For today it is scheduled, a test with the Chicony iDX4-100 PC, I found a 4 cm fan 🌬, which I will connect directly to the molex of the drives, unfortunately in this type of motherboards, there is no socket for the 3 PIN FAN connector, or 2 PIN, these appeared if I'm not mistaken on the S.7, in short, a few years after the 93-94, of course anyway at a certain point, the higher CPU speed, made the PCs louder because the fan was essential for operation without any problem, but initially the systems for hooking the Heat sink, they were not the best, some could easily disengage, because in fact there were four clips, and they had to be hooked directly to the CPU, many then did not use the thermal paste.

For the test I will use a game like Duke3D, currently I have loaded the drivers of the SB Vibra16XV, in DOS everything is fine maybe I should just turn up the volume a little, but I can no longer access Windows 3.1, I will have to try to understand if there is a problem, sometimes I remember that you had to do several tests to be able to make the audio work on Windows 3.1, from this point of view the subsequent Windows work better, and indeed for this kind of sound cards, the drivers are already included, and you don't have to load any floppy.

Among the DOS driver files that I installed, there should be a configuration and test program, which could be very useful, first I should see the current configuration, and this could be useful, in case there is a conflict with something else, in that case it would explain why Windows no longer works.

I'll try the same audio drivers on the PCCHIPS M912, although I don't remember if the audio already works, and therefore in that case it wouldn't be necessary to load them, because initially I didn't connect the speaker jack, but once I'm done with the file transfers, I'm trying to make all the installed HW work better, unfortunately for some things, since it's a dated HW, in case of operating problems, you have to try another one that is definitely working, and if the result is a problem with the card (audio, video, etc...), getting the spare parts today, it would be very expensive, some cards like the video ones, can Be very difficult to find for sale.

Here we are again, this morning I connected the fan on the DX4-100 (MB Chicony), I put a thin layer of silver thermal paste, and I started the PC, so far nothing strange, then I started a short Game session with Duke3D, initially I let it run in demo mode, then I started playing a couple of levels, in short I wanted the CPU to heat up a little, and for the moment I haven't seen any locking, everything has always been smooth as oil (!?).

Yes, because in case of problems, you need to understand what causes them, it's not that maybe, solved the thermal problem of heat disposal (CPU), other problems occur due to something else, however usually if we solve the problem that causes the PC to crash, this will work well again.

So now I can say that in the mid-90s, some problems that manifested themselves were not due to a HW defect, but to poor ventilation, or to the assembly of the heat sink without thermal paste, there were even those who put labels 🏷 on the CPUs, I've seen this done even on P4s, however today it is quite easy to remedy it, if we don't find heat sinks suitable for 486 CPUs, you can adapt those of the Chipsets, which are slightly smaller, even if much higher and more efficient, and maybe it may not be necessary to connect a fan.

Currently, the Chicony PC has two SIMM 72 PIN of 8 MB each, in total there are 16 MB, at this point I am considering whether to add another 16 MB, to have a total of 32 MB (8 MB X 4), in this way I can say that the PC would be expanded enough, not at most but not so far, the maximum would be CPU S.3 133 MHz and 64-128 MB RAM, but I don't know I prefer to use the S.3 133 MHz on a 486 PCI, which together with a VGA PCI, and a lot of RAM, could be more suitable for Windows 98SE.

But that will be the idea, which is possible to realize, only after running the only 486 PCI motherboard I have, initially I will start with an AMD 486DX4-100 CPU, it would be slightly slower than the iDX4-100, because it has a cache of 16 KB (instead of the usual 8 KB).

Later I have the possibility to upgrade, but a lot depends on how the PCI works, some go at the same frequency as the FSB, others instead go to half frequency, so it can happen that at FSB 40 MHz, the PCI goes to 40 or only 20 MHz, the first a little high for some video cards, the second too low, and could slow down the PC a lot.

Still on the subject of 486, I performed some tests on the Chicony with iDX4-100 (it's no longer called 486), I tried Windows 3.1, well it works but without audio, so I think it's necessary to load the drivers directly from Windows, it's a job that was done via floppy, but in Windows there are already some audio drivers, like Sound Blaster or other similar tabs, so I have the doubt that it's enough to select one of those, rather than using a floppy with the drivers.

The ISA Audio card is SB 16 Vibra, I think it is the last version produced for ISA, if I'm not mistaken later we switched to SB 16 PCI, here clearly you are obliged to use ISA cards, because the MB is ISA-VLB, I point out that in DOS the audio works, so unless there are strange problems, it should also work in Windows 3.1.

I haven't closed the PC yet, because I upgraded to the RAM, I had two RAMs of 8 MB each (16 MB total), I added two more of 8 MB, now in total I have 32 MB, I already know that someone might think, that now you could also update Windows, moving from 3.1 to 95, but for the moment I would like to keep Windows 3.1, the disk is just over 500 MB, I wouldn't want to fill it, I prefer to keep a lot of free space, of course if I wanted I could use the program that doubles the disk capacity, in the past I used it, But in reality it depends a lot on the files, some can be compressed a lot, but if most of the files are compressed only a little, the doubling of capacity is not actually achieved.

So for the moment I would say that, this PC solved the problem of audio drivers, can be considered as a definitive PC, that is, there is no need to add anything else, but maybe at the time it had an ISA LAN (10M), here is this could add, but overall it has an abundant amount of RAM, which a part can be used as a RAM drive, and could speed up the execution of DOS programs, since the hard drive is quite dated, and even if maybe at that time it could be relatively fast, so using the RAM DISK, the slowdown due to reading and writing is eliminated .

I closed the Chicony PC with iDX4-100, for now I don't have to do anything else inside, I just have to activate the sound from Windows 3.1, and this is done without having to open the PC.

I go back for a moment to the PCCHIPS M912, I saw on the MB that the version is 1.7, here if you wanted we would have to remove the fake cache, the fake chips should be removed one by one, once all the holes are free you can proceed to solder the sockets, while waiting to get working L2 cache chips, but I also imagine the TAG 🏷 chip, which I imagine is also the fake one.

In this PC I have 20 MB of RAM and a 5V IT'S 486DX2-66, I have to check if there is the possibility of using CPUs with lower voltages (from 3V to 4V), in that case I could switch to FSB 40, to change CPU with DX2-80 or a DX4-120, currently it is a little slowed down, the L2 cache of 256 KB that you read on the second boot screen, is a bluff of the BIOS, it makes you believe that there is but it is not so.

Another upgrade I will do is to change a 72 PIN RAM, in total it is 20 MB, and it should be a 4 MB and the other 16 MB, I was thinking of changing the 4 MB one with a 16 MB, to get a total of 32 MB, in this motherboard there are four sockets for SIMM 30 PIN, but for me it is useless to put them when there are more 72 PIN sockets, maybe they could try, but given the rarity of the 4 MB modules (or more), I really don't think I'll use them here, assuming I have them.

I change the motherboard, I try the MB PINE PT-2068.1 with i486SX-25@33, I change the CPU with the 486DX2-66 (blue heat sink), unfortunately despite some attempts it does not work, returning to the SX25 instead it works.

I try a second DX2-66 (this time AMD), sometimes it gives some starting signs, shows a couple of codes, but nothing on the video, so I think the problem is the socket, I have to make a few more attempts with other 5V CPUs, all 486DX2-66, I hope at least one can work, I wouldn't be thrilled if the only one that works is the 486SX.

There is another 486DX2-66 waiting for a check, it is a ZIDA 4DVP with 128 KB L2 cache not working, years ago it worked and I had expanded it to 256 KB, then it didn't work anymore, I don't know if those L2 cache chips work, I don't have a tool for verification, but I think I've tried others that are definitely working, and I had the same problem, so we'll have to understand if there's a fault nearby.