VOGONS


First post, by bjwil1991

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I recently got a motherboard I haven't seen or used in 8 years that was in the family computer from 1994-2012: PCChips M912 V1.7 with real L2 cache. The only small flaw was the CPU arm lever that had a broken piece. I got the one off of the broken board and the top portion of the CPU socket and replaced both, which works really well now.

Specs of the original system between 1994-1998:
PCChips M912 V1.7 with Award BIOS
230W AT PSU with a rocker switch
Some AT case that had a turbo LCD for the clock speed and turbo button (requires programming by jumpers)
256KB L2 cache
AMD Am486 DX4-120
Winbond ISA I/O controller card
24MB FPM SIMM-72
Sound Blaster 16 WaveEffects CT4170
Had a 3.5" FDD back then but got put into a Socket 7 system
Had a 1.2GB Fujitsu HDD, but failed a long time ago
Had a 4x or higher CD-ROM drive
Western Digital Paradise Bahamas 64 VLB (either an S3 Vision864 or S3 Trio64/64V) --> one of the best video cards back then for both Windows and DOS
Windows 98FE or SE
Serial mouse
104 key AT keyboard
15" IBM CRT monitor

2012 specs until the BIOS died:
PCChips M912 V1.7 with Award BIOS
Some AT case that had a turbo LCD for the clock speed and turbo button (requires programming by jumpers)
256KB L2 cache
AMD Am486 DX4-120
Winbond ISA I/O controller card
24MB FPM SIMM-72
Sound Blaster 16 WaveEffects CT4170
80GB Western Digital HDD (8.4GB used due to HDD limitations)
Windows 98SE
Logitech PS/2 keyboard with a PS/2 to AT adapter
no mouse since the PS/2 to serial adapter on the old IBM mouse wasn't working anymore and the mouse was completely toast
Western Digital Paradise Bahamas 64 VLB (either an S3 Vision864 or S3 Trio64/64V) --> one of the best video cards back then for both Windows and DOS
19" Widescreen LCD monitor since the old IBM monitor stopped working a long time ago

I was looking on eBay for the same board but a different BIOS for Y2K support and found one cheap that had the flaw I mentioned above, but I got it working. Everything started to work really well, and I didn't realize some jumpers were missing on the board for the L2 cache (showed 32KB instead of 256KB) and forgot to place another jumper on the board for the CPU that's currently installed.

Current specs:
PCChips M912 V1.7 with AMI WinBIOS
256KB L2 cache
64MB FPM SIMM-72
Kingston TC-5x86/133 (going to swap with my Evergreen 586 since that runs faster)
DTC 2278D Plus VLB I/O controller card
3.5" 1.44MB FDD
5.25" 1.2MB FDD
Western Digital WDC400 (40GB HDD, limit set to 7.8GB)
Creative Labs CR-563-B CD-ROM drive
AT case that has 10x 5.25" bays (all of the drives are at the bottom 4 (blank spot open for a 1.2MB 5.25" FDD)) and programmable turbo display by pressing and holding the reset button (disconnected from the motherboard header to program) and pressing the turbo button to display the fast speed and setting it by pressing and holding the reset button until set
230W (or maybe 250W) AT PSU
Windows 95C
Tseng Labs ET4000/w32p with 2MB DRAM
Apple 32x (Matshita CR-589-B)
Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro (non-16) that has been repaired successfully for MS-DOS
Sound Blaster 16 CT2230 for Windows 95

Going to use the Pentium 100 board I have in another case once I find one.

Lots of upgrades/replacements/repairs were done within the last week or so.

Last edited by bjwil1991 on 2020-05-15, 07:15. Edited 1 time in total.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 1 of 2, by bjwil1991

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Got the DX4-120 in the mail and got it installed. Good news, the CPU works. Bad news, cannot de-turbo the system.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 2 of 2, by bjwil1991

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Upgraded/replaced/repaired a few things here and there during the system build:

Upgrades:
RAM to 64MB FPM 60ns SIMM-72
HDD to 40GB (limited to 7.8GB)
VLB I/O controller to a DTC 2278D Plus that has more PIO speeds, secondary IDE channel, and better support
CPU to a Kingston TC-5x86/133 (will put in my Evergreen 586 as the performance is poor)
GPU to a Diamond Stealth 32 (Tseng Labs ET4000/w32p) with 2MB DRAM video (great for DOS games and better Windows GUI acceleration)

Replacements:
1.44MB floppy drive as the one that was installed lost its laser head control motor
CD-ROM drive as the CD-RW drive only works on the primary channel as slave to an Apple 32x Matshita CR-589-B CD-ROM drive that works for the secondary channel (forgot older systems pre-PCI didn't like CD drives that are burners)

Repairs:
1.2MB floppy drive needed greasing again as it was making a bad noise but still works
1.44MB floppy drive I installed also got greased prior to installing in case it needed it (narrator: greased it because it's been sitting there for ages).

I had the MPEG decoder card installed, but the system wouldn't recognize the card for some reason (will look for conflicts and go from there) and the video signal had static across the board, but still displayed a picture.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser