First post, by Nipedley
Hi guys
I just (almost) completed my 486 build in a modern case, and thought I'd share some piccies. I've been wanting to own a 486 for many years, and it finally dawned upon me to build one instead. I knew it would be quite a challenge. It was quite involved, I had to use a dremel to remove part of the 5 1/4 drive cage as it was in the way of the motherboard. Then I used a drill and 6/32 tap to make new holes for AT standoffs (all populated except where the case has a cutout, not much I can do about that!). I wanted all of the AT features so I replaced the ATX power switch with a latching one so I can use the original power button, bought a keyswitch, a switch for the turbo button and an led for the turbo led, and a NOS MHz LED display and wired it all up. I had to buy DuPont connectors and terminals to make the wiring for it, and then use a drill, dremel and file to fit them onto a 5 1/4 drive bay blanking plate. I think it turned out pretty good!
Specs:
EXP4044 Socket 3 MB, 256KB cache
16MB RAM
Intel 486DX2-66 CPU
Pentium cooler w/ 40mm fan glued on
Fan controller in lower 3 1/2 drive bay (front and rear and cpu)
Yamaha Audician 32 Plus sound card
Kentech VLB IDE Floppy Serial I/O card
Spea V7 Mirage VLB 1MB VGA card
3com 3c509 Ethernet card
DOS 6.22 w/ Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and Windows 95 dual boot on a 2GB CF card
Samsung 48x IDE CD-ROM
5.25" Floppy (1.2MB)
3.5" Floppy (1.4MB)
Fullsize AT PC speaker (hiding in the bottom)
Still todo:
I want to put some black film over the MHz LED display, to cover up my marks and make it look smarter (it was very hard to cut the hole the exact size)
Cut a hole in an ATX I/O shield for the AT keyboard port and use foil to mask the rest and fit it
I have the chips to upgrade my V7 Mirage VLB VGA card to 2MB but when I install them the computer sometimes crashes with strange VGA output, need to look into that
