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First post, by Solo761

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Hello all,

does anyone has experience with this motherboard and support for CPU voltages beside 5V?

Ultimateretro has images of v2.0 which has few differences when compared with my v1.1. Mine looks like this (although it's not my image). Silkscreen on motherboard has listed all jumper combinations and this includes voltage settings (for 5V, 3.45V and 3.3V). Same with manual on ultimateretro which is for v1.1. But, as in the image in red square, my board doesn't have anything soldered to that point, which looks like that's where voltage regulator should be soldered to.

Were there v1.1 with this component installed and others without, here's another image I found, it has something that looks like voltage regulator plus heatsink installed in that spot. Although I can't say if it's also V1.1, or perhaps v1.0. V2.0 doesn't have this spot/component ?
Or it creates these other voltages some other way?

Reply 1 of 7, by weedeewee

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Looks like the ultimateretro photo is of v2.1 and that, to get the lower voltages, requires a VRM module, similar to the one necroware built and made a video about.
It's the connecter right of the cpu socket that looks like it's filled with jumpers.
The one on imgur seems to be v1.1 and has indeed a VRM onboard.

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Reply 3 of 7, by Solo761

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Well to put a conclusion to the story. Short story, I finally got LT1085CT voltage regulators and when I soldered it to the spot on the motherboard I can jumper between 5V (direct from PSU), 3.45V and 3.3V which are handled by regulator so board isn't limited only to 5V CPUs anymore.

Long story, at first I ordered LM338T voltage regulators. Rated for 5A so that should be enough. It took a while for them to arrive from China but for some reason they didn't actually work...

Instead of 3.3V I got 4.7V when I jumpered the board to use VRM instead of PSU 5V, some were even worse at 4.9V (I got 10 of them), marginally lower then direct from PSU... Adjustable "part" should be OK. I traced the circuit that leads to adjust pin on VRM and values of resistors there. According to formula it should output correct voltage.
And then I learned what LDO in LDO VRM means... Low Dropout... and LM338(T) isn't LDO and according to datasheet Vin - Vout needs to be at least 3V, here we have 5 - 3.3 which is definitely less than 3. Here's where LDO comes to play, they allow for smaller Vin - Vout difference, like 1.2 V or 1.5V and here our difference would be in spec...

But I wanted to test how they work anyway so I cobbled small circuit on breadboard where I fed 12 V into it and according to formula with resistors I used I should have got around 7 V on output which is bigger than 3V so it should be OK. But didn't, with some of the I got around 11.3V and others 11.8V...

Somehow I doubt they're all faulty, more probably they're simply fake components. Who knows what they actually are... Maybe some mosfets or something... I have to dig up component tester I have somewhere and see what it says they are.
Hazards of buying parts on aliexpress...

Reply 4 of 7, by GuillermoXT

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I also need some help to find a suitable Voltage Regulator please 🙏
Currently I am using the AMD 80mhz 5V but I would like to have the option for upgrading to a faster CPU 🙂

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Reply 6 of 7, by weedeewee

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Majestyk : According to photos posted by previous commenter, what he requires is the same part as what the commenter before him, which happens to be the starter of this thread, used, an LT1085CT . So, no not that ebay part which might be usable on v2.x boards.

and maybe some cache chips.

Right to repair is fundamental. You own it, you're allowed to fix it.
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Do not ask Why !
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Serial_port

Reply 7 of 7, by GuillermoXT

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Ahh thanks very much @weedeewee 🙂
So if I install the LT1085CT I should be able to use 3.3 & 3.45V CPUs immediately?

And don't worry this was long before I built up the system I have some cache installed

My Retrosystems:
PIII on GA-6BA running Win98SE
AMD K6 233 on GA-586HX with Win95
Tandon 286-8MHZ Running DOS 6.22 on XTIDE-CF
M326 486DLC + 4c87dlc (Dos+Win3.11)
ECS UM4980 AMD DX2 80 5V (Dos & Win3.11)