I replaced the bad NICD 3.6V rechargable battery with a NiMH 3.6V rechargable battery on my PC Chips M209 286 motherboard.

Plan A was to use a battery pack with the external battery header, there is no polarity marked and my multimeter only measured +0.2V at most on the header pins, I guess there are diodes that prevent current going in the wrong direction which messed up my readings or perhaps a trace is totally gone, it kind of looks like that in the image below. As I could not be sure of polarity I moved on to Plan B

Plan B was to detach the positive and negative lead from the NICD battery and attach small alligator clips to the leads and place the new rechargeable NiMH battery far away from the board, the leads snapped right at the PCB, probably because of corrosion so I moved on to Plan C.

Plan C was to solder cables to the solder pads on the backside of the motherboard, with parts of the old leads still in the holes. As I didn't have any flux and no good solder this ended up being a lot harder than I thought so I moved on to Plan D

Plan D was to get angry, turn the solder station to maximum heat and push the new battery's leads through the holes while heating from the backside of the PCB and by doing that removing the remains of the old leads and solder the new battery at the same time, this worked perfectly. Now I just hope that the new NiMH battery can take the NiCd charging cycle without exploding. One reason I wanted leads was so I could attach a switch to disconnect the battery if I was going to use the system for a long period of time to avoid overcharging but that was not to be.

As a bonus I heard solder dripping somewhere on the the board from the tip of the iron while being reckless when trying to solder the cables to the battery pads on the backside of the PCB. I could not find any solder on the board though but that could be because of my poor eyesight at close distances... If I wasn't very stubborn I would have been using glasses the last 10 years or so... Not that I need glasses or anything, my eyesight is perfect... in daylight at a distance of 2 feet or more 😜.

Here are the mandatory before and after pics, the board still runs fine so as long as the new battery doesn't explode everything turned out fine.

One of the leads of the new battery didn't get enough solder to fill the hole as most went out on the front of the PCB as I held the board upside down while the other seems to have got enough from the tip of my soldering iron, It works though.

Skyscraper wrote:

*snip*

Wow, congrats!

Installed Windows NT for the first time in my life 😀

Marquzz wrote:

Installed Windows NT for the first time in my life 😀

NT4 is an awesome OS 😀

oerk wrote:

Skyscraper wrote:

*snip*

Wow, congrats!

Thanks! Im glad to have it done 😀

Now I just need to do the same thing with my more high end 286 motherboard with a socketed 16 MHz Harris 286 PGA CPU. I will let the PC Chips board run for a couple of days first though 😜. The system has been running for an hour now and the battery dosnt get warm at all, I see that as a good sign.

The change from DIP memory to 30pin SIMM ---> SIPP improved the PC chips M209 systems performance a little bit.
This is really a fast system for a 286! It totally destroys that poor Compaq 386.

created a 4-pin-connector-to-2-pin-connector wire by cutting up a pc-speaker wire+connector, and a reset switch plug I found in the bottom of a "box of wires" in the garage. Now I can connect the pc speaker header on the motherboard to the sound blaster 16 in my 386, and hear the pc-speaker effects in my stereo speakers. A -little- improvement over the little pc-speaker in the thing's tower that I could barely hear before. Now playing Commander Keen on it, which is a good bit more fun now.

Lots of stuff shifting around my house here lately the past 2-3 weeks. Finally verified the new modern Asus P67 Sabertooth motherboard I'd received 3.5 months ago as "possibly dead" actually works fine. So green-lighted myself and bought a 3.4 ghz sandy-bridge i3 for it. Using that with my gtx-770 for primary gaming machine, and currently saving up for a i7-3770K for it. I know that's not retro but.. I'm getting to that. Since I 'retired' my big x58 series 4.4 ghz 4-core i7 system from "primary gaming", it's now being used for "secondary computer" which is "Backup" to my main gaming one, and mainly chatting and web browsing. I know, overkill for that but whatever. I have it so I'm using it. Which then 'retired' my water cooled 775 quad core harptertown xeon system from "secondary computer". I gutted it's water setup to remove it's 2 water cooled gtx-470's, re-fitted them into the x58 i7 system, and now it's backup gaming system as well as chatting and browsing. Or using it as my "Totally Overkill" DirectX 9 system too. Yesterday re-built 775 computer into a small loop, cpu-only with a single 120mm radiator. Using schitty $20 chinese water pump, and schitty $30 chinese waterblock. Now using 775 system in my "Work room", 3rd bedroom on the other side of the house for chatting + web browsing while I work on retro computers in here, like my 386.

775 system currently pictured here:

Larger: http://www.outfoxed.net/775-water/09-02-2015/DSC05650.jpg

kithylin wrote:

... and currently saving up for a i7-3770K for it. I know that's not retro but.. I'm getting to that. Since I 'retired' my big x58 series 4.4 ghz 4-core i7 system...

I know it's off topic and I don't want to spoil your party, but the difference between that 1366 i7 and a 3770K is hardly noticed when gaming. I would keep the x58 system as main rig and sell the other stuff and then buy a Skylake-system when they start hitting the used market. But then again, much we do here doesn't make sense anyway 😁

Just for fun, here's a comparison I did a couple of months ago:

kithylin wrote:

775 system currently pictured here: http://www.outfoxed.net/775-water/09-02-2015/r_DSC05650.jpg […]
Show full quote

775 system currently pictured here:

Man, all that nice gear and you're playing Russian roulette with that power supply. 🙁

Marquzz wrote:

I know it's off topic and I don't want to spoil your party, but the difference between that 1366 i7 and a 3770K is hardly notice […]
Show full quote

kithylin wrote:

... and currently saving up for a i7-3770K for it. I know that's not retro but.. I'm getting to that. Since I 'retired' my big x58 series 4.4 ghz 4-core i7 system...

I know it's off topic and I don't want to spoil your party, but the difference between that 1366 i7 and a 3770K is hardly noticed when gaming. I would keep the x58 system as main rig and sell the other stuff and then buy a Skylake-system when they start hitting the used market. But then again, much we do here doesn't make sense anyway 😁

Just for fun, here's a comparison I did a couple of months ago:

<snip>

The big reason I want to switch is I already know I want to go up to higher video cards later. Preferably a pair of 4GB cards. Right now looking like a pair of 770 4GB's for $200/each + custom bios + overclock to 1202 mhz together will be faster than the majority of the entire 900 line of single cards for a lot less. And I'm already maxing out the x58 platform with just one overclocked 770.. a friend of mine has a 980ti in a x58 system just like mine, (quad core 920 @ 4.4 ghz) and he's not getting but more than +5% than my 770 does in benchmarks and game benchmarks... and I know someone else with a 3770K @ 4.5 ghz getting +40% in games and benchmarks with a 980ti over my other friend. So X58 is just tooo old these days. Plus storage is beyond abysmal with my x58 system. pair of samsung pro 850 SSD's, x58 is 225 MB/s, P67 system is 1100 MB/s.

Besides it's not all about FPS either. Reduced latency and input response on the new platforms (gpu's direct to CPU instead of a northbridge chip with x58, etc). Just lots better with newer platforms.

Anyway, I'm not trying to start an argument, and these newer systems is kinda.. derailing this thread's purpose, but in general I know the 3770K's is quite a bit faster and better in many regards. It's quite worth the upgrade to me, so I'm looking forward to it.

EDIT: I get lots of other things with the new platform. Gain USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gbps, and according to a friend of mine, 3770K can go all the way up to 2800 mhz DDR3 with intel XMP without touching the baseclock, just load xmp in bios restart and go. x58 is stuck around the 1600-1800 mhz ram range.

Rawrl wrote:

kithylin wrote:

775 system currently pictured here:
<snip>[/img]

Man, all that nice gear and you're playing Russian roulette with that power supply. 🙁

Coolmax isn't as bad as they used to be. I got it on sale for $14. It's either use this until it burns out on me (probably a year from now or a little less) or not use this system at all. I had a better power supply, but the seasonic 1000-watt platinum in my i7 x58 system crapped out on me again last week so.. had to shuffle my power supplies around... my main systems get the good ones, the not-used-so-often ones get the crappy ones.

Also I've been powering my amd 939 machine with this coolmax on and off since January. Even powered 775 + a pair of gtx 260's at one point. It worked but had coil whine so loud I could hear it almost over the games, and it dumped out more heat than either of the video cards.

But whatever, it works. And it was cheap. Not 80+ though... sadly, which is why the heat it makes.

kithylin wrote:

Coolmax isn't as bad as they used to be. I got it on sale for $14. It's either use this until it burns out on me (probably a year from now or a little less) or not use this system at all. I had a better power supply, but the seasonic 1000-watt platinum in my i7 x58 system crapped out on me again last week so.. had to shuffle my power supplies around... my main systems get the good ones, the not-used-so-often ones get the crappy ones.

Also I've been powering my amd 939 machine with this coolmax on and off since January. Even powered 775 + a pair of gtx 260's at one point. It worked but had coil whine so loud I could hear it almost over the games, and it dumped out more heat than either of the video cards.

But whatever, it works. And it was cheap. Not 80+ though... sadly, which is why the heat it makes.

Nah, it probably dumps a ton of heat 'cuz its running out of spec; cheap-o PSUs tend to be way over-rated. Half the reason they die so quickly is they cook themselves trying to supply 200w more than they're designed for. How light is it?

Also keep in mind that even if it technically works loaded down that far, it's most likely putting out crazy amounts of ripple.

Rawrl wrote:

kithylin wrote:

Coolmax isn't as bad as they used to be. I got it on sale for $14. It's either use this until it burns out on me (probably a year from now or a little less) or not use this system at all. I had a better power supply, but the seasonic 1000-watt platinum in my i7 x58 system crapped out on me again last week so.. had to shuffle my power supplies around... my main systems get the good ones, the not-used-so-often ones get the crappy ones.

Also I've been powering my amd 939 machine with this coolmax on and off since January. Even powered 775 + a pair of gtx 260's at one point. It worked but had coil whine so loud I could hear it almost over the games, and it dumped out more heat than either of the video cards.

But whatever, it works. And it was cheap. Not 80+ though... sadly, which is why the heat it makes.

Nah, it probably dumps a ton of heat 'cuz its running out of spec; cheap-o PSUs tend to be way over-rated. Half the reason they die so quickly is they cook themselves trying to supply 200w more than they're designed for. How light is it?

Also keep in mind that even if it technically works loaded down that far, it's most likely putting out crazy amounts of ripple.

yeah that was just a test to see if it could do it. I don't run it that heavy anymore. It's rated for 600 watts. And now it's just running a single 775 quad core and a 9800GT and a single hard drive. cpu's overclocked quite a lot, +76% but still whole system shouldn't be more than 200-300 watts, so I'm sure this lil coolmax is fine for that for a while yet until I can afford a better one for it, when I stop dumping money into my newer systems 😁 Or this coolmax dies, which ever comes first. I'll replace it if it's a necessity.

Also this 775 system is my "I don't care anymore" system. The motherboard's only worth like $40 used, it's partially damaged (no idea how it happened.. wasn't my fault) and only works with 1066-fsb chips. I think one of the surface mounted transistors blew apart at one point. It still works for now though. I've had it for about 9 years now.. so at this point I don't care what happens to it. I paid $18 for the CPU 4 months ago.. those are worth $15 now used. video card's just a 9800GT, those are about $30 used. The only really expensive thing in it is the ram, kingston hyperx ddr2-1066 is about $60 - $80 each for 2GB sticks these days. So if coolmax takes out a few parts when it dies I won't care really, cheap enough to replace, as long as it doesn't kill the motherboard or ram.

Im messing with my Asus PVI-486SP3 rev 1.21, SIS chipset revision B4, BIOS 0205.

I had almost forgot how fun it is to play with these boards. The board came with BIOS 0203 and an Intel DX2-66 mounted in the socket but with totally different jumper settings than it should have had... I tried to correct the jumper settings but then I got memory/cache errors regardless of BIOS settings. There were nothing wrong with the performance though with the incorrect jumper settings as the speedsys results were on the mark.

I switched CPU to what I beleive is a A80486DX4100NV8T but some of the markings is missing, I could set up this CPU with the correct jumper settings for the NV8T and everything was fine. Then I updated the BIOS to 0205 and suddenly those jumper settings wasnt good enough and I ran in to memory and or/cache errors regardless of BIOS setting but instead I can set up the CPU as a SV8B (totally different jumpers settings) but the CPU would only run at 66 MHz even with the 3x multiplier setting but if I changed to the 3x mutiplier setting for the NV8T the CPU jumped back up to 100MHz 😁

The performance with my trial and error jumper settings with the 0205 BIOS is actually a little bit better than with the correct settings with the 0203 BIOS. I love HUGE jumper blocks that set registers in the CPU, endless possibilities for trial and error as each jumper does different things with different CPUs and as it seems different BIOS versions.

Also the correct jumper settings for some CPUs tend to differ a bit when you compare the manual and some internet pages, its mostly the same though.

Been "hunting" for retro-hardware today. Found an Orchid V1 for 14.93 US Dollars.
Should I go for it?

Other than that. I have had reboot issues with my Epox-MVP3-C with a P133.
It sometimes got stuck, when I did a warmboot (resetbutton or keyboard).
Installing a 32mb Singlesided PC-100 module seem to have solved my issue.
It ran with 2x64mb Singlesided PC-100 modules before i changed it.

I would! Been looking for a second backup V1, but no luck with good prices so far.

The adventures with the Asus PVI-486 SP3 rev 1.21 and the AMD DX4 100 continues.

I added a AWE64 to the system and everything seemed to be working well except Tyrian, it would not run except with "BIOS deaults" loaded. If I used "Setup defaults" + optimized memory settings it would crash at once, the solution was to load "BIOS deafults" and set everything to the optimal settings manually which solved the issue even though all the relevant settings are the same as before... the best part is that I got even more memory performance as a bonus 😀.

Computers have become alot more boring the last 20 years...

Skyscraper wrote:

Computers have become alot more boring the last 20 years...

I had the same kind of thought the other day. Today everything is just plug and play. With the ocasional "wrong driver" issues for the average GFX.
Everything else is highly automated, and even Win10 has this autoupdate feature. Nothing is practically left for us to tinker with.
If things proceed this way, then hardware is indeed off limits. At worst, they will start making entering BIOS an illegal thing.
Just a grimm premonition that I have. If it comes true, we can be shure that they will back it up with claims of being a chriminal or breaking copyright or even worse. Claims of terrorism. Hmmm.... At this point. I really laugh at those who claim that they are highly educated in the fields of computing, and then it just turns out that they have 0% knowledge of any type of hardware. They only know stuff like installing and creating SQL databases.
Or drawing powerstation's using CAD software. Yeah.... They really are highly educated in the field of computing. 🤣 🤣

Yeah... I just had to get that thought out.

Nah, BIOS Setup options will be there for a long time for enthusiasts. I mean, you can't squeeze every last clock increase in an overclock without it (specially because the software to do that from within Windows is usually more limited). UEFI/BIOS Setup from higher-end motherboards allow full control of the case fans, memory parameters, clocks and such. For lower end stuff, then yes, I forsee a bunch of stuff with everything soldered and no BIOS tinkering. Basically like today's tablets (and possibly chromebooks - never touched one of those but it would not surprise me if they do not have a BIOS setup).

alexanrs wrote:

Nah, BIOS Setup options will be there for a long time for enthusiasts. I mean, you can't squeeze every last clock increase in an overclock without it (specially because the software to do that from within Windows is usually more limited). UEFI/BIOS Setup from higher-end motherboards allow full control of the case fans, memory parameters, clocks and such. For lower end stuff, then yes, I forsee a bunch of stuff with everything soldered and no BIOS tinkering. Basically like today's tablets (and possibly chromebooks - never touched one of those but it would not surprise me if they do not have a BIOS setup).

As you said... Stuff without BIOS tinkering, and when people eventually find a way to tinker, they will be send to jail.
We have all seen it in Playstation's and Xbox's. When people tinker and want to take apart, they will be criminalized.
Yeah. Shure.... Throw pirates (that make all the big bucks) in jail, just don't do it with qurious people that want to tinker.

OEMs for decades already tried to shuffle away BIOS features and leave just the essentials, and if anything bad is gonna happen to that it's always the bigname oems first. Local off-the-shelf-parts OEMs may be more forgiving. 😀

I switched motherboard to a "works or not but at least posts" Lucky Star 486E rev C1 from Ukraine 😀

Some things I have noticed so far: The board wont keep BIOS settings with a CR2032 battery that reads 3.15V on my MM but keeps BIOS settings with one that reads 3.31V.

I first had abyssal performance with an AMD DX4-100, a jumper over the turbo switch header seems to have mostly fixed that but I still get horrible memory performance with a single 16MB single-sided EDO module, 19.05MB/s. With luck adding a second module and changing the BIOS memory settings from the default setting will fix that. EDIT: Changing the TAG RAM setting from 8bits to 7bits in the BIOS setup fixed most of the issue with slow memory speed, more agressive memory timings fixed the rest.

The positive so far: Detects HDDs larger than 2.1GB without issues, Im guessing the board supports up to at least 8.4GB. The cache chips work, thats also good.

The negative: Has a write only BIOS chip. Its hard to find an updated BIOS for the C1 revsion of the board, I need one as I can borrow a flash chip from a non working Abit PB4.

The odd: The rows of pins on the floppy header are mirrored compared to the Asus PVI-486SP3 and many other boards so you need either a mirrored cable or a floppy drive with mirrored header, this is a non issue I have both.

Did a quick and dirty dallas 1287 battery hack on my ibm model 30 286, since it was givibg the 161,163 error. For now i just used electrical tape to tape the wires onto the battery, since i didn't have a spare holder. Going to fix that as soon as i got one.

Next job is finding a soundcard that uses jumpers to set the adres and irq settings.