So I'm trying to put the finishing touches on what will end up being my first "from scratch" 486, and one of the very last things I need to do is to get a CD drive installed and working. Since my mainboard doesn't have onboard IDE/floppy connectors, everything has to go through controller cards, …

Found the old marketing comparison materials I got when I picked up my VL2 4/100, comparing it against the VE 4/XXs and 5/XXs. Looks like the VE 4/66 should have onboard PCI-bus S3 Trio 64 VGA, 1 full length ISA, 1 short ISA, 1 PCI, and one shared PCI/ISA, and a 100W PSU. DRAM maxes out at 64MB, …

Sounds plausible enough. The current /P switch settings were just the defaults the SB16 provided, I'll try your suggestion when I get home.

No jumpers to set, unfortunately

I personally really like the Vectra desktops for their form factor and for being a cheap and easy way to get a 486, but they don't tend to have much going for them in terms of upgradability. What are you planning on doing with it?

So I'm trying to put the finishing touches on what will end up being my first "from scratch" 486, and one of the very last things I need to do is to get a CD drive installed and working. Since my mainboard doesn't have onboard IDE/floppy connectors, everything has to go through controller cards, and …

Today I re-started my 486 mid-tower build, after the mobo I ordered from ebay earlier in the summer wound up DOA. Real shame too, would have been a nice motherboard - Socket 3, 3x ISA and 3x PCI, integrated IDE/Floppy connectors. Gutted the old stuff, most of which will be going into the new build. …

thinking of upgrading the processor to a Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 but prices are weird on ebay etc and most of the cheapest ones seem to come from china and not sure if to go for that. I recently turned a cheap thrift store find into a build similar to what you are going for, and was looking at …

Warlord wrote: I have that same motherboard, that I inherited. If you need any help with it I probably know. Does yours have the onboard sound, by chance? This outboard Ensoniq card works well enough but it's irksome to be using it when the board has a "superiour" onboard chip.

So at the start of the month I picked up this Pentium III machine from a local reseller, a "TriStar Starstation." I bought with no guarantees outside of it being able to boot, POST, and show a display using the generic drivers. The reseller had, of course, wiped the HDD prior to selling the machine …

I wouldn't be surprised if that were the problem, but trying to repair it by desoldering and reprogramming an eeprom seems a bit extreme for a card that can be found nearly anywhere for 20 bucks or less, haha. I've already obtained a replacement card (went with an ES1370 this time), but I'm starting …

Hello all, Let me start by saying I've been something of a lurker here for quite a while, and I hate that my first post is asking for help for what I'm sure is a really basic and stupid problem to have. So I recently picked up an old Pentium III machine - a TriStar Starstation, which as far as I've …