So here some video from my 386DX-40:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofboqhGnSK4
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdSOt0mO-Pk

the dynamic range of the MS Lifcam 7000VX is a bit weak here and then, so it seems to be a bit dark or bright here and then.

elianda wrote:

So here some video from my 386DX-40: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofboqhGnSK4 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdSOt0mO-Pk […]
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So here some video from my 386DX-40:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofboqhGnSK4
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdSOt0mO-Pk

the dynamic range of the MS Lifcam 7000VX is a bit weak here and then, so it seems to be a bit dark or bright here and then.

Wow, is that Calmira XP you're using?

Tetrium wrote:

elianda wrote:

So here some video from my 386DX-40: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofboqhGnSK4 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdSOt0mO-Pk […]
Show full quote

So here some video from my 386DX-40:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofboqhGnSK4
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdSOt0mO-Pk

the dynamic range of the MS Lifcam 7000VX is a bit weak here and then, so it seems to be a bit dark or bright here and then.

Wow, is that Calmira XP you're using?

It's Windows 95

@elianda

Impressive setup, I'm too lazy to make as complex boot config's as you've made 😁

Amigaz wrote:

Impressive setup, I'm too lazy to make as complex boot config's as you've made 😁

I like the crystal dream 2 thingy...and Lemmingzzz!!!11
Elianda, you have somekind of collection/gold edition of Lemmings?
Not getting Lemmings when I had the chance is one of the few things I actually regret.

The config is not really complex. I did it modular with initialisation batches for each type of soundcard. If you use default folder names then everything goes very fast.
Copy files, call init.bat and it works.

The different setups are simple ones, you might have noticed the abbreviations:
Q Qemm, E Emm, RD Ramdrive, ST stealth, CD cd drive, H Himem

Notice in the 3rd BIOS screen the setting of 0/2 WS and that after 16 MB L2 Cache ends..
The RD configs then load a Ramdrive of 16 MB size to the top area of the ram, efficiently leaving the lower (thus cached) RAM free for applications.

You can imagine much more complex setups:
Novell Netware Client
ISA ISDN card with CAPI and cFOS loaded
GUS Ramdrive (no content loss on Hard Reset btw.)
MS Netware Client with Share loaded and so on...
Desqview

XMAS Lemmings is a free version for promotion I think.
And I have some kind of collection edition of Lemmings that increased since the first 386s appeared...

For Crystal Dream 2 is usually a 486 recommended, but as you can see it performs also very well on the 386. Only in the last Chess part there is a bit stuttering. (Though RG100s 386 from hell might do better if he can find a GUS that goes with 16.66 MHz CLK rate)

Anyway, if someone wants to discuss things in detail, you can call me with skype (thats why I bought the cam).

Edit, I just found some old photos of the machine running in the video

They still have them:

http://www.jdr.com/interact/item.asp?itemno=HM62832-12

Just not cheap.

OK, thanks a lot. They told me they have 6 12ns chips. I think 9 would have been a good number to get, for 256Kb of cache, but 6 is still good. I asked them how much shipping costs...

Anyway, I did some more testing on the 386 mobo. I set everything to max, and Windows 95 works fine. When I say max, I mean 25 MHz bus jumper, 50 MHz CPU clock. I then removed the ceramic AMD 386DX-40 CPU, and put in a CPU as seen in Donut King's original post - the one on a "pin grid". It's still an AMD 386DX-40, but I get different results! Windows 95 can still operate OK at max setting, but my WinTune 97 results are a bit slower.

Really interestingly, in DOS, things get a bit worse. I can no longer boot up at the /4 or /6 mobo bus speed jumper setting. Strange. You would think it would be the other way around - that is to say, Win95 would struggle, and DOS would not struggle. But for DOS, I could only get it to boot up successfully on the /8 bus speed jumper setting. I ran Speedsys and I get 10.08. For the ceramic CPU, at /4 bus speed jumper setting, I get 10.17.

Things get a little bit disappointing when I run 3DBench. I get 16.9, but with the ceramic CPU @ 25 MHz bus speed, I get 18.1. I wonder why the "pin grid" CPU is not as good as the ceramic one? It's got the word Jaton written on it. I've heard of them. I think I've got a video card made by them.

Edit: Actually, I've had a thought. It may not be because it's either DOS or Windows 95. It may be more to do with what type of CF device these operating systems are on. DOS is on a slow 128MB CF, and Win95 is on a faster 133x speed 2GB CF. That could be the reason why DOS is failing, and Win95 is not failing. But it's still curious that this is all happening, simply by changing the CPU.

Update / Semi-correction: I have spent a couple of hours, pulling out cables, components, etc. I could not understand what the problem was. I pushed everything back in to place, and it's possible that an IDE cable or a power lead was slightly loose on the IO controller. The end result is that I have managed to get the "pin grid" CPU to behave in an identical manner to the ceramic CPU. In other words, I can get the 386 mobo to boot up at top speed, which is 25 MHz bus speed, and the CPU runs at 50 MHz, and I get 10.17 in Speedsys, for both CPUs.

I'm sorry for any confusion. The thing is, I am doing so much testing, that sometimes weird things happen. Especially my testing, because I'm trying to get this old junk to do stuff it shouldn't really be able to do. Like for example, 25 MHz bus, 50 MHz CPU, Windows 95. And so it's likely I'll mess stuff up occasionally. 😦

You might have already posted this but do you have a sound card installed in this system that works ok at the 25MHz bus speed? My SB Pro would just crackle andf hiss at higher bus speeds.

DonutKing wrote:

You might have already posted this but do you have a sound card installed in this system that works ok at the 25MHz bus speed? My SB Pro would just crackle andf hiss at higher bus speeds.

I've just tested this. I set the mobo bus speed to 25 MHz, with the 100 MHz osci, and so the CPU runs at 50 MHz. I put in a CT1600 SBPro 2 card, and set the BLASTER to IRQ 7. I ran Doom, and both music and effects work perfectly. No crackles or hiss. I feel bad writing this, because if it wasn't for your superb original post, I would have never bought this 386 mobo.

I'm wondering if you could dismantle your 386, and start from scratch by putting in one item at a time. By doing this, you could determine what factor(s) are hindering your attempts at overclocking.

BTW, when you boot up and look at the BIOS POST screen, what letter do you see at the very end of the bottom line? Is it F or H? I got several of these mobos, because I really enjoy testing this stuff, and I noticed that on one of them it says F, and on another it says H.

How do you measure your ISA CLK rate?

elianda wrote:

How do you measure your ISA CLK rate?

I do not know how to measure the ISA CLK rate. Please can you tell me? Thanks a lot! 😀

I'm going to try this test: I'll do a clean install of Windows 98 SE on to a CF device, using a slot 1 mobo. Then, I'll take that CF, and stick it on to the 386 mobo. I'll set the 386 to max speed, and then run software like SiSoft Sandra and Everest. Hopefully, that will tell me a bit more about the speed of the 386. I'll get this done now, and hopefully be able to report back in several hours...

Edit: Oh wait. Win98SE will probably make the CF use FAT32. I doubt if the ISA based IO controller will like that. Hmmm, I'm not too sure what to do now...

Win98SE will probably make the CF use FAT32. I doubt if the ISA based IO controller will like that.

The disk controller just grabs whatever it's told to grab off the disk, then hands it to the OS. It doesn't care about the format of the data.

But I'm not sure if 98SE will work... the couple tests I've seen with Win98 on 386es used the first edition of 98.

Thanks a lot for the info. For the time being, I will test the 386 with DOS and Windows 95. I might try Win98 some other time.

I removed the AMD 386DX-40 chip, and installed an Intel 386DX-33. I tried it with the 80 and 100 MHz oscis. The 80 worked, while the 100 did not work. With the 80 MHz osci installed, I was able to tighten all of the BIOS memory timings, and also run the board at the /6 bus speed jumper setting, which is 80/6= 13.3 MHz. Here's Speedsys:

I am still wondering a bit why my system shows double memory moving speed beyond the L2 cachesize than the other systems...
(Image down on page 3)

retro games 100 wrote:

I've just tested this. I set the mobo bus speed to 25 MHz, with the 100 MHz osci, and so the CPU runs at 50 MHz. I put in a CT […]
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DonutKing wrote:

You might have already posted this but do you have a sound card installed in this system that works ok at the 25MHz bus speed? My SB Pro would just crackle andf hiss at higher bus speeds.

I've just tested this. I set the mobo bus speed to 25 MHz, with the 100 MHz osci, and so the CPU runs at 50 MHz. I put in a CT1600 SBPro 2 card, and set the BLASTER to IRQ 7. I ran Doom, and both music and effects work perfectly. No crackles or hiss. I feel bad writing this, because if it wasn't for your superb original post, I would have never bought this 386 mobo.

I'm wondering if you could dismantle your 386, and start from scratch by putting in one item at a time. By doing this, you could determine what factor(s) are hindering your attempts at overclocking.

BTW, when you boot up and look at the BIOS POST screen, what letter do you see at the very end of the bottom line? Is it F or H? I got several of these mobos, because I really enjoy testing this stuff, and I noticed that on one of them it says F, and on another it says H.

🤣 its cool I'm just wondering why these supposedly identical motherboard/processors are seeing such wildly varying performance. I suspect my ET4000 is holding me back with the ISA bus speed, so I will need to track down a different ISA video card.

I'll have to check the model of the montherboard tonight.

I haven't pulled my system apart yet to try out some lower latency SIMMs, that's probably the first thing I will try. But that's at the end of my to-do list- I picked up a Sega Master System 2 and can't tune it onto my TV so I am going to mod it for Composite/RGB outputs. Once that's done I'll revisit the 386 😀

I am still wondering a bit why my system shows double memory moving speed beyond the L2 cachesize than the other systems...

That is odd... sometihng to do with the large 8MB SIMMs perhaps?

DonutKing wrote:

I am still wondering a bit why my system shows double memory moving speed beyond the L2 cachesize than the other systems...

That is odd... sometihng to do with the large 8MB SIMMs perhaps?

I use usual 4 MB SIMMs x8 for the 32 MB RAM. Nothing really special.

Perhaps my board was built on a Friday before a long weekend and your boards were all made in the middle of the week 😀

I'm just wondering something. Please can you look at this auction:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIt … em=300356965962 (Auction is "IS61C256AH-12J IC SRAM 32kx8 SOJ")

What's on sale here? Is it mobo cache? The stuff you can put in 386/486 mobos? I wonder if the -12J means 12ns? I have decided against buying from jdr.com, for various reasons. I think they've got 6 of those chips left, if other people are interested, but they don't take PayPal. Thanks a lot for any advice.