine with a 3 x AA battery holder, you'll just need to connect some female dupont connectors so you can physically connect it to the board. You can buy short premade cables that will work and just splice/crimp them to the battery pack, or buy a dupont connector splice kit.

Honestly CPU cooling is fine, you don't need a heatsink with a 486/DX2-66 if it has direct airflow, worst case you can attach a suitably sized heatsink with some thin thermal tape or purchase a 486 socket compatible heatsink/fan.

I prefer IDE DOM solutions to CF/SD cards, they are typically built with more durable SLC flash memory to the CF cards... but to each their own. In DOS it hardly matters, in Windows longevity is a concern with some flash storage cards unless they were designed for industrial / PC storage use.

My biggest concern in your situation would be damage caused by the existing battery, do you have a screenshot of the seller booting the mainboard and accessing the BIOS? Keyboard controllers are often the first victims of a leaking varta battery but it can eat all sorts of fun things including RAM / expansion slots, etc..

Reply 3 of 6, by BetaC

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Claris wrote on 2021-11-13, 08:21:
Just my two cents: […]
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Just my two cents:

VLB IDE controllers are nice to have, but sometimes more trouble. Iv had a system with both VLB video and IDE corrupt on me randomly mid game multiple times. The more VLB you add the more unstable things *may* get. ymmv

I don't think many early SB16s had IDE on them. Pretty sure most where those weird IDE-like proprietary interfaces for CD Drives. A partial PNP SB16 should only need the drivers to initiate the card. I believe unisound does the samething.

I think you'd be better off using the turbo on a DX2 instead of messing with an SX chip if your after speed sensitive games. Should just be a wire from the case you attach to the front IO section of the board.

Finally. Its never worth skimping on cooling. Anything to keep these older chips living long is a must.

Okay, then I guess I'll just need to figure out if my recently modded ISA card can handle CDs as well. I could always use my genuine OPL Vibra aw well, though that will also require soldering, so I'm probably not going to do that unless I have to.Thanks for the help.

MN_Moody wrote on 2021-11-13, 12:45:
https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/G/G … 6-GA-486VT.html […]
Show full quote

https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/G/G … 6-GA-486VT.html

Here is an overview of your board, including information on the battery header (J2 near the edge of the board right next to the only 8-bit ISA slot). You should be fine with a 3 x AA battery holder, you'll just need to connect some female dupont connectors so you can physically connect it to the board. You can buy short premade cables that will work and just splice/crimp them to the battery pack, or buy a dupont connector splice kit.

Honestly CPU cooling is fine, you don't need a heatsink with a 486/DX2-66 if it has direct airflow, worst case you can attach a suitably sized heatsink with some thin thermal tape or purchase a 486 socket compatible heatsink/fan.

I prefer IDE DOM solutions to CF/SD cards, they are typically built with more durable SLC flash memory to the CF cards... but to each their own. In DOS it hardly matters, in Windows longevity is a concern with some flash storage cards unless they were designed for industrial / PC storage use.

My biggest concern in your situation would be damage caused by the existing battery, do you have a screenshot of the seller booting the mainboard and accessing the BIOS? Keyboard controllers are often the first victims of a leaking varta battery but it can eat all sorts of fun things including RAM / expansion slots, etc..

I don't have that, but I do have a picture of the board around the battery, and it appears to be just starting to corrode.

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Reply 5 of 6, by BetaC

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Matth79 wrote on 2021-11-13, 20:09:

The SB-16 2740 will be Panasonic interface, not IDE, and probably not worth looking for an old CR563 drive

Thanks for letting me know. As it turns out, the IDE header for my IO card seems to not like CD drives. Like, it'll detect a HDD, but the CD drives will show up as blank, and then fail to work.

Edit: Seems to just actually only want to work with floppy, so RIP yesterday's efforts.

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Reply 6 of 6, by BetaC

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Now I know that I am technically necro bumping this thread, but I have some new questions to ask now that I am in a far better state with this machine, albeit with a few minor nags here and there. As it stands, the system is working completely now that I have an Acer MIO-400KF as my IO card. The VLB and ISA solutions I was previously using had some hard to diagnose issues that led to things like the mouse being detected but not actually moving.

My case has a functioning Turbo button that has been shown to work, and a MHz display that I am unable to figure out. It's a generic two number two decimal display, but it's better than nothing. Currently, it's set to 75, which at least means it is working, but the jumpers on the back are a bit beyond me right now. Also, where do I actually place the three-wire set that comes off my motherboard. It's a RED WHITE BLUE one, and I am uncertain as to where to place it within the middle pins.

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Beyond that, I am also having the infamous 504MB issue with the BIOS, which isn't too bad considering the age of the board. I've had bad issues with DDOs before thanks to them not allowing me to put the partitions in to a modern computer in order to transfer files quickly and easily, so I might end up just leaving it as is. I am also encountering a strange issue where the RAM reported by the BIOS is strangely different than what is actually installed. It seems to not be seeing the first 640KB, maybe a little more. When I am no longer at work, I will report the actual number, and mess around with the actual sticks in use for the system as well to see if it's as simple as a barely-bad stick.

I am also planning on redoing the DOS install, as I am somehow using 3MB at all times in upper memory. When I do redo it, I can't help but wonder if I actually need the ATi drivers that came with my VLB card for anything other than windows. If I don't would making a boot menu that allows me to separately run windows with networking, and just DOS work out? Would that help me keep a lot of conventional memory available for TES Arena?

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