VOGONS


First post, by JaNoZ

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Hi guys i revived this board hopefully from the dead after cleaning and rewiring some broken traces due to battery rot.
It is a Dataexpert Expertboard 4045 vesa local bus with a winbond 83c491 supposedly.

I have to build a 486 for someone, and am being questioning which one to sell.
I have vlb boards with sis471, umc498, opti495, ali14xx, via496 whatever.

I like to keep the best and fastest boards to myself of course.

Is the winbond 83c491 a good chipset? any experiences.
What is the winner VLB chipset in terms of performance?
Also putting in a S3 805P, what cpu should i stick in it? a DX33 or 40 or a DX2-66? and was thinking about ram 32MB?

There is no cache on the board as of right now, i could put some on but like to keep in my private stash for my other boards.
Is no cache going to make a real difference for a low speed 486?

Reply 1 of 7, by 386_junkie

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Hi,

Could I ask about your Opti495 board? I have two of these boards which i'm still trying to identify.

I can't comment on the DataExpert motherboard VLB functionality... but with an S3 graphics VLB chipset, you generally can't go wrong. For a CPU, compatibilty wise... anything that runs off a FSB multiple of 33Mhz would be your best bet... i.e. DX33 or a DX2-66... some VLB's don't work well above 33Mhz and depending on the graphics card, can reject FSB frequencies of 40Mhz and above.

32MB DRAM should be adequate for a 486... but god knows what access time will be like without any L2 cache, will the system will even start with no L2 cache? I have no experience of any system without L2 cache apart from some 286's. How much L1 cache is there?... if the system does start with no L2 cache (depending on how much L1 cache there is)... you may find memory access time to be pretty poor and you may be building in a bottleneck from the start. Even a small amount of L2 cache would be better than no L2 cache at all?

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Reply 2 of 7, by JaNoZ

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Is it possible to replace the old NICD battery place with a 3v button cell holder?

Or do i have to use the ext batt connection? what voltage of battery power do i need 3v 3.6v or more?

Thanks

Reply 6 of 7, by JaNoZ

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Sorry, my bad i thought it was 495, not so familiar with those opti chips, so it seems a 895 chipset.