First post, by Anonymous Coward
- Rank
- l33t
This weekend I decided to slap together a Cyrix 5x86 from parts I had lying around, and it looks something like this currently:
-Cyrix 5x86 100GP Stepping 1 Rev. 3
-Asus PVI486SP3 w/256kb L2
-Integral ET6100 / VPR6100 4MB
-Adaptec AHA-2940U2W
-Pioneer 16X DVD ATAPI
-3x Pioneer 4X CD SCSI
I have been meaning to build this system around a UMC UM8881F board I purchased a few months ago, but the package I mailed myself from China hasn't arrived at my US residense yet. I'm not sure if I can receive it before I leave. It's too bad since I was looking forward to testing my Cyrix chip at 2 x 66MHz.
I have three Cyrix 5x86 chips in the US. The two 100GPs are stepping 1 rev 3, and my 120GP is stepping 0 rev 5. I am hoping the PQFP 120GP I have coming in the mail will be a stepping 1 chip so I can enable some of the extra goodies.
Despite what I have read, the AHA 2940U2W does indeed seem to function in a PCI 2.0 compliant slot, though perhaps it has troubles with some boards. I haven't been able to do extensive testing yet since I have only been running in DOS.
Right now I am running a 2GB compact flash card on the SCSI controller via a SCSIDE bridge. This is for testing purposes only. I wanted to use an extra 80GB Barracuda ATA IV I had lying around, but it seems to have suffered from a head crash.
I originally intended to use this full tower case for my dual Pentium Pro, but I got pissed off and gave up after I found out my board wasn't compatible with my 1MB cache chips. I believe this chassis originally housed a 486. It's put together very well, but the one thing I am not happy about is the plastic membrane for the control panel became all green and yellow and cracked. For now I just ripped it off because it was ugly. I am wondering if there is a suitable replacement material for this panel. I am hoping to find a dark plexi glass to cover it so that it allows only the LEDs to shine through. Naturally such a material would have to allow me to drill holes in it for the buttons. Does anyone know where I can find something like this?