Eep386 wrote on 2021-05-12, 15:49:

The Dallas chip looks original. The datecode starting with 92 would indicate that.
I hope the battery isn't flat... but fortunately, even if it is, you can still buy brand new Dallas chips, look on Farnell, Mouser or Digi-Key for 'DS12887+' or 'DS12887A+'.

It took a while but I was finally able to have the Dallas Chip mod done, yes it was a flat chip, applied the external CR2032 battery hack. Everything's working well, moving on to the software side of things, thanks

chinny22 wrote on 2021-05-10, 13:06:

Originally drivers would have been split between 2 disks, Say 1 disk for Dos/Win9x and another for OS2 or whatever. Then came t […]
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Originally drivers would have been split between 2 disks, Say 1 disk for Dos/Win9x and another for OS2 or whatever.
Then came the internet and it was simply more convenient to have everything zipped up in the 1 file.

You've got a couple of options.
You can unpack the files and just copy ones needed to the floppy disk, Usually each OS gets its own folder and you just need to copy that one folder.
Create a "restore" CD. You'll still need a boot floppy to get the CD drive up and running but then you have 700MB to play with for drivers and software.

Personally I create a small "recovery partition" Usually has a copy of the OS, and at the very least drivers to get networking working on that PC.
Then I can copy larger drivers, software and anything else over the network where space isn't an issue.
Networking IS a bit tricky to setup at first, but once it just makes life so much easier 😀

DOS doesn't actually need video card drivers and Windows 3 It just enables SVGA. so both the ones you found or generic ones (if they work) will be fine, whichever you'd prefer to use

Deksor wrote on 2021-05-11, 21:45:

Nice catch !

The reason why removed the caps to me is explained by the photo with the blown cap. They were probably shorted and they're not that useful, so he simply removed them to get the motherboard to start again. As for the wires coming from the battery, I that's probably made to restore the CMOS saving feature (as this chip contains a battery which dies over time).

And on that note, a few pointers / doubts please. You updated my motherboard's page with my board's reference "FIC 486-HC-HD" instead of only the original "FIC 486-VC-HD" model name. The problem is I suspect my motherboard doesn't support DX-2 66mhz, only the DX-50 with which it came, so maybe they really are different.

Also, I think my 4GB HDD is not being recognized by the motherboard so I can't move on from the MS-DOS boot disk phase. Is there a way I can know the motherboard's disk capacity limit? By the same logic it should be different from the "VC-HD" model. I would like to understand what's going on before moving on to acquiring another hard drive without knowing the limit it can support. Thanks!

It's really really rare for a motherboard to not support 486 DX2 and they're often quite proprietary. I don't think your board is unable to run a DX2-66, what makes you think that ?

For the hdd capacity limit, this is a BIOS limitation. Anything made before mid 1994 won't have LBA and will most likely be stuck to 503MB. This is true for your board as when you check the bios version we have saved, it's from 1991 so it's three years too early.

Deksor wrote on 2021-05-29, 00:23:

It's really really rare for a motherboard to not support 486 DX2 and they're often quite proprietary. I don't think your board is unable to run a DX2-66, what makes you think that ?

For the hdd capacity limit, this is a BIOS limitation. Anything made before mid 1994 won't have LBA and will most likely be stuck to 503MB. This is true for your board as when you check the bios version we have saved, it's from 1991 so it's three years too early.

Well, I tried both the DX-2 and the original DX that came with the board and only the DX booted, is the DX-2 faulty maybe? So I will always be limited to a 500mb drive max.? I was thinking of installing a 4GB drive and copying all DOS games to it to run them from the disk every time

You can use a network card that supports an option rom and install XTIDE or you can use a disk overlay program.

chinny22 wrote on 2021-05-05, 15:38:

First off test to see if the full 4GB HDD is recognised in BIOS, some motherboards max out at 500MB. no big deal if it does both hardware and software workarounds exist.
You'll need to fdisk the hard drive, as long as you use the one that comes with dos, it'll limit you to Fat16, It'll also let you create a extended partition to use the remaining 2GB if you wanted.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-05-29, 00:32:

You can use a network card that supports an option rom and install XTIDE or you can use a disk overlay program.

Thanks, I'm not experienced at all, it's my first 486 build. Would that "software workaround" be easy enough for a newcomer? It would defeat the point of the build to an extent if I couldn't use the 4GB HDD on this build, even if only 2GB of it or something...

(Edit: thanks found the Philcomputerlab tutorial, will give it a try tomorrow!)

andre_6 wrote on 2021-05-29, 00:30:

Deksor wrote on 2021-05-29, 00:23:

It's really really rare for a motherboard to not support 486 DX2 and they're often quite proprietary. I don't think your board is unable to run a DX2-66, what makes you think that ?

For the hdd capacity limit, this is a BIOS limitation. Anything made before mid 1994 won't have LBA and will most likely be stuck to 503MB. This is true for your board as when you check the bios version we have saved, it's from 1991 so it's three years too early.

Well, I tried both the DX-2 and the original DX that came with the board and only the DX booted, is the DX-2 faulty maybe? So I will always be limited to a 500mb drive max.? I was thinking of installing a 4GB drive and copying all DOS games to it to run them from the disk every time

Well if you didn't change any of the jumpers, you ran the dx2-66 at 100mhz which is far too much of an overclock. You need to set a 33MHz fsb to get it running. Nothing was automated back then, not even CPU configuration.

For the capacity, indeed xt ide works great, or a drive overlay software (such as ez drive) works well enough.
Beware though, DOS 6.22 supports 2GB partitions at most. You can overcome that limitation slightly by creating more partitions, or simply by using DOS 7.1 from Windows 95 osr2 which has fat32 support.

Deksor wrote on 2021-05-29, 00:46:

Well if you didn't change any of the jumpers, you ran the dx2-66 at 100mhz which is far too much of an overclock. You need to se […]
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andre_6 wrote on 2021-05-29, 00:30:

Deksor wrote on 2021-05-29, 00:23:

It's really really rare for a motherboard to not support 486 DX2 and they're often quite proprietary. I don't think your board is unable to run a DX2-66, what makes you think that ?

For the hdd capacity limit, this is a BIOS limitation. Anything made before mid 1994 won't have LBA and will most likely be stuck to 503MB. This is true for your board as when you check the bios version we have saved, it's from 1991 so it's three years too early.

Well, I tried both the DX-2 and the original DX that came with the board and only the DX booted, is the DX-2 faulty maybe? So I will always be limited to a 500mb drive max.? I was thinking of installing a 4GB drive and copying all DOS games to it to run them from the disk every time

Well if you didn't change any of the jumpers, you ran the dx2-66 at 100mhz which is far too much of an overclock. You need to set a 33MHz fsb to get it running. Nothing was automated back then, not even CPU configuration.

For the capacity, indeed xt ide works great, or a drive overlay software (such as ez drive) works well enough.
Beware though, DOS 6.22 supports 2GB partitions at most. You can overcome that limitation slightly by creating more partitions, or simply by using DOS 7.1 from Windows 95 osr2 which has fat32 support.

Thank you for the quick replies, I think I'm still confused with the jumpers. Could you help me setting the jumpers for the DX-2 66mhz?

According to the list (two bottom images) the "CPU Type Configuration" is the same for the DX-25mhz or the DX-2 66mhz, so it stays the same. Changed to x2 speed on "CPU Speed Configuration" but to no avail, still 25Mhz on the turbo display and no boot or display... I am clearly missing something, is the "Cache configuration" related to this, are they different between DX and DX-2? I can't understand the values on the list when looking for cache information on CPU World...

Edit: noticed apparently conflicting information between the MTL Jumper manual (last two images) and the 486-VC-HD User Manual that are available on the board's page. The latter doesn't list the DX-2 on its configuration list (also attached an image, the top one)...

When you say 'turbo display', are you talking about the LED display on the front of the case?

Eep386 wrote on 2021-05-29, 01:59:

When you say 'turbo display', are you talking about the LED display on the front of the case?

Yes, sorry for the lack of correct terms. 25Mhz on the display, no image or boot with the DX-2 66

Oh. In that case, the LED display on the front of the case is configured using jumpers on the display itself. It will always say 25 MHz unless you change the jumpers.

Eep386 wrote on 2021-05-29, 02:51:

Oh. In that case, the LED display on the front of the case is configured using jumpers on the display itself. It will always say 25 MHz unless you change the jumpers.

That's useful didn't know that, but is that related to the DX-2 not booting? Would you mind giving me the correct jumper settings assuming it would boot so I can try it?

The LED display will not prevent the system from booting. It's a purely cosmetic detail.
The jumpers vary from display to display. You'll need to see the display's PCB to know what model to look for.
As the majority of documentation for these displays is lost to time, your best bet is to look for your display at minuszerodegrees: http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/led_speed_dis … eed_display.htm
But first, let's figure out the lack of boot, the LED display can wait. 😀

Eep386 wrote on 2021-05-29, 02:57:

The LED display will not prevent the system from booting. It's a purely cosmetic detail. The jumpers vary from display to displa […]
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The LED display will not prevent the system from booting. It's a purely cosmetic detail.
The jumpers vary from display to display. You'll need to see the display's PCB to know what model to look for.
As the majority of documentation for these displays is lost to time, your best bet is to look for your display at minuszerodegrees: http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/led_speed_dis … eed_display.htm
But first, let's figure out the lack of boot, the LED display can wait. 😀

I'm sorry, I meant the jumpers for the CPU (it's kind of late around here), but again thank you so much for the information. It's kind of frustrating but fun navigating throughout these pre-Win 95 builds, even if I am constantly bumping on obstacles!

I'll clarify, here's my board, the "FIC 486-HC-HD", that was added to the page because of my particular model. I am assuming they are both the same boards, I bought the DX-2 66mhz because of what I saw in that page that it would support. http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboard/show/2399

If you could please provide me with instructions on how the jumpers should be for the DX-2, I can confirm if that's the problem or not. In the board's page the DX-2 is listed on one of the .pdf manuals, and is not mentioned on the other. Maybe the FIC 486-VC-HD and my FIC 486-HC-HD are truly different models?

The DX2 should just use the DX jumpers. The multipliers are internally set on the 486DX2.
Did you buy an Intel or AMD DX2? Some boards jumper the chip differently depending on the brand used, but I don't see any Intel or AMD distinctions in the TH '99 jumper listing anyway.
It's also possible your DX2 chip is dead. If you bought an AMD 486DX2, make sure you didn't accidentally get the '3 VOLT' version as this board seems to be a 5V only board. It'll *usually* say something like '3 VOLT', '3.3 VOLT', etc. if it's a 3 volt version.
Running a 3 volt chip on 5V may result in a burnt out chip.

Well there's also the fsb to change like I said earlier. However I forgot something important with your board. Its speed is not set with jumpers but with a different quartz. You need to get a 33mhz quartz to get your board running at 33MHz (and then the dx2 will automatically double that to 66)

In order to save you some MONEY and grief.
From my experience I would say don’t invest more than a 486dx2-66 CPU in it and 16mb of ram. 256kb of Cache.
A 486dx2-50 performs okay but a 486dx2-66 plays games better.
A 486dx4-100 will only give you about a 10% performance boost over the 486dx2-66
In any case the 486dx4-100 will still NOT meet your DOS Gaming needs.
You actually need a Pentium 100mhz thru Pentium 233mhz for Good DOS gaming performance.
I went with a MMX Pentium 233mhz CPU and 64mb of ram and Intel 430TX motherboard and I am very happy with it.
By disabling the Cache setting in Bios I can slow it down to a 486 and 386 CPU.
So this build will cover all the bases and allow you to play most DOS games in good quality performance.
I also use an Sound Blaster AWE64 CT4500 ISA sound card and it sounds good at any speed.
I used DOS 6.22 and Win-3.11

Works great for playing DOS games and Running Win-3.11 programs and games.
Very happy with this build and it performs Rock Solid. Never crashes.
When I compare this to my 486dx4-100 computer I can tell right away that the Pentium computer performs much better
And runs Win-3.11 much better than my 486 computer.
I used a 6gb IDE hard drive.
And I used an “S3 trio64” 2mb PCI video card.
“3com 3c509b” network card which is natively supported in Win-3.11
For your 486 I would use an ET4000, 2mb ISA video card.
As for mouse try the Logitech 3 button serial mouse.

Eep386 wrote on 2021-05-29, 03:44:

The DX2 should just use the DX jumpers. The multipliers are internally set on the 486DX2. Did you buy an Intel or AMD DX2? Some […]
Show full quote

The DX2 should just use the DX jumpers. The multipliers are internally set on the 486DX2.
Did you buy an Intel or AMD DX2? Some boards jumper the chip differently depending on the brand used, but I don't see any Intel or AMD distinctions in the TH '99 jumper listing anyway.
It's also possible your DX2 chip is dead. If you bought an AMD 486DX2, make sure you didn't accidentally get the '3 VOLT' version as this board seems to be a 5V only board. It'll *usually* say something like '3 VOLT', '3.3 VOLT', etc. if it's a 3 volt version.
Running a 3 volt chip on 5V may result in a burnt out chip.

Deksor wrote on 2021-05-29, 07:52:

Well there's also the fsb to change like I said earlier. However I forgot something important with your board. Its speed is not set with jumpers but with a different quartz. You need to get a 33mhz quartz to get your board running at 33MHz (and then the dx2 will automatically double that to 66)

It's an Intel DX-2, I bought it because I thought it would be a simple but effective upgrade without changing too much the original setup of this computer, but according to you if I need the 33mhz quartz upgrade it will have to wait for now, shame, I could have done it at the same time along with the Dallas Chip hack.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2021-05-29, 09:22:

In order to save you some MONEY and grief. From my experience I would say don’t invest more than a 486dx2-66 CPU in it and 16mb […]
Show full quote

In order to save you some MONEY and grief.
From my experience I would say don’t invest more than a 486dx2-66 CPU in it and 16mb of ram. 256kb of Cache.
A 486dx2-50 performs okay but a 486dx2-66 plays games better.
A 486dx4-100 will only give you about a 10% performance boost over the 486dx2-66
In any case the 486dx4-100 will still NOT meet your DOS Gaming needs.
You actually need a Pentium 100mhz thru Pentium 233mhz for Good DOS gaming performance.
I went with a MMX Pentium 233mhz CPU and 64mb of ram and Intel 430TX motherboard and I am very happy with it.
By disabling the Cache setting in Bios I can slow it down to a 486 and 386 CPU.
So this build will cover all the bases and allow you to play most DOS games in good quality performance.
I also use an Sound Blaster AWE64 CT4500 ISA sound card and it sounds good at any speed.
I used DOS 6.22 and Win-3.11

Works great for playing DOS games and Running Win-3.11 programs and games.
Very happy with this build and it performs Rock Solid. Never crashes.
When I compare this to my 486dx4-100 computer I can tell right away that the Pentium computer performs much better
And runs Win-3.11 much better than my 486 computer.
I used a 6gb IDE hard drive.
And I used an “S3 trio64” 2mb PCI video card.
“3com 3c509b” network card which is natively supported in Win-3.11
For your 486 I would use an ET4000, 2mb ISA video card.
As for mouse try the Logitech 3 button serial mouse.

Wonderful reply, thank you so much. I actually have a Pentium MMX 233Mhz build with Windows 95 with all the DOS games I want, so if I can't play Doom in this build for example it's not a problem. I bought this 486 computer because I fell in love with the case and I always wanted to experience the DOS 6.22 / Win 3.1 combo, so if I can't play DOS games from let's say 1992 onwards that's okay. I had a hard time looking for the ET4000 2mb card and 30-pin SIMM 16mb ram for a nice price, which is what my board can support, I also get confused with the parity and finding out the modules' capacity in the ads. Right now I have 8mb of RAM and a OAK OTI 077 16-BIT ISA VGA card, the "OTI 077" on "Vlask's cards" on this page http://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/cpu/item/326-oak-oti-077 if it's 512k or 1mb I have no idea, it's a little different than the one on there (see attached image).
Do you think that between the DX-50, the 8mb of ram and this card I can get a good experience with pre-1992 DOS games?

So far I bought the DX-2, a CD-ROM and a Vibra CT4180 (it had no sound card) for pretty cheap, between not having a lot to invest in this and wanting to keep it closer to the original configuration I'm hoping this will be enough. It came with a Logitech 3 button serial mouse, actually, although the logo is only visible in the sticker underneath so it must be older than that one. I am trying to re-use a 4GB HDD I had on it so I can keep all games in there, so I'll move along with the DX-50 for now and do the EZ Drive tutorial for the disk overlay.

What are the differences between Win 3.1 and Win 3.11? What would you guys recommend for what I'm trying to achieve? Thank you all for the replies

Unless you have specific things you want to run in Windows 3.x, I wouldn't bother with it - it's absolutely not needed if you are only interested in Dos games.

If you do wish to run Windows 3.x/95/98, then be aware that the standard ET4000AX has no Windows acceleration features at all. If you do intend to run Windows then you would be better off with an S3 card (the ISA cards have good Windows acceleration but are poor in Dos) or a later (5426, 5428 or 5429) Cirrus card (they have decent Windows acceleration for drawing lines, shapes, fills, a blitter, etc - and solid Dos performance on a par with the ET4000).

Yeah, Like I wrote. In order to save you some money and grief. If your looking for Best DOS and Win-3x performance then get a
Pentium 233mhz computer.
This 486 even with a 486dx4-100 CPU will NOT play ALL DOS games in good performance.
So dont spend too much time or MONEY on your 486 if you want it for playing DOS games.

If you are just looking to build the best 486 then go ahead and spend your MONEY.

But for playing DOS games and running Win-3.1 or Win-3.11
I would NOT go more then this. You will NOT see much more of a performance gain if go over this.
486dx2-66
8mb to 16mb ram
256kb cache
ET4000, 2mb video card
Sound Blaster with Yamaha OPL3 and Wave table.
Sony 52x CDROM drive
Video card - S3 trio64, PCI 2mb.
Networking card - 3com 3c509b
DOS / Win3.1 or 3.11 ( 3.11 is better for setting up a Networking card and internet ).

Those are generally good recommendations for a mid-level 486, but I've a few suggestions and comments of my own:

In ISA form, the Trident 8900CL or 8900D are very close in speed to an ISA ET4000AX in most cases, but are a lot cheaper on eBay. The 9400CXi and especially 9440(AGi) are even better, but are harder to find on an ISA card and probably more expensive.
Cirrus 5422/5424/5426/5248/5429 are also very good ISA VGA cards, and they're also usually cheaper than Tsengs as well. 5426 and later even have accelerated Windows drivers (5426 and later chips have modest GUI acceleration).

2MB does not buy much for an ISA VGA card in most cases (next to nothing for Cirrus or an ET4000AX - it's the ET4000/W32i and W32p that gain anything substantial from 2MB), unless said card is a 64-bit card (S3 Vision864/868/964/968, S3 Trio64 or ViRGE,Trident 9680, etc). But good luck trying to find an ISA card with a 64-bit chip for a sensible price!

ESS cards are a good, generally way cheaper alternative to Creative sound cards (and generally less buggy to boot). Most ISA ESS cards have ESFM, which is a particularly good OPL3 clone that sounds much better than other clones. And their compatibility is better than average for a clone as well; unlike OPTi cards they don't play Joshua Jensen sound system games (such as One Must Fall or Jazz Jackrabbit) at a wrong pitch.

Windows 3.11 is, more or less, a bug-fix of 3.1. You might still be able to download the service pack for Windows 3.1 that converts it into 3.11 from someplace.
Windows for Workgroups 3.11 is where 3.1x gets interesting. Windows for Workgroups has more functional early networking support, but only comes out of the box with IPX/SPX and NetBEUI support, and a limited collection of drivers for network cards. Windows for Workgroups 3.11 also has 32-bit file access, but that will probably only be more useful if you have a VLB controller card. (No, it won't work in an ISA slot.) It also only runs in 386 Protected Mode, so forget about running it on a 286 (as if you'd ever really want to do that anyway).