I had one of the 4DX2-66 as a used system too. The plain 4DX2-66 was a PCI based system in LPX form factor. Your 4DX2-66V is a VLB board in Baby AT form factor.

Looking at images of that board I suspect the 4DX2-66V came first and was high end for the time, while the 4DX2-66 is newer but was a low-end system, the last hurrah for a 486DX2-66 CPU before it became unsellable (IMO, once 486 systems were getting preloaded with Windows 95).

Looking at this picture https://ancientelectronics.wordpress.com/2018 … x2-66v-desktop/ it uses one of those Rayovac computer clock battery packs. It's essentially a 3xAA holder and you can replace it with one since they aren't made any more. Part number BH3AA-211-ND from DigiKey is what I use, although you could make one yourself from parts for cheaper if you care.

Tempest wrote on 2024-09-07, 21:18:

1. What kind of CMOS battery does it use? It's not the standard coin battery.

I don't know the answer (but others probably will), but could it have one of those evil evil Dallas RTC chips where the battery is built into the IC? Apparently those things were real common in that era...

Thanks for the info. I'd heard of vesa but never knew quite what it was.

Any idea what kind of keyboard I can steal keys from to restore my AnyKey keyboard? I need an F6 key.

Here are some pictures of the insides of the case. Any idea how to remove the CD drive without having to remove the power button? I can't believe this is how it was supposed to be done. Does the whole enclosure somehow come out instead?

Well I found out the hard drive/floppy drive cage comes out (had to replace the floppy) but I still can't see if or how the CD-ROM cage can be removed. Maybe you do have to remove the power button? What a crappy design if true.

Maybe you have seen this but nice page on your PC, even has a video.
https://ancientelectronics.wordpress.com/2018 … x2-66v-desktop/

Looks like the CD drive originally used rails

Is there such a thing as a standard keyboard key design?
I doubt the keyboard is using anything special but will still be a bit of a challenge to find something compatible.

The V stands for VESA, A slot that fits between ISA and PCI and special to the 486.
Typically used for the I/O card and video card. You can also get network cards but it was investigated and didn't really offer much benefit over an ISA card.

Do love a 486, especially the DX2/66 as was my first PC and was the defacto PC listed in system requirements for years.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-09-16, 00:39:

Maybe you have seen this but nice page on your PC, even has a video. https://ancientelectronics.wordpress.com/2018 … x2-66v-desk […]
Show full quote

Maybe you have seen this but nice page on your PC, even has a video.
https://ancientelectronics.wordpress.com/2018 … x2-66v-desktop/

Looks like the CD drive originally used rails

Is there such a thing as a standard keyboard key design?
I doubt the keyboard is using anything special but will still be a bit of a challenge to find something compatible.

The V stands for VESA, A slot that fits between ISA and PCI and special to the 486.
Typically used for the I/O card and video card. You can also get network cards but it was investigated and didn't really offer much benefit over an ISA card.

Do love a 486, especially the DX2/66 as was my first PC and was the defacto PC listed in system requirements for years.

Yeah I did see that, but my system is a little different. It's the one with the vertical disk drive in the middle and it definitely doesn't use rails (or someone removed them).

Does anyone know if the fan in the front of the case is actually needed? It's pretty loud and my other 486 doesnt have one. If it's needed, can it be replaced with something quieter? I don't think the fan is going or anything like that, it's just loud.

DX2/66 requires active cooling, radiator + some forced air

You may get away with no fan, my Desktop style DX2/66 only had a heatsink and a nearby vent.
But IMHO it's not worth the risk.
You can swap it out for anything you want though, it's cooling requirements are pretty minimal.
As long as something is blowing air over the heatsink you would be ok (I hung a fan off a card with cable ties in my case)

Actually I think it's the fan in the power supply that's the loud one. I disconnected the other fan for a moment and the noise didn't really go down much. Not much I can do about that other than replacing the power supply.