I got another cheap 486 in mail today that is in pretty bad condition. Basically I am asking opinions of if there is anything worth trying to save.
First pictures in couple posts:
It seems to have 16Mb ram with 4Mb simms. I don't know what cpu yet because of the heatsink.
The case would be good without the corrosion spot and it seems to have some kind of lcd.
Keyboard feels mechanical because I think I can feel springs when I press the keys, but I have no idea about it otherwise. Perhaps industrial keyboard?
Power supply most likely won't work because sender said that he had to test that it posted with another power supply.
Lots of corrosion on the motherboard. I don't know if it can be saved.
Standard winbond I/O card.
Seagate ST3660A hard drive. I have not found any info yet, but I will search.
Anyone has any idea about how good the ATI video card is? It seems to be this https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/vga-wonder.c2040 but the page is bit confusing because it says about PCI interface.
Anyone recognizes the motherboard and knows if there is manual online?
If nothing else, I got some more ram to my other 486 retro pc, spare I/O card and isa vga card. It wasn't even expensive even if those are the only parts worth keeping.
That corrosion on the case and corrosion on the motherboard from the leaky battery ain't nothin'.
Just clean it up.
For the motherboard, you may need to run a couple trace wires IF the traces are eaten through, but that is a pretty easy fix.
It is a pretty nice motherboard.
Can't really read the writing on the ATI video card, but the ISA ATI video cards generally fetch a nice price.
I would upgrade it to a VLB video card though as it will be much, much faster.
wrote:That corrosion on the case and corrosion on the motherboard from the leaky battery ain't nothin'. […]
That corrosion on the case and corrosion on the motherboard from the leaky battery ain't nothin'.
Just clean it up.
For the motherboard, you may need to run a couple trace wires IF the traces are eaten through, but that is a pretty easy fix.
It is a pretty nice motherboard.Can't really read the writing on the ATI video card, but the ISA ATI video cards generally fetch a nice price.
I would upgrade it to a VLB video card though as it will be much, much faster.
You can read it on the page that I linked. It is pretty much same card with same chip on it except on that page there is empty socket that is filled in my card so I don''t know what that is. It is "ATI 28800-5" chip. I have to use flash in my mobile phone so that is why sometimes they are hard to read in pictures.
I was actually thinking of using the ati card when building a 386 if it is faster than trident vga cards I have.
Any idea about the keyboard if it is worth cleaning with the damage you can see at the bottom of the picture?
wrote:Seagate ST3660A hard drive. I have not found any info yet, but I will search.
Medalist 545XE, ~540MB. Decent and very common for the period, but somewhat slower than many of its contemporaries (runs at ~3800RPM, compared to its competitors' ~4500RPM).
EDIT: reworded.
I did spend some time cleaning up the motherboard. I think it looks much better even though it is not perfect.
I managed to remove all the key caps without losing a single spring which was rather difficult since when removing the key cap the spring also jumped high in the air.
Any idea why 3 switches are in different color than the others? I don't think switches have been changed since the keyboard has been manufactured.
wrote:You can read it on the page that I linked. It is pretty much same card with same chip on it except on that page there is empty socket that is filled in my card so I don''t know what that is. It is "ATI 28800-5" chip. I have to use flash in my mobile phone so that is why sometimes they are hard to read in pictures.
I was actually thinking of using the ati card when building a 386 if it is faster than trident vga cards I have.
Any idea about the keyboard if it is worth cleaning with the damage you can see at the bottom of the picture?
Gotcha. I think it should be a bit faster than an ISA Trident card.
The keyboard is interesting. I found some reference and pictures of some from the same company, but they had real Cherry MX switches in them. This one looks to maybe use Cherry style keycaps, but the switches appear to be a knockoff... I would keep it.
I worked on it for several hours, but I think there is some improvement 😀
I know it is a cheap keyboard seeing how letters in some key caps have worn off, but I really don't have many din keyboards so I'm happy with it.
Has anyone seen this case before and know how to configure the Mhz display at the front?
wrote:Has anyone seen this case before and know how to configure the Mhz display at the front?
Just mess around with those jumpers behind it until you have the desired numbers. You can safely do so when the system is powered on.
wrote:wrote:Has anyone seen this case before and know how to configure the Mhz display at the front?
Just mess around with those jumpers behind it until you have the desired numbers. You can safely do so when the system is powered on.
The jumpers are difficult to access (behind hard drive cage that can't be removed) so it would help a lot if I would be able to set them even before I would build any system in the case. That is why I asked if anyone has experience configuring the display in this case.
You can't remove the drive cage, but you can take the whole plastic front off (four screws, visible in your first pic), then you can probably remove the numerical display with one or two extra screws and have full access to it.
wrote:wrote:wrote:Has anyone seen this case before and know how to configure the Mhz display at the front?
Just mess around with those jumpers behind it until you have the desired numbers. You can safely do so when the system is powered on.
The jumpers are difficult to access (behind hard drive cage that can't be removed) so it would help a lot if I would be able to set them even before I would build any system in the case. That is why I asked if anyone has experience configuring the display in this case.
You will still have to take it out to have a good look at it, but it might be on this page: http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/led_speed_dis … eed_display.htm
Take care when removing the front. The plastic might be brittle because of it's age.
1982 to 2001
wrote:You will still have to take it out to have a good look at it, but it might be on this page: http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/led_speed_dis … eed_display.htm
Take care when removing the front. The plastic might be brittle because of it's age.
I don't think mine is on that web page. There is ST-6A on that page, but mine is ST-8A and looks very different. (ST-8A is writen on the board)
Also currently all the jumpers on mine are set vertical, but most displays on that page also allow to set jumpers horizontal. Should I just try vertical combinations or would it be safe to put jumpers horizontal position too?
Nobody knows what motherboard that is and if there are jumper settings for it online somewhere?
wrote:Nobody knows what motherboard that is and if there are jumper settings for it online somewhere?
Google image search with chipset numbers lead me to here: http://home.att.ne.jp/alpha/pcboard/486.htm
Seems to be ABIT AV450
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." - And i intend to get every last bit out of it even after loading every damn driver!
wrote:wrote:Nobody knows what motherboard that is and if there are jumper settings for it online somewhere?
Google image search with chipset numbers lead me to here: http://home.att.ne.jp/alpha/pcboard/486.htm
Seems to be ABIT AV450
That motherboard is very close. Only minor differences.
Sticker on the motherboard says "CAM 33/50-SI2"
I found this https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/A/A … CPM25-33-C.html that says cam 33/50, but the motherboard doesn't match at all.
This is what I found under the heat sink:
Layer of hardened white something...
It is not going to be fun trying to scrape that off.
Looks like intel 486 cpu, probably 33Mhz
