PcBytes wrote:

Nice rig......yet you ran out of CD-ROM drives?I don't see any sense of having a DVD-ROM in there.

Basically, what Keropi said. 😎

I just need something to work with CDBQ. The drive works well. And reads DVD's, which i might use for backing up large amounts of data.

I really don't want to give up on this project, i guess my most wanted boards now would be the ASUS ISA-386 or the FX-3000. 😢

Has a 386 ever scored so high in speedsys?

carlostex wrote:

i guess my most wanted boards now would be the ASUS ISA-386 or the FX-3000. 😢

Why those two boards so much? I guess there are others as well that will fit nicely for your usage?

I need to get a board that isn't so fussy about RAM, this QDI one is a little bit. Main thing is i really really need faster RAM. Specially because in this board i have no BIOS option to change RAM timings/waitstates.

The CPU handles the 50MHz speed just fine, the ISA cards work fine as well dividing the clock accordingly, but main RAM and cache can be a pain.

I just realized all my RAM is 70ns. Need to find at least 60ns ones, although ideal would be 50ns which i suppose are impossible to find.

Try using CTCHIP if you can get to a dos prompt. You should be able to tune the DRAM settings that way.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Try using CTCHIP if you can get to a dos prompt. You should be able to tune the DRAM settings that way.

Can you provide me a link or upload that utility?

I suppose he talks about the one found here: ftp://ftp.heise.de/pub/ct/ctsi/
(c't magazine had and still has a lot of cool system utilities.)

Nice thanks!! I'm gonna try that as soon as possible. But certainly i would have to run this program everytime i boot. Problem is i can only get to a DOS prompt if i hit F5 and skip config files. In other words HIMEM, EMM386 crash the system.

But i now have low faith in this motherboard. I don't think i can get a stable overclocked system. The performance gain however seems to be actually bigger than i thought. 3D Bench unfortunately crashes, but while it runs it seems to be quite faster than the system running normally at 40MHz.

There is another utility called AMISETUP V2.99.

That should allow you to see hidden BIOS options and store changes in the CMOS RAM.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

There is another utility called AMISETUP V2.99.

That should allow you to see hidden BIOS options and store changes in the CMOS RAM.

Ah awesome. That would surely help. I've found and ordered a bit faster RAM so in the next weeks or so let's see what i can achieve. The performance gain seems to be good at least, usually a 386DX-40 with no FPU scores between 9 and 10, so i find my score of 11.68 to be very encouraging. I suppose a 486DLC 33 scores around this value as well.

hey carlostex, im new to vogons... found this thread by accident on google looking for info to put together my own 386 for old school gaming... and boy am i stoked to run across vogons for the first time, it feels like my new home already 😀

let me just say awesome job on the build, it looks beautiful, and i hope to get a similar result myself!

i actually bought that same exact case and received it a couple of days ago, and then realized a few things i had completely overlooked, and seeing as how you actually pulled it off, figured maybe you can help me with the following:
1. the back panel is doesn't appear to have the adequate layout to accommodate the device ports on the mobo... did you use a dremel or something to carve out the panel slots?
2. since this is a baby AT case, did you purchase a special type of mobo? i've seen on ebay some mobos have a single slot on them clearly designed for a riser card, i assume that would be the type of mobo i need correct?
3. i assume when buying an old mobo the cmos battery is dead, so i would need to buy a new one correct?

any help and or pointers you could give me before i continue on this adventure would be greatly appreciated!!!

thanks in advance 😀

PcBytes wrote:

Nice rig......yet you ran out of CD-ROM drives?I don't see any sense of having a DVD-ROM in there.

Didn't someone make an EISA MPEG2 board at one time or another? I've always harbored the idea of playing a DVD on a 386. Completely unpractical but...just because.

@Tex - your project is quite interesting. I'm really waiting to see what a stable 50 MHz box w/ cache would do. I'm curious if you could break 2 fps in Quake (presuming you could get the FPU stable at 50 too...)

I wouldn't worry so much about speedsys scores. I find Doom benchmark a much better measure. It's so sensitive that the slightest timing change is picked up.

Yes somebody did make an EISA MPEG2 card. I own one. The problem is that I just own the card and none of the software or drivers, so it's just a useless lump. I've been looking for software for years. No luck. I think it was the OPTIVISION OPV9100.

Not only that, good luck finding a 386 with EISA slots. Your best bet would probably be an old AST or Compaq.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Yes somebody did make an EISA MPEG2 card. I own one. The problem is that I just own the card and none of the software or drivers, so it's just a useless lump. I've been looking for software for years. No luck. I think it was the OPTIVISION OPV9100.

Not only that, good luck finding a 386 with EISA slots. Your best bet would probably be an old AST or Compaq.

I do, actually. It's an ALR BusinessVEISA 386/33. I've been gradually assembling parts for it over the past year (right now it remains in its box awaiting the day when it can be set free). I even found the original manual and reference disks (on 5.25" floppies - which is unfortunate as I have no 5.25" drive - yes I know this is heresy around here!)

FWIW I understand Compaq made a DeskPro variant with EISA and there's the original Compaq SystemPro which I'd sell a kidney for. I don't know much about AST systems. I'm lucky I found the one.

But I was actually speaking off the cuff with respect to MPEG2 & EISA - I thought I had read references to it before (and it seemed logical given EISA's bandwidth) but I knew nothing of it. Now I'm really intrigued...

ALR made some pretty nice stuff too. I wish I could have picked up something like that while I still had the chance.

The AST systems are pretty cool tool, because they couple EISA with their CUPID expansion bus that's used for CPU and memory upgrades. You can stick an obscene amount of memory into it (I think over 100MB). The main drawback is of course that it's all proprietary. I think it uses special 64pin CUPID SIMMs. I almost bought one of these a few years back, but the wife didn't agree.

I think there are a couple of MPEG2 boards out there. I think companies called "OPTIVISION" and "OPTIBASE" also made them. I'm not sure why they all have "opti" in the name, because they have nothing to do with OPTi, and none of these companies are related to each other as far as I can tell (well, at least prior to any buyouts). All of this stuff was used in broadcasting and was insanely expensive at the time. I think tens of thousands of dollars expensive. My card is full AT length and height, and has i960s and cCube ICs all over it. Too bad I can't even find the EISA config file.

*pokes carlostex*

monkeyb wrote:

hey carlostex, im new to vogons... found this thread by accident on google looking for info to put together my own 386 for old s […]
Show full quote

hey carlostex, im new to vogons... found this thread by accident on google looking for info to put together my own 386 for old school gaming... and boy am i stoked to run across vogons for the first time, it feels like my new home already 😀

let me just say awesome job on the build, it looks beautiful, and i hope to get a similar result myself!

i actually bought that same exact case and received it a couple of days ago, and then realized a few things i had completely overlooked, and seeing as how you actually pulled it off, figured maybe you can help me with the following:
1. the back panel is doesn't appear to have the adequate layout to accommodate the device ports on the mobo... did you use a dremel or something to carve out the panel slots?
2. since this is a baby AT case, did you purchase a special type of mobo? i've seen on ebay some mobos have a single slot on them clearly designed for a riser card, i assume that would be the type of mobo i need correct?
3. i assume when buying an old mobo the cmos battery is dead, so i would need to buy a new one correct?

any help and or pointers you could give me before i continue on this adventure would be greatly appreciated!!!

thanks in advance 😀

1. Not sure what you mean, the case accomodates 5 ISA slots on a horizontal shape. That's why the case is a low profile type AT desktop case. This is why an ISA riser card is included.

2. The ISA bus will work fine with a 16-bit ISA riser card on a 16 bit ISA slot. You don't need a special board. You are thinking about typical OEM cases and boards with their propietary pinout riser cards to accomodate ISA slots.

3. You can buy a same type barrel type rechargeable battery and solder it into the board to replace the old one or you can mod it for a CR2032 coin cell type. Keep in mind that CR2032 were not made to be rechargeable so you must use a schottky diode to allow current to only go from battery to motherboard. At the same time it will block curent from going up to the battery. It will work like a one way street.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I wouldn't worry so much about speedsys scores. I find Doom benchmark a much better measure. It's so sensitive that the slightest timing change is picked up.

I wouldn't use DOOM on its own to compare CPU's. The 386 lacks an internal cache, something that games can benefit a lot from.

Before the system totally crashed i tried some games and whatnot and the 50MHz 386 system felt definitely faster than at 40 MHz, my best guess is that it is a similir performance jump from 33MHz to 40MHz. Problem is that 50MHz it's just too much for the motherboard. CPU seems to handle the speed fine but other components just can't work with such speeds. Even 486's had problems.

I pretty much gave up on it, and i just gave my 386 the fastest components i could such as faster cache.