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Packard Bell Pack Mate CPU upgrade?

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First post, by bjwil1991

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Hello everyone:

Earlier today, I went to a thrift store that I never went into until today, and I found a Packard Bell Pack Mate desktop computer, as well as the mouse and keyboard, so I decided to purchase those three items for $18.02 after tax ($17 + 6% tax in MI) and the items are in the trunk of my car until further notice in case it smelt like cigarettes.

Here are the specs of the system:

Intel i486 SX2-50
4MB RAM (upgradable to 64MB) SIMM-72 (FPM or EDO)
1MB vRAM (expandable up to 2MB) <-- certain systems, like an IBM Aptiva 2168-M55 and the mentioned Packard Bell Pack Mate systems had that as an option since certain games required more than 1MB of vRAM, including certain programs.
210MB Seagate HDD with MS DOS and I believe it has Windows (or WFW) 3.11 or Windows (or WFW) 3.10 preinstalled on it and software, like Packard Bell Navigator
3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Drive
No Optical Drive, but as luck would have it, there is a header for CD drives (secondary IDE channel) and I don't know if ATAPI capable drives would work on such system
No Sound card, and luckily, I have 2 I'm planning on placing into the system: An Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro, and a Music Quest MPU401 Clone Card I purchased back in October of 2016 since some of my games run too fast, or have incorrect/missing music on my Roland MT-32
ISA Ethernet 10BaseT (I believe it's a 3Com EtherLink Plus III since it has the header for hooking up old 3Com hubs)
12000 Baud Modem (their version of it, which is hooked up using a proprietary cable for the card itself)
AT style PSU
Detachable bezels for personalizing the system

I was planning on getting the CRT itself, but I didn't know if it works or not, and they would've charged about $20 for it.

And I'm wondering, since it is a Socket 3 system, is it possible to upgrade from the SX2-50 to a DX2-66 Intel CPU, or am I stuck with it? If I'm stuck with it, it's no big deal. Also, I can't seem to find the rest of the model info, except for the Product Number and Serial Number, and it has a soldered on Lithium battery, which I know it's probably dead by now and it's the size of a dime.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 1 of 9, by chinny22

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Pics or more details about the PC or more importantly motherboard itself will help.
This place may help with ID'ing the PC
http://pbclub.pwcsite.com/wiki/index.php?titl … ard_Bell_Models

Even if the system can be upgraded your going to need the above info to find the correct jumper settings anyway.

Reply 2 of 9, by bjwil1991

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Here are the pics of the Packard Bell (see attachments).

I looked on that site, and couldn't find any info, but I do know this: on the BIOS, it shows

PB450M+

And I did find the info about it online and found out it's upgradeable up to a DX4-100, but sadly, no L2 Cache is installed or a 2MB Video memory upgrade either.

I gave the system a few features or upgrades with the following:

1. Memory was upgraded to 16MB from 4MB or whatever it also had (was upgraded by the previous owner, same as the HDD from 210MB to 428.1MB)
2. CD-ROM drive is installed successfully after finding out I had a bad IDE cable
3. An Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro and Music Quest MPU401 clone cards are installed with my Roland MT-32 hooked up, and a set of 2.1 Stereo speakers
4. CMOS battery was replaced with an external CR2032 hooked up to the jumper labeled Jbte (J30)
5. Gravis Analog Pro is hooked up to my sound card for certain games, like Star Wars TIE Fighter.

Where can I find L2 cache and video memory upgrade for this system? It's a Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 plus with a PB450M+ board.

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Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 4 of 9, by bjwil1991

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gdjacobs wrote:

Does it have SRAM sockets or VRAM sockets?

Looks like the video memory is VRAM, and the L2 cache would be SRAM, but I could be mistaken.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 5 of 9, by lazibayer

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bjwil1991 wrote:
Here are the pics of the Packard Bell (see attachments). […]
Show full quote

Here are the pics of the Packard Bell (see attachments).

I looked on that site, and couldn't find any info, but I do know this: on the BIOS, it shows

PB450M+

And I did find the info about it online and found out it's upgradeable up to a DX4-100, but sadly, no L2 Cache is installed or a 2MB Video memory upgrade either.

I gave the system a few features or upgrades with the following:

1. Memory was upgraded to 16MB from 4MB or whatever it also had (was upgraded by the previous owner, same as the HDD from 210MB to 428.1MB)
2. CD-ROM drive is installed successfully after finding out I had a bad IDE cable
3. An Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro and Music Quest MPU401 clone cards are installed with my Roland MT-32 hooked up, and a set of 2.1 Stereo speakers
4. CMOS battery was replaced with an external CR2032 hooked up to the jumper labeled Jbte (J30)
5. Gravis Analog Pro is hooked up to my sound card for certain games, like Star Wars TIE Fighter.

Where can I find L2 cache and video memory upgrade for this system? It's a Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 plus with a PB450M+ board.

This PB450M, not PB450M+, so I don't know how much information can be correctly mapped to your motherboard.
It supports 3.3V CPUs and up to pentium overdrive. It takes 256K x 16 ZIP video rams.

Reply 6 of 9, by bjwil1991

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Yup. That's the board. I did find some SRAM cache chips (128K x 😎 on eBay, but I have no idea if it uses 20ns for those chips.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 7 of 9, by lazibayer

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bjwil1991 wrote:

Yup. That's the board. I did find some SRAM cache chips (128K x 😎 on eBay, but I have no idea if it uses 20ns for those chips.

20ns should be fine.
You can find the configuration of tag chips here and here.

Reply 8 of 9, by bjwil1991

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The TAG RAM uses the following:

64k x 1 (15ns)
32k x 8 (15ns)

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 9 of 9, by gdjacobs

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For the video memory upgrade, you'll need two 256k word x 16 bit / word modules on ZIP packages. Check the chips on the motherboard to see what latency the upgrade modules will require. On the 420M motherboard for example, the on board module is an MT4C16257DJ-7 from Micron which operates at 70ns latency.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

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