Why put a Vortex/Live on this pimped 486?
Personally I would forget Live immediately as it has issues on newer mobos, I tremble to think what kind for probs it will cause to a 486-PCI machine... From your choices I would go with the ES1868.
Post a good pic of the mobo, maybe someone here recognizes the elusive ps2-mouseport 😀

The hell with the ES1868, I'd go with the SoundBlaster Vibra16S as my primary sound card on a build like this. I don't know how much SquallStrife cares about true OPL3, but if he does, Vibra16S all the way. I'd use the AudioDrive as a secondary sound card for MIDI stuff(we all know how the SoundBlaster 16 line sucks in that regard), but if he's fine with ESFM and doesn't want to deal with the SoundBlaster Vibra16S and its crap MIDI support, the ES1868 is fine. I personally wouldn't use it as a primary sound card, but that's just me(I will not accept any OPL3 clone in anything other than my MS-DOS test computer).

Ace wrote:

The hell with the ES1868, I'd go with the SoundBlaster Vibra16S as my primary sound card on a build like this. I don't know how much SquallStrife cares about true OPL3, but if he does, Vibra16S all the way.

My good 486 box is downstairs (see my ultimate 486 thread), this is a secondary build for the sake of convenience.

I do care about true OPL3, just not in this instance.

SquallStrife wrote:

Is there a way to find out if any of the unused solder pads are meant to house a PS/2 mouse header?

Do you have a high resolution photo of the motherboard? If there is an unsoldered header with 5-pins or sometimes 10-pins and the clock/data pins go to the UM8886BF Southbridge chipset, then there is a possibility to have ps/2 support. I'd be suspicous why the header wasn't soldered in though.

I have on occasion soldered in headers when they were left off and the features worked, though never a PS/2 mouse header.

Is that board a rev 1.1? I'm fairly sure they don't have a PS/2 header. According to stason.org if there was it should be right next to the keyboard/power connector. The other one I have here lacks any such connector. If its the board I have you, remember that it has a much later BIOS installed than what it shipped with.

As for sound card - personally, if you aren't running any MIDI on this I'd stick with the Vibra16 😀

Yup, that's the board.

And I think there's something wrong with it. The Windows 98 startup disk displays a bunch of "Extended Error" messages with various numbers after them, a DOS 6.22 boot disk freezes after "Starting MS-DOS..." and a DR-DOS disk does nothing.

Tried with two floppy drives, and three cables, all of which work with different motherboards. Also tried a bunch of different RAM sticks, different combinations of cache and shadowing settings in BIOS, different video cards... No joy.

I know the CPU isn't overheating, I attached a northbridge HSF from a disused P4 board, using some wire and zip-ties. Plus the symptoms are the same, no matter how long the system has been on.

Any ideas?

Confirmed all the jumper settings? I probably fiddled with it at some stage so who knows what jumpers are set to. that's about the only thing that comes to mind 😒

BTW be wary if you install windows on it since it has the CMD640 IDE controller (apparently works on in DOS but has some data corruption bugs under windows/ Linux)

If it turns out to be a lemon and you don't want it I'll buy it back...

DonutKing wrote:

Confirmed all the jumper settings? I probably fiddled with it at some stage so who knows what jumpers are set to. that's about the only thing that comes to mind 😒

I'm giving the thing one last chance tonight. After that I'm giving up.

DonutKing wrote:

If it turns out to be a lemon and you don't want it I'll buy it back...

I do want this 5x86 up and running though. Have you got anything else that would suit, for swapsies?

I have a spare 486SV2G but its VLB and 5V only. I have a Kingston Turbochip which is a 5x86 with a VRM and HSF built in and it works with that perfectly, but for a standard 5x86 its not much good.

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and here is the answer! SquallStrife put some jade jewelry next to the mobo to fix it's chi , protect and heal it, that would work! (sorry couldn't resist 🤣)

Hahaha! I wish!

I think this is going to the "for later" pile for now, until I can get a new mobo that's both PCI and 133MHz ready.

DK, all the jumpers are right, but no joy. 🙁 Shall I mail the board back to you?

I did find another two 486 PCI boards tonight: a DataExperts 8049, which apparently has had no BIOS updates its entire life (but apart from that, seems to fit the bill), and the dreaded M919, which works fine, but no cache. So the hunt continues...

In the meantime, this 5x86 box project has evolved into a 6x86 box project:

IBM 6x86MX PR200
Jetway J-5TXC
128MB SD-RAM
Matrox Millennium II PCI
AOpen 52x CD-ROM
9.1GB Quantum Fireball HDD
(???? 3D)
(???? Sound, maybe A3d?)

In terms of 3D cards, all I have spare at the moment is a 4MB Voodoo Graphics card. I have some form of S3 Virge card, but it doesn't seem to work at all, having it inserted prevents the system from beeping, let alone posting... 🙁

reminds me myself when I was bothering with 486 machines some years ago... I was trying to get a good mobo (with a ps2 mouseport because I hate serial mice) and I ended up coughing ~90eu r for an eBay NOS Soyo SY-4SAW2 mobo ... tried a bunch of high speed 486/5x86 on it and then migrated to p1... it's a pain in the a$$ to get a good mobo

90 euro for a Soyo SY-4SAW2 ? I didn't think anyone was paying that wired* guy's prices. Was there anything wrong with the board? You mentioned,

...tried a bunch of high speed 486/5x86 on it and then migrated to p1

Why did you switch to P1? What high speed combinations did you try? Do you still have the board? I'd really be interested in a Voodoo3 PCI vs. Matrox Millennium G200 PCI show-down on this SiS board.

SquallStrife wrote:

DK, all the jumpers are right, but no joy. 🙁 Shall I mail the board back to you?

sorry it didn't work out 😒
If you don't want to keep it, I'll paypal your money back and you can stick in the post, or drop it off next time you're down this way. PM me your paypal address 😀

@feipoa:

what guy's prices? all I remember is that it was some German fellow auctioning it and I had the winning bid... also 90e for a new-old-stock fully boxed/manual/driver-diskette mobo for 486 that had pci and a ps2 mouse port was a good deal in my eyes, it's not like you come across that stuff everyday... personally I'd rather pay a little more and built a more humane 486 than spent 20~25e on another mobo and having to mess with serial mice or incompatibilities with newer 486ish cpus... but that's just me 😊

I still have it and it is working with a 486DX2/66 at a friend's house as a long-term load 🤣 , never gave me a single problem in DOS... tried 486/66-100 and 5x86/133 on it and migrated because I needed some more juice for early 3D DOS games.

Okay, last night I built the 6x86 system up, new thread coming tonight with benchmarks and photos! 😁