That monitor must be huge! 21" ?

Yeah, it's a Dell UltraScan 21TE 21" monitor. Has a Mitsubishi Diamondtron tube and is pretty nice to look at though not nearly as nice to look at as a current model LCD. With the 8mb ATI Rage video card, I'm actually able to use Windows 3.1 at 1600x1200 though the monitor only does 60hz refresh at that resolution. I'm actually trying to get rid of that monitor but when it's not just a CRT but one that weighs over 70lbs, you can't even give it away.

Couple of cool systems there. Maybe this would be better suited in the System Specs subforum?

How do you find the Pentium Overdrive? I have one here but haven't got around to testing it. I've heard that you can get better performance from a 5x86 unless you are running FPU intensive apps like CAD or Quake.

As far as web browsing goes, check out Arachne, its a DOS based browser, I was using it on my 486DX2/66.

The PC CHIPS M919 is pretty legendary for all the wrong reasons 🤣 I used to have one and I think a couple of other people here do too. Mine had empty cache solder pads like yours and was generally unreliable, prone to crashing etc. If you search these forums for M919 you'll proably find a few discussions about it.

I also have a PC CHIPS M912 which lacks PCI but also has fake cache chips, it has 8 chips soldered to the board with large text reading 'WRITE BACK' on them and the board's cache configuration jumpers are soldered to 256kb. Running CACHECHK and SPEEDSYS confirms that the cache is non-existent.

There is a good discussion about the M919 on the Red Hill Guide as well as discussion on fake cache boards in general here

I think I have the Red Hill Guide memorized. It's a fun read. That's how I was able to figure out what motherboard that odd thing was.

The Gateway doesn't seem to be compatible with the 5x86 chip I have. I checked the voltage and multiplier settings along with a few oddball jumpers but it just won't POST. I also have an Intel DX4 100mhz chip that will run fine in the Gateway but the difference in integer operations vs. the OverDrive is moot in real use. People overlook that the Overdrive, aside from having a better FPU, also gives 32kb of L1 cache and a newer instruction set.

As for finding the Overdrive, it actually came with the Gateway. Previous owner must have paid good money for it back in the day.

Whenever I get around to rebuilding that noname system, I'll post any useful information I find (if I run diagnostic software that says I actually have cache, 🤣) but it looks like everything that needs to be known about the board is in the open. Maybe I'll just hang the board on my wall as a conversation piece and keep my eye out for another AT board.

I got 5 POD 83's now, one with some bend pins and all untested. I got them from different sources and they aren't particularly cheap to get. But I reckon those POD's won't get more common and will only go up in price.

I always liked the Gateway cases, especially that one. Very slick looking.

Welcome. I also have one of these PC Chips mobos, with the same PCB layout and revision number of 3.4. I talked about it here. I remember getting it to perform fairly well, by using EDO SIMMs, and maxing out the mobo's BIOS settings.

retro games 100 wrote:

I also have one of these PC Chips mobos

CRIKEY is there something you don't have 🤣

Let me know if you need a curator...

Hehe, I'm thinking of doing a youtube "spectacular", and grabbing a whole pile of this stuff, and shoving it all in front of a camera, and talk about it. I've got as far as making a youtube user name, retroGames1Hundred 😁 I've done nothing with it, so far. I'll have to do this sometime this year, when I unpack all of my junk to resort it all.

That would be awesome!

retro games 100 wrote:

Hehe, I'm thinking of doing a youtube "spectacular", and grabbing a whole pile of this stuff, and shoving it all in front of a camera, and talk about it. I've got as far as making a youtube user name, retroGames1Hundred 😁 I've done nothing with it, so far. I'll have to do this sometime this year, when I unpack all of my junk to resort it all.

I've been considering the same, except perhaps only put some photos instead of making a movie out of it.

Gah...I got soo many plans, they all spin around in my head like fruit in a blender AAAAHHH!!11

Heh, I actually got an idea. Search Egay (lol 😜 ) for overpriced items that you already have, add all these numbers and show off with how 'rich' you would be if you were able to sell all your stuff for those insane prices 😜

It'd be fun if we all took pictures of the obscure hardware we have. Pictured below is a Mitsubishi Amity VP tablet, an HP 95LX palmtop and a Palm Pilot Professional. BTW, under Windows 95 and Windows 98, handwriting recognition is horrible.

The Mitsubishi has a 133mhz 5x86, 48mb RAM, 1gb hard drive and Windows 98SE. The HP has an NEC V20 cpu, 512k RAM, MS-DOS 3.3 and some pretty decent built in apps.

I've already posted some pics of my hardware in the picture thread, but I could take a couple more.

Hey, how bout we create a thread where we can show off pictures of our hardware?
Anyone wanna start one? I got plenty of pics to add and I'm sure others can also 😉

Try Kega98 for Genesis emulation. For its use on 486s it's pretty fast. Other fast emulators that work well on the 486 include Loopynes (more compatible than Nesticle) and Zsnes (tho without sound - sound is the CPU killer there)

My 486 lacks L2 cache and I think it's a bit overrated anyway. It's certainly not terrible without it. Same M919 5x86 combo as yours. Forget about the COAST on that, it's just for looks (early computer ricing concepts are evident here).

The board layout is only slightly crap due to the processor socket placement - this'll obstruct some large ISA cards (say an awe32) and leave you to use the VLB slot for that instead which would sway some VLB fanboys over and away from this board. Fortunately a s3 Trio makes that problem 10x less worrysome 😀

A showoff thread for old stuff could be fun. Come to think of it, it'd take me all day to get a photo of all the obscure hardware I have; I'm too much of a packrat.

I might try Kega in the future when I rebuild the noname system. However, I plan to keep the Pentium ODP in the Gatewat and KGen98 runs my ROMs near perfect. Oddly enough, I noticed Kgen98 isn't even usable with a 486 chip installed; I tried swapping the 83mhz Pentium for the 100mhz 486DX4 for a minute.

Alphakilo470 wrote:

Oddly enough, I noticed Kgen98 isn't even usable with a 486 chip installed

That's the strangest thing ever since it works with my 486 no problem. Do you have some "PENTIUM ONLY EVER!" version of some sort? Kgen98 0.4b (kega was a typo btw) runs games with sound fine.

I think that's the version I have but now that you've questioned me, I do feel somewhat dumb as I totally forgot to change the quality settings. I have everything set to look as nice as possible. Next time I'm upstairs I'll give it a try again. Either way though, I think it's safe to say it at least favors the Pentium.

BTW, @retro,
If you can, take a look at your PCChips m919. I just noticed that on mine, there's no visible leads coming from the outer-most pins on the CPU socket and that there's visible metal in all but the outer-most pin holes. While I did get mine to post with the Pentium Overdrive chip which uses those pins a 486 would leave empty, it makes me think an Overdrive would never be a good idea for that board.

Alphakilo470 wrote:

A showoff thread for old stuff could be fun. Come to think of it, it'd take me all day to get a photo of all the obscure hardware I have; I'm too much of a packrat.

Vogons is full of packrats 😜

I think a thread with pics of obscure hardware (or at least hardware the owner deems worthwhile to post a picture of) along with a short story would make for a very nice and long read!

Alphakilo470 wrote:

BTW, @retro,
If you can, take a look at your PCChips m919. I just noticed that on mine, there's no visible leads coming from the outer-most pins on the CPU socket and that there's visible metal in all but the outer-most pin holes.

Now this is something I never knew!

Another way to save a few pennies on manufacturing costs I presume?

I know I have one PC-Chips Socket 3 board but dunno which board it is. All I know is that it has those funny looking black plastic things with "write back" on them soldered directly to the board and a black sticker on the chipset 😜