Here are a few more pictures.

jasa1063 wrote on 2024-09-26, 23:58:

I am getting an IBM Blue Lighting 486BL2/486DLC2 VLB system from the UK. I have been unable to locate any relevant information as it appears to be a white box design and not something manufactured by IBM itself. The computer has arrived yet, but I am trying to get head start. Attached are some pictures from the seller. Any assistance would be appreciated.

Ooh you're in for an interesting time 😀
I've got the same system although I got it as just the mainboard and riser card - it's from a different model than yours because mine just has 3 slots on the riser and just on one side. But they're fundamentally the same.
Here's how I got mine, looks a bit worse for wear than yours: What IBM 486 computer could this motherboard be from?
A while back I was convinced it was a Time PC from my newsgroup digging: Re: IBM PS/1000 486DLC2-66 But now from a lucky search I think it's actually an Advent 450D system sold by Dixons in the 90s.

This information is sadly *mostly* lost to time because it's from back in the dark ages before people took pictures of anything. There is a ton of info left on newsgroup archives though, I've been in posession of my board for a few years now and don't use it too much because I've had extreme difficulty in getting my board to make digital audio sounds - a problem not unique to my board, it affected many of the IBM DLC2 systems that were sold by Dixons in the UK.

The IBM logo on your system was added afterwards, the computer is most likely an Advent branded one which was a computer brand of Dixons in the UK, which for a short time was the sole UK distributor of Ambra systems in the UK under the Advent name:

https://www.telecompaper.com › news › dixons-seeking-...
Dixons Group is seeking a new supplier for the Advent range of machines. Dixons sold the Ambra range under the Advent name in the UK.

You can see information for the Advent 4-50D (which I'm pretty sure mine is now) on the UKT support site here: http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/advent/pc/450-D.htm

And there are some pictures of it in ads from the times in 1994 which is freely accessible on the Internet archive:
These first two look like your case:
https://archive.org/details/NewsUK1994UKEngli … age/n5/mode/1up
https://archive.org/details/NewsUK1994UKEngli … age/n6/mode/1up
Then this later ad it looks like a different case:
https://archive.org/details/NewsUK1994UKEngli … age/n5/mode/1up
I'm pretty excited about this, I never found this information about the system before 😀
The Ambra brand was IBM's attempt to take back market share by making their own 'clone' IBM PC company. From what I've read about it, it was a real mess and Ambra's products would've just been lost to history if not for the IBM connection.

Trouble with sound (may not affect all machines, some other folks with this DLC2 board say sound works)
https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.ibm.pc.h … /m/OKe0iUyfpT8J

Win 3.11 can crash on startup, I fixed it by changing the video card? But apparently it can be fixed with a different keyboard driver:
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.windows95/c/Q … /m/HgMqSsEnwTgJ

Lots of conversations about this PC on newsgroup archives
https://groups.google.com/search/conversation … lue%20lightning

To access the BIOS on it, press Ctrl+Alt+S

Thermalwrong wrote on 2024-09-27, 02:55:

Ooh you're in for an interesting time :) I've got the same system although I got it as just the mainboard and riser card - it's […]
Show full quote

jasa1063 wrote on 2024-09-26, 23:58:

I am getting an IBM Blue Lighting 486BL2/486DLC2 VLB system from the UK. I have been unable to locate any relevant information as it appears to be a white box design and not something manufactured by IBM itself. The computer has arrived yet, but I am trying to get head start. Attached are some pictures from the seller. Any assistance would be appreciated.

Ooh you're in for an interesting time 😀
I've got the same system although I got it as just the mainboard and riser card - it's from a different model than yours because mine just has 3 slots on the riser and just on one side. But they're fundamentally the same.
Here's how I got mine, looks a bit worse for wear than yours: What IBM 486 computer could this motherboard be from?
A while back I was convinced it was a Time PC from my newsgroup digging: Re: IBM PS/1000 486DLC2-66 But now from a lucky search I think it's actually an Advent 450D system sold by Dixons in the 90s.

This information is sadly *mostly* lost to time because it's from back in the dark ages before people took pictures of anything. There is a ton of info left on newsgroup archives though, I've been in posession of my board for a few years now and don't use it too much because I've had extreme difficulty in getting my board to make digital audio sounds - a problem not unique to my board, it affected many of the IBM DLC2 systems that were sold by Dixons in the UK.

The IBM logo on your system was added afterwards, the computer is most likely an Advent branded one which was a computer brand of Dixons in the UK, which for a short time was the sole UK distributor of Ambra systems in the UK under the Advent name:

https://www.telecompaper.com › news › dixons-seeking-...
Dixons Group is seeking a new supplier for the Advent range of machines. Dixons sold the Ambra range under the Advent name in the UK.

You can see information for the Advent 4-50D (which I'm pretty sure mine is now) on the UKT support site here: http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/advent/pc/450-D.htm

And there are some pictures of it in ads from the times in 1994 which is freely accessible on the Internet archive:
These first two look like your case:
https://archive.org/details/NewsUK1994UKEngli … age/n5/mode/1up
https://archive.org/details/NewsUK1994UKEngli … age/n6/mode/1up
Then this later ad it looks like a different case:
https://archive.org/details/NewsUK1994UKEngli … age/n5/mode/1up
I'm pretty excited about this, I never found this information about the system before 😀
The Ambra brand was IBM's attempt to take back market share by making their own 'clone' IBM PC company. From what I've read about it, it was a real mess and Ambra's products would've just been lost to history if not for the IBM connection.

Trouble with sound (may not affect all machines, some other folks with this DLC2 board say sound works)
https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.ibm.pc.h … /m/OKe0iUyfpT8J

Win 3.11 can crash on startup, I fixed it by changing the video card? But apparently it can be fixed with a different keyboard driver:
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.windows95/c/Q … /m/HgMqSsEnwTgJ

Lots of conversations about this PC on newsgroup archives
https://groups.google.com/search/conversation … lue%20lightning

To access the BIOS on it, press Ctrl+Alt+S

Thank you so much, this is all extremely helpful. I will be posting more after I get the computer and have time to work with it.

That badge looks more like it was pulled of an original PC.

There were a number of these for sale mid 90s from "white box" clearance houses, debadged maybe, originally from PS/1 and Ambra lines.

At least this one looks like a Blue Lightning BL, not the later cyrix dx2 BL.

Well things have not gone well so far. The shipment from the seller in Scotland has been tied up in US Customs for the last month. I have given him until 10/31/24 to get it resolved or ask for a refund. I really wanted that system as was my desire for a full 32-bit Blue Lightning system. I hit the jackpot with a seller on eBay that had an Alaris Cougar motherboard. I grabbed that quick and at least I will have a 32-bit Blue Lightning system to play around with. If I am lucky, I will have 2.

The computer showed up two weeks ago with the box looking like it had gone through a war zone. All the cables on the inside and front cover plates had come off due to the shock of getting bounce around so hard. The case cover got bent and the power supply switch button on the power cable sheared off. There were several broken pieces. Luckily the power supply was standard and I was able to replace it. I was able to straighten out the case cover enough to get it slide on again. After doing that, plugging the cables back in and re-seating the motherboard video card, I was able to get it to come back to life again. It's a miracle it even works at all!

Here are some pictures of the box after being mishandled for 5 months by UPS and US Customs!

jasa1063 wrote on 2025-03-10, 00:03:

Here are some pictures of the box after being mishandled for 5 months by UPS and US Customs!

Wow, thank goodness it survived! It looks like it bounced around multiple warehouses for a few months
Great news that it's still working in spite of all that. And to its credit although I bet the standoffs are damaged, you're fortunate that the front panel still all looks good with no obvious cracks? Standoffs can be fixed fairly easily and hopefully it'll look as good as the original auction pictures 😀

It'll be interesting to know whether sound works for your setup or not as well.

It seems like postal services just don't know what to do with LPX systems, I got an AST Bravo LC pizza box PC some years back and even though the seller packed it reasonably well, I soon found out that the AT power supply PCB was cracked.
And the Packard Bell 486 I got where the seller packed it in a box the same size with barely any padding, lots of broken plastic around the front and sides 😒

I have a replacement switch on order for the power supply as I want to keep the computer as original as possible.

Unfortunately the power supply appears to be toast. It won't work after I connected the replacement power switch. I also had to spend hours to continue to straightening the case cover and frame so I could slide the case cover on and off again relatively easily. At least for now it's working and I did installed 64MB ram upgrade. There is no L2 cache on the motherboard, so I am going to have to order some SRAM to get that up to spec.

I was able to find 8 32K SRAM chips and get them installed, but I have been unable to get the motherboard to recognize them. I tested them all in my Retro Chip Tester Pro and all tested good. I will have to circle back to that later. I did install a Sound Blaster 16 Value sound card. There is definitely issues with DMA playback. Some games do work and others do not like. Prince of Persia and Wolf3D are just fine, Duke Nuke3D and Epic Pinball do not work. Sort of a mixed bag. I was able to increase the FSB to 33MHz and so far the Blue Lightning chip is stable @66MHz. I used a XTIDE BIOS for large hard drive support and that is working just fine with a 2GB Compact Flash card. Lastly I install a 3Com 3C509B network card. That works just fine with MTCP.

My IBM PS/1 motherboard was manufactured in UK too.
It has an intel 486-33 CPU.
I put an IBM Blue lighting CPU in it once and the IBM Bios recognized the CPU as a Cyrix 486dx66

Well as to the SRAM cache, like an idiot I missed the Tag RAM socket, which is not next to the regular SRAM sockets. I got the BIOS to recognize the SRAM, but the system just locks up trying to boot. I tried at both 25&33MHz and got the same result. I am going to have pull all the SRAM chips again and make I don't have any bent pins.

A bent pin it was and now the 256K cache is working, but now another problem. The onboard video card has a fault with the memory, so I took it out. It's a Cirrus Logic 5428. I have a Cirrus Logic 5429 2MB card on hand and I did a replacement with this VLB video card. Now at last this computer is 100% working!

As one last bit of fun, I threw in an Intel 486DX4/100 Overdrive CPU. It works perfectly and gives a huge performance boost. Since I already have 2 Blue Lightning systems, I am going to run it with the Overdrive CPU for now.

Your machine, your rules, but 🙁

Though running it for a bit on overkill CPU does let you see easier where any bottlenecks are that would limit the blue lightning.

BitWrangler wrote on 2025-03-16, 16:25:

Your machine, your rules, but 🙁

Though running it for a bit on overkill CPU does let you see easier where any bottlenecks are that would limit the blue lightning.

I have both an Alaris Leopard & Alaris Cougar Blue Lightning motherboards up and running, so the Intel Overdrive CPU is not really a big deal in this one Blue Lightning system. The main thing I don't like about this motherboard is the lack of math co-processor socket. I have a lot of software that use a FPU. That was my main reason for going with the Overdrive CPU. I could run Q87, but that is about 10 times too slow for what I need.

I did some testing with Q87 and it is fast enough for what I need to do, so I pulled the Intel 486DX/100 Overdrive chip. I will be putting that into another computer. Going with the original IBM Blue Lightning CPU is much cooler anyway:)

I am happy to say I have solved all of my sound card issues by using a PicoGUS. Epic Pinball, Doom, Fast Doom and Duke3D all work in Gravis Ultrasound mode with no issues. I should have thought to try this earlier, but at least for right now all my games are working. Windows 3.11 works just fine using the bundled Sound Blaster 1.5 driver too. This computer has been a huge challenge given it was damaged in shipping and the sound card compatibility issue. I am just thrilled in the to have fully functional Blue Lightning system with such an interesting history. Here are the final specs as I did make quite a few changes overall:

IBM Blue Lightning 486BL@66MHz (It was originally running @50MHz, but it overclocks with no issues)
256K L2 Cache (It originally did not have any L2 cache)
64MB - 4x16MB 72-Pin FPM SIMM 60ns memory (It originally had one 4MB 72-Pin SIMM)
2GB Compact Flash card running MS-DOS 6.22 using a Compact Flash to IDE adapter
Lo-tech XTIDE adapter (Only using the BIOS for large hard drive support)
DIamond Stealth 32 2MB (ET4000/W32P Rev A) video card
PicoGUS sound card w/v2.2.0 firmware and DreamBlaster S2 Wavetable board
Gameport adapter
3Com Etherlink III 3C509B Ethernet adapter

Included are a few pictures to show the final results.