Any ISA I/O controller with floppy and IDE ports will do. You just enter the BIOS and set parameters for HDD (newer 386 had Auto-detect HDD). Also set FDD to 3.5" 1.44MB. Select boot from A or C and you're ready to boot the system.

Here i am, motherboard and components arrived.
The card is a Soyo SY-019I

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/S/SO … 9H-SY-019I.html

Processor
80386DX/CX486DLC
Processor Speed
33/40MHz
Chip Set
ETEQ
Max. Onboard DRAM
32MB
Cache
64/128/256KB
BIOS
AMI
Dimensions
245mm x 220mm
I/O Options
None
NPU Options
80387/3167

Now after first problems and after burned basically all day eating kcalories to arrive at boot 😁,
I booted and it see all my 8mb ram but I can't enter the bios cause it gives me a keyboard error.
I changed the bios battery using another I had soldering the wires. The ps2 keyboard I am using is quiet old (heavy and white) and never had problems with 486 and the ps2/din converter. No led shows up on the keyboard. Do you think it's a motherboard problem (keyobard circuit gone) or I just need an older keyboard?

And also I see only 33/40mhz support. Do it means that if I install a 386SX/DX-20 it will not boot?

I guess the old battery leaked and damaged the surrounding area. You'll have to find the broken traces and retrace or rewire them - usually it's painfull work 🙁

If you're lucky... there might be some problem with the Keyboard BIOS chip. If it's socketed, remove it, clean the contacts and insert it back. It just might work.

Post a picture of your board so we can see where the problem is.

You can't install 386SX as it uses complete different socket. I highly doubt 386DX-20 to run at 33 or even 40MHz. You can try, but 33MHz first!

If you bought this board on eBay as used/working. Make a complaint.

You're right there are traces that are blu on the surface and corrosive acid has done some problems there... man... it seems to be at least two traces on that goes to two of the din pins...

Is it better for me to solder a wire ON the trace or connect the two extreme parts (from din to the last point of the rail?)

It is probably easier to solder on the pins.

well it seems that after some cleaning traces are not disappeared but still there...now i am going to test it again... let's see.

no way... still keyboard error even with the only trace that seems to be defective... led seems to light up all three for a while even caps lock respond but after ram test keyboard error... press f1...yeah....

You might be able to get by with using an electric paint pen and painting over the broken trace where it was dissolved. I haven't tried it myself but It should fix the connection.

You'll need a multimeter. Visual inspection won't get you far... At least not without a good magnifying glass or even a microscope.

Oh man I get to fix the trace it was the second one from the right of the din, I didn't expect it was just one... the multimeter is obviously a must without it it's impossible. The difficult is that there're really small trace point and the din connector is too close to the at connector... by the way now it booted and also my 3.6v 80mah battery is changed and ok.

A 386DX-20 can't run at its default freq with this chipset? I didn't want it to be too much fast.
And another question, there's the clock component that has been changed (is fixed manually) and report 80.000Mhz. Is the right one? Cause with the turbo enabled it seems to be really hot the am386 and i still can't run some program to test frequency.

Good job fixing the board 😁

If the board has fixed oscillator at 80MHz then cpu runs at 40MHz (if it's socketed you can switch for slower one - oscillator is always twice as fast as CPUs clock).

So you're trying to run DX-20 at 40? Good luck 😀 Try with turbo disabled, it will run at about 10Mhz. You're in luck that the board has socket and you can always switch for a faster cpu - I guess it will also take 486DLC - it is about 20-30% faster than 386DX.

Thanx for the info! It support Cyrix in the bios! 😁

A strange thing i would ask is this: after installing dos in pure fdisk format way, i am testing some program but program tell me i am running in virtual cpu mode??
How can i switch in real mode i already expected to be in?

Virtual CPU mode? That should not be enabled unless you are using EMM386 or an expanded memory manager like it. Try bypassing the startup files with F8, or making a boot menu with one startup entry with nothing but HIMEM.SYS and the display/keyboard stuff.

Bad morning after trying to change again the battery that probably was already low voltage and again keyboard error... i used another wire and make another trace. Now it seems to be ok again...

Now real mode here... running some bench it detect 40.5mhz oh yeah! 8Mhz without the turbo..😁

I have only this Trident 9000 512kbyte ISA as video card, is it any good?

Speedsys gives me a 9.23 of CPU bench, memory speed index 34.37, VESA speed 1185kbyte/s, "L1" cache speed (64kbyte) 31.02MB/s and Memory speed 19.22Mb/s

Oh yeah!

I guess this Trident should be enough. It is not the fastest ISA card, but I don't believe it will hold you back on anything that is speed sensitive anyway.

Jee the Am386-40 runs quiet hot to be a 386! 😁