just recieved my 286 motherbord through post just got to look through my old caces for on for it fit
its quite a big pcb

looks nice and clean ect

reminds me of the od days when i used to build them

HanJammer wrote on 2022-02-08, 11:42:

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-02-08, 00:02:

Best video card is a Tseng ET4000AX

It's definitely not. Overpriced and not that great when it comes to performance and compatibility. I can hardly find justification for using it in any vintage PC build - for faster machines there are better ISA options. For slower - as well. So it's a bit like "any card is better than no card" scenario component when you are using it if you have nothing better available at hand.

For 286 Trident 9000 or something from Cirrus Logic (GD510, GD520) will be ideal choice - great compatibility and adequate speed (also see CGA Compatibility Tester vs. VGA cards ).

Think what you want but I've benchmarked my ET4k against both a Trident 8900CL (faster than 9000) and GD5402 in my 286 and it blows them both away.

While I do not deny ET4000 is probably faster still, I'd like to point out that 8900CL is just a refresh of 8900C. There's also 8900D and that one is about 20% faster than 8900C. But I can't recommend it for 286 system since I know it might not work properly - mine does not (and 8900C does work). Probably doesn't like how the mobo handles ALE signal since I doubt the BIOS code would be 386+ only.

And anyway, we know now OP doesn't need the fastest card, merely one that works and doesn't suck. So a common, well behaved card like Trident 8900C would be a good match. The newer 9000 line is slower but perhaps offer better compatibility. And let's not forget the video output quality on modern LCD screens. Tridents are nothing to write home about but generally acceptable - so that's why I like them. Not great, not terrible 😀

286 runing fine ,display oy ,flopy ok,dos 5 instald,just trying to install 1 gig ata drive,apears to pick it up ss 40 gig,but keeps geting error in bios,fdisk ok,now trying to format but apears to pick up error AT 70 percent ,dont know how to set in bios ,pc check reports hd as 1024 cylinders an 5 heads ,set in bios but stil error,any body help

wonder if i nead a low level format on hd

still formating ,trying to recover allocation 7200

You seem to have all the bits - I thought you were starting with a mobo and little else? Anyway, try this util to confirm hard drive geometry: https://archive.org/details/whatide

rayjay wrote on 2022-02-08, 20:34:

286 runing fine ,display oy ,flopy ok,dos 5 instald,just trying to install 1 gig ata drive,apears to pick it up ss 40 gig,but keeps geting error in bios,fdisk ok,now trying to format but apears to pick up error AT 70 percent ,dont know how to set in bios ,pc check reports hd as 1024 cylinders an 5 heads ,set in bios but stil error,any body help

Unless you are using some BIOS extension like XTIDE ROM (via a network card or dedicated ISA adapter) you'll be limited to ~504MiB. Reason being the early 286/386 (and even some 486) BIOSes can only address up to 1024 cylinders, 16 heads and 63 sectors (63 and not 64 because for some reason the numbering starts with 1 and not 0 here). See if you can enter these values and if the HDD you have will work with them. Even if it does though, this might not work properly in other systems, so chances are you'll be unable to copy files to/from this disk on another computer.
Another option is, if the disk is detected as higher capacity and BIOS does actually boot with these settings, force a smaller partition size in FDISK (rather than using all space). This will be compatible with other systems, but you must not allocate the remaining space - or any attempt to access it on that 286 will corrupt the HDD.

ok thanks ,when i use fdisk to set up a partition is sais maximum sisk sise 40 meg,but when i format it it sais 1 think 1024,not quite sure what ime doing wrong

ok just fdisked to 40 meg total formated up 40 meg fine and systed to c: just got to see if software for plc installls ,still not sure paramaters to put in bios to stop error

Pierre32 suggested a tool you can use to figure out the drive geometry. HWiNFO is also able to query IDE devices and report it, but won't run on 286. Not sure about NSSI, should work but I can't remember how detailed the HDD report page is.
1024 cylinders and 5 heads is a weird value, I bet the head count reported was much higher (no matter what the HDD actually has, it's translated anyway, only the oldest HDDs report actual values) but masked to 4 bits due to BIOS limitations. Possibly it should be 16+5=21 (that would make 1024*21*63 around 1.3GiB) but your BIOS likely won't even boot with such setting, and even if it did you won't be able to use anything past 16 heads.

Did you try 1024/16/63? If that doesn't work, or you need more space and/or be able to properly access files on this HDD in other systems then you should look into XTIDE ROM. That will bypass and extend the BIOS HDD code to handle even large drives with native LBA addressing.

EDIT: Or just get a smaller CF card, up to 512MB, those usually have less than 504 so will work as-is.

HWiNFO runs well on 286.
Introducing HWiNFO16 (for 8086/88/186/188/286)

Also there is cool little util called whatide.com (just make sure NOT TO ENTER THIS NAME IN THE ADDRESS BAR OF YOUR BROWSER UNLESS YOU WANT LOOK AT SOME JAPENESE WEIRDNES) which does this job as well.
https://archive.org/details/whatide

hi all ,sucsess ,found an old compak set up disk ,run that it came up with a type 2 which was a 21 meg drive,saved that setup to cmos an error gone ,enogh storage for mt plc softwARE so all good re syst to hard drive and now booting on it ,
thamks all for help

will think sbout an xtide card later,thats when i know whaat ime bying

Jo22 wrote on 2022-02-08, 08:38:

.. I'm working on an MFM/RLL HDD sound simulator in my free time. My goal is to simulate spin up, idle, spin down sound. Head mo […]
Show full quote

Deunan wrote on 2022-02-07, 21:22:

Hm, I wonder if there would be a market for a device to randomly move HDD heads every now and then...

.. I'm working on an MFM/RLL HDD sound simulator in my free time.
My goal is to simulate spin up, idle, spin down sound.
Head movement sounds are performed through a miniature stepper motor or a microcontroller, with the activity LED as a source.

That's hilarious. For added realism, you can occasionally have it make that angry buzz-buzz sound that drives with bad sectors make!

little question ,battery on my 286 motherboard is missing is this a standard cmos battery ,not rechargeable

just ordered a cf to ide converter and a 512 cf ,what is the setings for this in the bios hard drive

Usually the battery is a 3.6V NiCd rechargeable, however most mobos have a 4-pin header nearby for external battery. 3xAA battery holder with wires (and connectors) can be easily hooked up to that - one of the side pins is GND (goes to battery -), figure out which one it is with a meter, and the opposite side is then battery +.

As for CF parameters, well that's unfortunately not written on most cards (except maybe some industrial ones). You will have to run a program to discover that - so best is to set HDD to none in BIOS and boot from floppy. Most programs that report HDD geometry will ignore BIOS and just probe the IDE ports directly. This works both for CF cards and HDDs obviously, though some combinations of CF cards and I/O controllers do not play nice with each other. This usually results in a the HDD/CF not being detected at all, or a hang.

how do you set up these cf cards .do you do exacly the same as hd ie use fdisk and normal format