xjas wrote:

I have this DataExpert EISA/VLB board I want to use in a build, but I have a few quesitons. It's this one: […]
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I have this DataExpert EISA/VLB board I want to use in a build, but I have a few quesitons. It's this one:

[...]
It looks like a DataExpert HINT-3/486WB, but it's missing the 386 socket (no big deal), and the TH99 page makes no mention of EISA. There are also a couple of minor jumper differences.

Note: this isn't exactly the same as Jed118's board here, but it seems pretty similar.

I've been unable to track down the EISA config utility for this board, or a full manual. All I have to go on is the TH99 info.

Is there any way to configure this board for 3V CPUs? I'm guessing no, but I have no documentation on JP15, JP16 (near the TAG ram) do. JP5, 6, and 7 (between the VLB slots) are only described as "factory configured - do not alter."

There's no voltage regulator hardware on the board, so no, without extra hardware (an interposer with voltage regulator) you can't run 3V CPUs on this board.

I'd really like to use this Cyrix DX2/66 (which the board detects as a DLC2). This chip is rated for "3.45V/3.6V/4.0V." Unfortunately with the old-style non-ZIF socket there's no way to attach a 486-style heat sink either. Am I out of luck?

If it can handle 4V it *might* survive 5V. You say it's detected, then at least that side is covered. 486 heatsinks usually connect to the CPU itself, not to the socket, so I'd look again before saying there's no way to attach a heat sink.

CameraZOOM-20191015120319266.jpg

CameraZOOM-20191012160700158.jpg

I do have a nice stash of other CPUs now, including a 5V Intel DX2/66 Overdrive with a glued-on heatsink, but the Cyrix is more interesting to me since I don't have one in my setup yet. I also have an AMD DX/40 and an Intel DX/50, although I've read VLB isn't happy with 50MHz FSB (but I don't have any VLB cards anyway.) I'll probably keep those CPUs handy so I can swap them around.

Enough options. As for the VLB speeds, they are tricky enough at the best of times on early boards from this era, but this board also has the EISA timing to consider. I can only see one oscillator on the board, so all the clocks must be derived from that. The CPU speed jumpers seem oddly complex (4 jumpers for 4 speeds) so probably also do things like VLB wait states and possibly EISA dividers. I'd give it a try at 50MHz and see what does and doesn't work.

Also, anyone know if this board supports 8GB HDDs?

No, but highly unlikely I'd say given its age. Use a NIC with XTIDE ROM on it if you want to use a huge drive like that with it.

Oh, btw, as it's an AMI BIOS I'm 99% certain you need cfg.exe, which you can find here:
http://www.theflatnet.de/pub/hardware/EISA/

To use the help function you also need the eisacfg.hlp file.

Put both in the same directory as your .cfg files and run the tool.

HiNT chipset supports mini EISA, not the full specification and cards that work with it are probably somewhat limited. Notice that there is no RAMified clock chip for the CFG files to be loaded on this board?

I've never owned one, and I couldn't tell you which cards work and which cards don't...but almost every EISA card I've ever owned required the CFG files to be loaded in order to initialise them. I would have a look though old usenet posts to see if you can dig up any information.

Hah, I have not found the EISA config utility - I'm still wrestling with the 386 portion of it. I'll play with it some more when it gets snowy outside.

If anyone finds any info, beer's on me!

If you stick with standard ISA and VLB cards then you should not need the EISA config, it is only used with EISA cards. Those EISA slots have to accept standard ISA as part of the EISA spec. Do you have any EISA cards ?
Thanks dionb, good resource for eisa .cfg files !

Did you read my post? You can't load CFG files, because there's actually nothing to load them into. That's why it's "mini" EISA.
You can only use EISA cards that don't use CFG files. EISA graphics cards for example.

The board has a full EISA BIOS on it and not every EISA board uses RTC modules. I would still try loading up the generic AMI EISA configuration tool and playing with it. The biggest limitation the HiNT Mini-EISA chipset had was related to bus mastering DMA (limited to 24bits like ISA apparently) and it lacked level trigger (shared) IRQ lines. Certain SCSI cards wouldn't work with it, but stuff like NICs probability work fine. The Adaptec AHA-1740 can be coaxed to work by forcing it to use edge triggered interrupts.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.ibm. … Cw/SaejVU22_LIJ

Here is a rundown of how "limited" the HiNT chipset is depending on board design:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.ibm. … TU/PPtwUGwV6H4J
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.ibm. … X4/9euvuiC7jgwJ

If your board is using the "P-EISA" design, it'll work with most EISA cards.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Did you read my post? You can't load CFG files, because there's actually nothing to load them into. That's why it's "mini" EISA.
You can only use EISA cards that don't use CFG files. EISA graphics cards for example.

The Motherboard itself counts as EISA device too.
So, he has to load the .CFG file for the motherboard into an ECU (EISA Configuration Utility) to get rid of the EISA checksum message.

There is a socketted chip behind the "EISA" slots. Perhaps that's where the CFG files go?
This is definitely the only EISA 486 board I have ever seen without a DS1387.

Disruptor wrote on 2019-11-25, 15:14:

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Did you read my post? You can't load CFG files, because there's actually nothing to load them into. That's why it's "mini" EISA.
You can only use EISA cards that don't use CFG files. EISA graphics cards for example.

The Motherboard itself counts as EISA device too.
So, he has to load the .CFG file for the motherboard into an ECU (EISA Configuration Utility) to get rid of the EISA checksum message.

I've given up on the 386 portion of this board, I now just want to build an EISA system of any kind, and since the 486 works on it, that's what I'll do.

P-EISA: By adding a small amount of supporting TTL chips,
an 80C206 timer, external 16-bit data buffer, etc, to the
two HINT chips, you get a restricted EISA board.

So my board is definitely 8001 and 8002, and has an OPTi F82C206Q- Looks like OP has the same chip but Samsung branded. A quick search for 82C206Q brings up a non-EISA board, so I am not sure if this necessarily makes my board a P-EISA variant. https://www.elhvb.com/webhq/models/486vlb3/opti495.html

Anyways, I downloaded the cfg manager from the site dionb linked, and read the manual for the Adaptec 274oW, which required the !adp7771.cfg configuration file and adp7770.ovl file, which I got from http://www.theflatnet.de/pub/hardware/EISA/

The motherboard itself requires !HIT0001.cfg, which can be obtained here:

http://66.113.161.23/~mR_Slug/EISA/!HIT0001.CFG/1992-03-18/

With that I set out to configure everything:

Then I got stuck here:

I reset the CMOS (there's a switch on my external battery) and set the EISA reset jumper I figured out earlier and started over. Same issue.

I thought maybe it was the drive, so I took out the SCSI2SD and replaced it with a SyQuest drive. Still froze here. Hmm... Tried a CDROM, didn't load the BIOS (obviously) but it booted from a floppy. So I made a bootable floppy with self-contained references to the drivers and it partially loaded. So I went in and checked all my settings and suddenly I remembered reading something about edge and level interrupt triggering and bam, that was the answer - in the SCSI BIOS settings, you have to select edge (it's where the IRQ is selected - I had two options for each IRQ, IRQ 11 and IRQ 11 EDGE).

That's all there was to it. Now I have a working EISA system. Next step is to put in over 16 Mb RAM and see if that affects anything.

Either way, it looks like the EISA settings are saved in the CMOS chip.

20 Mb and the system works fine. Power supply exploded. There will be delays.