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First post, by JSO

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Hello to everyone,

I'm ready to buy a 386 machine in full working order. But I have some questions.

The system is named Ergodata 386 and was manufactured - in Greece by Ergodata (who was a very good company with the best quality control, parent company was Ergasias bank, now Eurobank) back on the days. It had even designed and manufactured it's boards and pcbs for 8088, 8086 and 286 systems in Greece.

As you can see on photos is on good shape and I want to ask if the cpu is upgradeable. I mean if the motherboards back on that days can accept cpu upgrades easily. I want to install an AM386DX with pga adapter.

The system is a 386SX25 with 8MB RAM.

The system was assembled on 1991 or 1992.

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Reply 1 of 11, by keropi

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It should be possible to use a 386DX at 25mhz without any changes. Else you need to look at the motherboard and see if there is some kind of frequency control, back then the cpu/chipset speed was set most of the time to a single working clock. Some later boards had the ability to change speed via jumper settings though.
Since this has a 386sx cpu there is a high chance it does not have any cache - something that will kill speed even if you install a 386DX. IMHO it's more important to have cache than upgrade to a DX cpu.

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Reply 5 of 11, by keropi

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Once again it depends on whether the motherboard has frequency control or not , there is no way to tell without model number or better photos.
It looks like a really old mobo so I doubt you can raise the clock without issues.

Also try to find out if it has cache, I had a cacheless 386DX/20 and the speed difference from a 286/16 wasn't great in games, maybe 1fps or something in Wolfenstein3D for example.

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Reply 6 of 11, by JSO

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I asked the seller to send me a better quality picture of the cpu.

I found also a board with a 386DX40, 8mb RAM and math coprocessor installed.

What do you think?

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Reply 7 of 11, by keropi

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I remember seeing that ad at some point - that's a pc made by intel themselves and branded as ergodata. Ask the seller for a better pic of the intel sticker at the back: it will have a model and from then you can know everything for that pc. It comes with MDA adapter so you can bet it's one of the first 386 PCs made.

The 386DX40 mobo is a nice and typical one, 128kb cache is under the ram, fpu present, battery looks good, UMC chipset. Go for it.

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Reply 9 of 11, by Anonymous Coward

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It appears that system has two proprietary memory cards installed, in addition to the 8 SIMM slots which are filled.

Judging by the age of the board, I would guess a 20 or 25MHz CPU swap should be possible if you swap out the CPU crystal as well. 33MHz is a big maybe. 40MHz is a big no.

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V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 10 of 11, by JSO

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Thank you everyone. I bought the first complete 386 board I mentioned earlier.

I need to find an AT desktop case with PSU to complete the build up.

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