VOGONS


First post, by NSI5922

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Hello! Please help me to find more info about this Intel PC. The product code is EGX486D338U, On the front panel it says iSD433B, motherboard is marked as PBA 617504-004 AA 617459-004. I could find that it is called Intel Professional/GX Workstation L486, but no more information. It needs EISA Utility and also I couldn't find the pc speaker on it, there is an option in BIOS to turn it on, but it doesn't beep and there is nowhere to plug the speaker. Where can I find the EISA utility?

Attachments

Reply 4 of 10, by Thermalwrong

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Since there's no wires in that system for the front panel, my guess is that the PC speaker is located inside the power supply possibly?
That's probably why the PSU connector has extra pins, it would need them to add speaker, LEDs and reset buttons.

Reply 5 of 10, by zwrr

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Very similar to your PC, they should be products of the same series.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK7QMAX0BmQ

"Technical Product Summary Professional/GX Workstations"
This will help you, but there's bad news, it's an ancient Word 2.0 format document.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1KyC7M … ?usp=drive_link

Cyrix 486DLC-40, 386-VC-H, 16MB, GD5422, ES1868F


Intel 486DX4-100EW, VI15G, 16MB, WD90C33, ES1868F


AMD5x86-133, HIPPO-15, 32MB, S3 Vison 964, ES1868F


K6-3+ 500, T2P4, 128MB, Millennium II, Voodoo 2 12MB, SoundBlaster AWE32


Reply 6 of 10, by PC Hoarder Patrol

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
NSI5922 wrote on 2023-11-17, 19:26:

Still can't find where the pc speaker is located and where to find the EISA Utility

Although the GX support docs don't mention it (unlike for the plain 'Professional' - quote follows) and as Thermalwrong suggests, guess the internal speaker is indeed built into the power supply.

"The on-board speaker has been integrated into the power supply to improve manufacturability and reduce unnecessary
cabling. The speaker may be enabled or disabled using the BIOS SETUP program and may also be programmed using I/O
port 61H. The speaker provides error code information during POST if the system cannot use the video interface (see the
appendix for beep code information).
"

Could be faulty or maybe try either the plain 'Professional' keystroke volume...

"CTRL-ALT-+ and CTRL-ALT--: Keystroke Click Sound level selection.
This adjusts the speaker level for the click sounds made when a key is depressed. The level of sound may
be adjusted from not audible to loud with 7 levels in between.
"

...or just plug external speakers into the 3.5mm line-out (which automatically disables audio from the internal speaker) and see if that works.

PWS Audio Jacks.jpg
Filename
PWS Audio Jacks.jpg
File size
112.86 KiB
Views
630 views
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

Also, this seems to be the EISA config utility and config files you need (from mR_Slug's archive site)

Filename
PWS.EXE
File size
422.23 KiB
Downloads
25 downloads
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception
Filename
INT3061.zip
File size
22.78 KiB
Downloads
28 downloads
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

Reply 7 of 10, by Horun

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

from zwrr's doc "The second jack provides a stereo line-out. A built-in leaf switch automatically disables audio from the internal speaker when a cable is plugged into the audio output jack. However, standard PC "beeps" are still heard through the internal speaker; and are not sent to the output jack. If nothing is plugged into the output plug, both standard PC "beeps" and audio output can be heard from the internal speaker."

added: page 24 shows a possible PSU pinout (for Intel Professional Workstation LP series), you could use a Digi meter to verify the pinout....
https://www.elhvb.com/mobokive/Archive/Intel/ … kstationtps.pdf

Attachments

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 8 of 10, by PC Hoarder Patrol

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Beginning to have my doubts re the EISA files I posted earlier (more so the cfg / ovl files rather than the ECU itself). Having watched the full 3 part video series, starting from the zwrr link, it seems the poster used the same files successfully on his earlier model 'Professional' system - would seem odd if the same ones also covered the later GX as well given that components have been added / changed on the system board (notably the flaky NCR SCSI chip for an Adaptec one), but they're the only ones obvious to me on mR_Slug's archive site.

Also seems Intel support for these generally troublesome systems was poor during their short lifecycle (the videos comment on this and I found a number posts on the old Intel Google Groups of people failing to find these same GX EISA files thru Intel support back in 1998! )

Reply 9 of 10, by Horun

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Agree that INT3061 is not probably for the board as the cfg says LP486E board...
Am wondering if the INT30A1 L486 Series System Board or INT30A9 L486 Series System Board eisa cfg's might work....(at mr slugs, those with INT prefix are intel based afaik)
CFG Internals refer L486 series with two EISA slots (like the riser), 486 cpu, onboard ide, scsi, video, 64k or 128k cache, etc....and there is a cache simm socket

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 10 of 10, by Thermalwrong

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

A curious thing... a few days before this thread popped up I had bought this same motherboard since it looked interesting and novel for the price, which it is.

Intel Pro Workstation GX (1).JPG
Filename
Intel Pro Workstation GX (1).JPG
File size
1.57 MiB
Views
324 views
File license
CC-BY-4.0

I've been working on getting it running and can confirm that the pinout for the PSU in the manual is almost correct, with one glaring error:

  1. RAWST - seems to be N/C, can't figure out what the acronym means
  2. 5V
  3. 12V - for serial ports I think, small traces on this one
  4. -12V
  5. GND
  6. GND
  7. GND
  8. GND
  9. -5V
  10. 5V
  11. 5V
  12. 5V
  13. 5V
  14. 5V
  15. GND
  16. GND
  17. 12V - Big fat trace, this powers the hard drive through the riser slot by the CPU. This is where the mistake was, it says -12v in the manual, it is not.
  18. HD LED
  19. RESET BUTTON
  20. SPEAKER AUDIO
Intel Pro Workstation GX (2).JPG
Filename
Intel Pro Workstation GX (2).JPG
File size
1.28 MiB
Views
324 views
File license
CC-BY-4.0

OP or anyone else that has this machine, could you please post a hi-res picture of the riser card that connects the hard drive and floppy drive? That's the slot by the CPU rather than the EISA slot. Specifically the side with the floppy drive connector, I have a sufficiently hi-res image of the IDE/SCSI plug side.
I'm currently working out the pinout for the riser slot but it's slow going because I'm working from a freeze frame from a youtube video that was hi-res enough to see what's on the side of the card with the SCSI / IDE connectors. This board's got so much stuff buffered and not directly connected that it's tough to work out what the SCSI signals are so I can work out what the IDE signals are.
At this point I'm pretty sure I've got the floppy drive part of the riser all correct - it's got an interesting design choice too - the floppy drive Write Protect signal doesn't even route from the controller to the drive, instead it only goes to the Floppy Write-Enable (FE) jumper. That should mean that if that jumper is set to enable then you can over-write floppy disks regardless of whether the write-protect switch is on the disk or not 😀

If I can connect a hard drive to this board then I can also help in the effort to find which EISA config utility works. It's posting and working but I can't do much else with it currently.