It's impossible to install a baby AT mobo in a mATX case (it's obvious).

D34d b33f

Well its all done.. Works great. Pictures coming. I think you guys will be pleasantly surprised. It is a tight fit, 8 slot 1990 386DX AT board into a loaded MATX isn't going to be super easy.

Everyone seems pretty sceptical, I guess I can understand that, proof is in the pudding. It will take a few minutes to upload the pictures.
https://ibb.co/dswtMd - Crammed full case. You probably can't see everything. But there is a full size AWE32 in there as well.

Phido wrote:

Well its all done.. Works great. Pictures coming. I think you guys will be pleasantly surprised. It is a tight fit, 8 slot 1990 […]
Show full quote

Well its all done.. Works great. Pictures coming. I think you guys will be pleasantly surprised. It is a tight fit, 8 slot 1990 386DX AT board into a loaded MATX isn't going to be super easy.

Everyone seems pretty sceptical, I guess I can understand that, proof is in the pudding. It will take a few minutes to upload the pictures.
https://ibb.co/dswtMd

What you built sir is a fairly typical 386 in a modded mATX case.
No (native) wifi, no (functional) USB, no "special coprocessors" beyond a 80387, no SSD, no accelerated graphics. That said, there is NOTHING wrong with this build.

Ok, so I see where you went here. 5v for the WiFi to Ethernet adapter. Nice touch.
Props for the black case , and especially for getting the motherboard to fit in that case while some of the slots are sitting behind the I/O shield area.

Rear of the mATX case. Only 4 slots, so only four cards. You have to choose wisely. You could fit a card with no bracket if you really wanted, perhaps a SCSI card?
Switch closest to the PSU is power. Switch next to it is turbo. USB port at the back is for power for the Wifi to Ethernet receiver, no additional power needed. Will mount with double sided tape. RS232 port is for the mouse. I would like to mount another RS232 but ran out of time and cutting discs. There is also a fan sucking air in, but its nice and quiet, the PSU is louder, good ventilation.
ATX IO filled with blank then drilled for keyboard. Nice and factory like.

wow well I take back what I said... sorry!

The motherboard is a Peak DM/33 with the Chips and Technologies C355 3 chipsetup. 30 pin ram x 8. The motherboard was in excellent condition, not sure it was even used? I Like this board but it is quirky.

I made some modifications.

• Desoldered 66mhz crystal.
• Installed DIp14 dual wipe socket modified.
• I have 66, 80 and 100Mhz crystals with 125Mhz and 50Mhz on the way. This will give me 25,33,40,50 and 63Mhz bus speeds. 50Mhz is working but my 486DLC/33 can't enable cache at 50Mhz. These just drop in, they are firm enough if I'm not moving the case anywhere. I like the option to easily change speeds.
• Upgraded the 64kb 25ns L1 cache (sometimes L2?) with 128Kb 15ns cache. I can't seem to get 256kb working, but 128kb is better than 64kb, and it works happier at higher frequencies. Might need faster tag for 62mhz bus.
• Currently 8Mb combo of 60 and 70ns. It seems to prefer this. Would like more RAM and have played with some 4Mb dimms for 16 and 32mb ram, but not very stable. Investigating.
• Bios settings obviously. This board has lots of ISA dividers. Bios is dated, would love the original Chips and Technologies bios that is available for this board. Apparently it lets you change everything (think integrator/developer bios, not end user). If you have this, we should talk.
• Fitted Ti486DLC/33 GA. I have the original AMD 386DX33 and a Cx486DRX2 that will also fit this socket.
• Currently running Cyrix 3c87 40Mhz math co-processor. However I also have a IIT 487DLC and a Intel 386 33. All work at 50mhz. No cooling required.
• 45mmx45mm black heatsink attached to the c355 chip on the board as this gets very warm without it at 50mhz. But is attached with thermal tape. This is fine.
• 45mmx45mm black heatsink attached to 486DLC with a combination of Silver thermal paste, and 3 dots of super glue at the very edge. It is removable, but has excellent thermal properties. Heat sink get toasty at 50Mhz, may need active cooling in this tight case long term.

Here we are at 50Mhz, but with L1 disabled, but 128kb L2 enabled.

Memory scores seem good. Still not optimised. Unfortunately the ISA bus isn't terribly stable at blk/2 (25Mhz!). So running at blk/3 (16.7Mhz). If the Bios dividers are accurate. I have blk/4, blk/5 and I can also lock it at AT clock (separate crystal on mobo). 40Mhz, I can run at blk/2 (20MHz!) but not super stable, and some video artefacts (memory oc as well?). But is fast as hell.
Currently everything is at 40Mhz and 13.3Mhz ISA. Rock solid. Disk access is not bad for a old clunky 386 on isa.

Considering your efforts and obvious enthusiasm, why build a 386?
Why not a 486?

Even a tricked out 386 with all the bells and whistles will have a hard time running anything beyond Windows 3.1.
In fact, what is it you plan on doing that requires a network adapter at all?

As for being able to use larger disks, and have even better perfomance, you could go with a Promise ISA EIDE controller such as this (and not bother with SCSI):
https://www.amazon.ca/Promise-Technology-Eide … r/dp/B0000512N8

network adapter makes FTPing stuff back and forth easier

tpowell.ca wrote:

What you built sir is a fairly typical 386 in a modded mATX case. No (native) wifi, no (functional) USB, no "special coprocessor […]
Show full quote

What you built sir is a fairly typical 386 in a modded mATX case.
No (native) wifi, no (functional) USB, no "special coprocessors" beyond a 80387, no SSD, no accelerated graphics. That said, there is NOTHING wrong with this build.

Ok, so I see where you went here. 5v for the WiFi to Ethernet adapter. Nice touch.
Props for the black case , and especially for getting the motherboard to fit in that case while some of the slots are sitting behind the I/O shield area.

Giggles. Ok, I had a little bit of fun not correcting peoples preconceptions.

I never said native (and what exactly is the definition of that? in the CPU? PCIE is another bus as is usb), its wifi enabled! Does it matter if the Wifi is on a certain bus directly? That dongle is 300Mbps adapter! Although I think the ISA 3com Ethernlink III is bottle necking it a bit (as is the CPU with TCP/IP). Was thinking about a PCMCIA ISA card and an adaptor, but a lot of money and a lot of hassle for no gain. Every OS in the galaxy supports the 3com, and the bridge is seemless.

It has a USB for power at the back, and a gotek at the front for data. I was going to put in another one at the back for power for some speakers, but then I realised USB powered speakers suck. I have two USB ports at the front that are not doing anything, I might wire those for power because it would be easy. Again, you could get an actual USB port working other than the gotek, but a lot of hassle for no gain. I can transfer files off a USB stick, or well, wifi across the lan or my fibre internet. Or CD, Or floppies. I think it does okay for connectivity all things considered. When I get a 2nd RS232 9pin, I will have a null modem setup or/and rs232 wifi telnet modem.

As for accelerated graphics. Its written on the box of my Graphics card..

Its a Windows accelerator.. It will wipe the floor with a ET4000 regular in windows. And it has 2mb Dram.

tpowell.ca wrote:

Considering your efforts and obvious enthusiasm, why build a 386? Why not a 486? […]
Show full quote

Considering your efforts and obvious enthusiasm, why build a 386?
Why not a 486?

Even a tricked out 386 with all the bells and whistles will have a hard time running anything beyond Windows 3.1.
In fact, what is it you plan on doing that requires a network adapter at all?

As for being able to use larger disks, and have even better perfomance, you could go with a Promise ISA EIDE controller such as this (and not bother with SCSI):
https://www.amazon.ca/Promise-Technology-Eide … r/dp/B0000512N8

All of my 32GB SD card is in one bootable partition. For a 386 IDE device it is reasonably snappy. Windows 95 boots in less than 30 seconds, and Adobe Photoshop 3.0.5 runs wonderfully on this machine and even with largish brushes, screen updates are very nice. I even have office 95 installed. It blazes it. I will post some videos. 3DStudio and 3DSMax 1.1. I also used to program, but the language I used to enjoy programming is laughably archaic. I wanted an authentic environment to inspire me.

I can drag files across from my win10 4790k machine to my 386 from the win10 desktop. And vice versa. It's slow (~150kb/s TCP/IP has huge overhead ) but it works. Great for <20mb stuff. Bigger stuff, I just burn onto CD's.

Why build a 386? Why not. I had hoped some like minded people, here, would understand this aspect.

I watch Phils video where he tried to build a sleeper as he called it in a Awyun full atx case and failed, and moved onto another case and succeeded. Awyun literally make the best ATX case to put an AT mobo into. I thought it was an idea worth exploring. Where phil went wrong is he had a case with the wrong drive bay locations. So I did my own. I had a 386DX 25 back in the day, I remember it fondly but it was lost in time. I wanted it back. 386's are other worldly, and uncommon and quirky, co-processors, nothing integrated, temperamental, bizarre, but were very importing in the computing world. Even here, where I thought people would probably catch on what I was actually building, many said I was completely mad, that it was all lies and impossible. Thats ok, that means for me I attempted something that was at least surprising. How often do get get surprised?

I am not a one computer household. I have, ahemm, hmm, others I hide from my wife, I don't have with this one, because she doesn't know its a retro computer. It can sit in the house. But come on, how many full house 386's are there in mATX cases?

I have read every post Anonymous Coward and Feipoa have ever written while doing this build (which actually took me more than a few hours in a single night - I did however actually assemble it from pieces in the case tonight). I know for them, the very mobo and chipset will be of some interest, maybe other parts of the build. Most people build full house out of 386/486 name brand boards, not wacky impossible, stuff. AC was very stand offish, I suspect I never really had him fooled. Feipoa never clarified what he meant by fishy. I wasn't clumsy enough for them.

I just hope that no one is offended that I played a little dumb (I think some thought I was going to probably kill my self).

This isn't the end.. I am determined to show people what a 386 can do, break some preconceptions, 486's make people lazy. I haven't even touched my cx486DRx2 yet.. I'm serious about 60mhz and I want to get the 256kb cache and the 32mb ram working on this dam board. I am also going to do benchmarks with 3dstudio, 3dsmax, photoshop and write some code and explore the quirks of the many co-processors for the 386.

The motherboard sits on a custom made perspex motherboard tray that is screwed onto the matx motherboard tray. It has glued nuts on the tray that act like spacers and also locate and affix the mobo.

Actual build log is at OCAU. https://forums.overclockers.com.au/threads/38 … ildlog.1234684/ I hope linking to another technical forum is fine.

I apologise if my Australian sense of humour offended anyone. Would you have believed me anyway? I can't seem to find any examples of a AT board in brand new small mATX case. It was a bastard to fit in there.

oeuvre wrote:

network adapter makes FTPing stuff back and forth easier

That was my original intention.
But I got lazy and just use windows file sharing. I only use it for smaller stuff. A couple of disk images, zip files. If you try to copy a CD image over half the time it will fall over (I dont think window 10 expects to write to such a slow device.).

I can then also use this machine to telnet into BBS's and relive that aspect of ancient computing.

TCP/IP is demanding on CPU's (I guess thats why IPX was the go). You can install both. Network retro gaming with a 386.. I think I might be able to get Red Alert running on this setup, over the network, in win95 and be playable. Doom LAN?

Getting the SD card out is a bit of a pain as the case is so tight, and so is splitting a file up onto several gotek disk images. Big stuff, just burn onto CD. I really only use the gotek for installs where it wants an A: and if I am doing something specific in DOS (I don't have networking setup under pure dos, no real need). Most 386 stuff is <10 mb. So it just wizzes across, it would take me longer to find a USB stick in a drawer than transfer most early 90's vintage stuff.

While you could use a router, the dongle bridge is cheap and compact. No external power brick needed. It's also modern. Pretty sure when they designed that 3com 10mbps isa card, no one would be plugging a 300Mbps wifi bridge into it.

Surprised you all fell for this again; he made it overtly obvious from the onset. I thought May was his deadline for this game, but I guess not. It will be something to live with an embrace!

Phido wrote:

I never said native (and what exactly is the definition of that? in the CPU? PCIE is another bus as is usb), its wifi enabled! Does it matter if the Wifi is on a certain bus directly? That dongle is 300Mbps adapter! Although I think the ISA 3com Ethernlink III is bottle necking it a bit (as is the CPU with TCP/IP). Was thinking about a PCMCIA ISA card and an adaptor, but a lot of money and a lot of hassle for no gain. Every OS in the galaxy supports the 3com, and the bridge is seemless.

It has a USB for power at the back, and a gotek at the front for data. I was going to put in another one at the back for power for some speakers, but then I realised USB powered speakers suck. I have two USB ports at the front that are not doing anything, I might wire those for power because it would be easy. Again, you could get an actual USB port working other than the gotek, but a lot of hassle for no gain. I can transfer files off a USB stick, or well, wifi across the lan or my fibre internet. Or CD, Or floppies. I think it does okay for connectivity all things considered. When I get a 2nd RS232 9pin, I will have a null modem setup or/and rs232 wifi telnet modem.

As for accelerated graphics. Its written on the box of my Graphics card..

Ok. Quite simply, your setup doesn't have a functional USB port since it is can't handle data. What you have is a great creative way of getting an auxiliary 5v connector for use by your WiFi dongle. Given what you wanted to do, this makes perfect sense.
What I mean by native for lack of a better word, is that your computer actually handles a USB peripheral, either using an on-board, or add-on card. Since none exist on a 386, obviously, and there are no ISA USB add-ons, saying you will have USB is misleading.

For the graphics card, yes, it is accelerated by 1990s standards (ie: 2D in Windows with drivers only).
I assumed you meant 3D since 2D accelerated graphics are meaningless in DOS games. I was thinking something like a Voodoo 3D-type card would provide on a PCI-equipped 486.

Great build. I really thought you were pulling our legs with the original specs. Clearly you're first post was misleading as you know far more than you let on. 😎
And I completely agree that making a vintage machine run as fast or faster than originally possible due to the magic of porting modern hardware to it is just plain fun.

The funny thing is, on a 486 mobo with PCI, you could have accelerated 3D graphics, and USB, and even SATA. Which is what I have on mine, minus the USB as I didn't need it.
Is it overkill? Obviously. But hey, why not? It would also satisfy most of your original requirements.
And my wife as well doesn't understand.

It remnds my of my main setup a bit, which is a socket 7 PC, Pentium 233 MMX and a Voodoo 5500, it makes very little sense but some how works increadibly well.

tpowell.ca wrote:

What I mean by native for lack of a better word, is that your computer actually handles a USB peripheral, either using an on-board, or add-on card. Since none exist on a 386, obviously, and there are no ISA USB add-ons, saying you will have USB is misleading.

It was deliberately ambiguously misleading. I have USB, but I would say 4 ports are mechanically compatible (marketing speak for they exist in the shape of a USB) and 1 is electrically capable of delivering power, and one is able to transfer data (gotek). None are host devices. However having USB ports for power, it neatens up what you can do for accessories and what not. The the dongle that was previously plugged into a mains phone charger, which required the power board to be right next to the dongle and the ethernet card very messy. This is way neater. Use can use these dongles on other appliances like TV's or bluray players too. I want to dress up this build with some internal lighting, other things, so USB power ports are handy for that too.

For the graphics card, yes, it is accelerated by 1990s standards (ie: 2D in Windows with drivers only).
I assumed you meant 3D since 2D accelerated graphics are meaningless in DOS games. I was thinking something like a Voodoo 3D-type card would provide on a PCI-equipped 486.

See it's that modern PC mindset getting in the way. The acceleration doesn't just work in windows. It will work in other OS's like OS/2 for example. I believe it also works in some DOS programs, like 3D Studio or AutoCAD for DOS, there are dos drivers to enable this, but I want to test this. Really there is nothing stopping a DOS game being written for 2D acceleration other than it would be a major pain to support many card types, and it would be complex to do. One of my side projects is learning to program the graphical accelerator functions. Still the 2D accelerator features do make a tremendous difference. Scrolling a window full of icons, moving windows around, drawing the screen, the shut down screen dimming, filling, Photoshop and applications like word, even windows 2D games etc really do function like a modern computer. It is honestly surprising how snappy it feels. It also take a tremendous load off the CPU, memory and the ISA bus, which is extremely significant. The card uses the 2MB not just as a screen buffer but to store icons, fonts, window contents etc. Combined with zero seek time storage, its very perky.

Great build. I really thought you were pulling our legs with the original specs. Clearly you're first post was misleading as you know far more than you let on. 😎

I could see skepticism was high, build threads are often listed with intentions that don't become reality.

And my wife as well doesn't understand.

Which really gets back the point. A retro computer that you can hide in plain sight by making it look modern. The 5.25" floppy (which was beige, I coloured it and the mouse and the mouse cord and the ps/2 to AT keyb adapter with a vinyl dye which works outstandingly well) is a curious give away to what is possibly underneath. I can sit there all day working in DOS or what not, and nobody is none the wiser I am doing some goofy retro computing thing. When people visit, I don't have to hide this setup away, it proudly sits next to the modern home Window 10 PC. Being black makes it very low profile, in a dark corner of a room it just disappears. I'm not allowed to bring my beautiful SGI workstations inside, let alone some faded beige monstrosity and crt. If I can squeeze a giant 1990 386DX AT motherboard in there and a Full length Soundblaster AWE32, anything is possible.

To say the truth, I first hhought that you were a clueless innocent newbie, and after a couple of posts, I started thinking that a knowledgable veteran was making fun of us 🤣 (molex to USB adapter? oh man 🤣)

No offence taken at all, actually brit/canuck/aussie humor is something I really like. 😊

Just one question: Are all three floppy drives are functional? If so, how?

PS: I use a very similar and same (SIIG) brand "accelerated 🤣" VGA card in my DX40 setup. Mine is a CL 5429 with 2MB. I prefer to use classical parts though, like 2GB real scsi disks, non-gotek floppies, etc. Once I tried a very "modern" EIDE controller on it (SIIG again) with two IDE channels and it's own BIOS supporting up to 8GB drives, but it refused to work with CF cards, so downgraded to a WD standart multi I/O. OS is MS-DOS 6.22 / Windows 3.11,
I never imagined Windows 95 on it (when window 95 came I already had my Cyrix 486 DX33 back in the days).

PS/2: What is that archaic language? I was a very competent FORTRAN programmer once 🤣

Yeah, props for dying the disk drive and mouse. That is a pretty good move to increase the WAF.

tayyare wrote:

Just one question: Are all three floppy drives are functional? If so, how?

The intention was to have all 3 hooked up to a floppy cable, and then using a switch switch between them via powering up only 2 drives at a time. I haven't resolved that issue yet, but that is the plan. But then I needed airflow and access so I have a round cable for now. The 5.25 is decorative at this stage. It works, I have used it, but, 5.25 media for me is sacred, so only on special occasions.