First post, by McBierle
- Rank
- Member
Hi, i wanted to share this little story of a 386 motherboard (and me).
A few months ago i got this 386 motherboard with a ram-extender card. I diddn't find any info on stason or th99. If anyone has more on this one please tell me.
I started my retrolife around 1,5y ago and have some 386 motherboards (among other). This motherboard was somehow special because i never have seen a board without ram sockets.
Sadly i forgot to make pics in its original state. The cache sockets, 2 isa slots and most parts in the topleft corner showed corrosion, also some traces of the top layer. First i cleaned it the usual way but i decided it wouldn't be enough, also it wouldn't post.
So as someone once said i decided to remove everything from that corner and replace it with new parts, not because it is easy but because it is hard... 😁
Here you see it in mid removing. And the corroded top layer of the traces.
Hooray i removed everything.
Cleaning the corrosion from the traces.
Midway resoldering. Three extra sockets for logic chips, sadly no room under the keyboard bios.
Aaaand finished.
I braced myself for the case that it still wouldn't life. First power on i was the first time lucky that i wear glases, because one tantalum exploded and hit my glases. After replacing the corpse of that tantalum i was lucky the second time because my wife haddn't her mobile at hand because the board posted and i did a probably stupid looking dance...
Some pics of the setup:
Sooo now i have this board with 16mb ram and an XCMOS i never had before and don't know whta to do with. Who needed 16mb ram back then. What is this xcmos, new things to learn....
Backgroundinfo:
As i stated earlier i started this "retrolife" roughly 1,5y ago. Before i just had some floppy bigbox games i had from back then. To whomever asks i always say maybe it's my midlife crisis, but i wanted to remake the first pc i had. Well now i have tons of "old" stuff. I have a soldering iron i never did anything with before. And i'm still working on my ongoing special project which involves working with wood, also new to me.
It all takes loads of time, which i asume you know from your own experience. Between my family and work everything takes sooooo long.
Disclaimer: Sorry for bad grammar and stuff. Firstly I'm not a native speaker and secondly i had some drinks 😀
Greetings!