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Name: ??? Revision: REV-2.1A CPU/FPU: Am386SX/SXL-33, 387 Chipset: CYCLONE RC2016A5 ICs: […]
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Name: ???
Revision: REV-2.1A
CPU/FPU: Am386SX/SXL-33, 387
Chipset: CYCLONE RC2016A5
ICs: HM6818P, LT38C41, RTM5501
Memory: SIMM-30 (4)
Exp. slots: ISA-16 (6)
Id string: 03/25/93-SARC_RC2016A-219v0000
BIOS: Award
ROM: CX109 340C3A62D0A (64k)
File: 3cyw001.bin
MD5: 7b67a0a365b2f0b57c85a7a963948f56

Source: http://chukaev.ru54.com/bios_en.htm

Board looks like a late model. Very compact, few components to sell as cheap as possible. Performance should be fine, they don't have cache, or cache in the chipset or optimised to work without cache. Eager to see what it can do when you get it 😀

aha yes "CYCLONE RC2016A5" It matches. Thanks for looking that up. Very similar to my model. I wonder if they released bios updates for my particular board.. And I believe the empty socket by the simm slots is for a 387 fpu. By chance, one rated for 33MHz might work at 40MHz.

Or does lacking an fpu on my board make much difference? I plan on using the system with DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11, so no demanding use with later software with Windows 95.

computergeek92 wrote:

Or does lacking an fpu on my board make much difference? I plan on using the system with DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11, so no demanding use with later software with Windows 95.

Nope. There is Falcon, a flight simulator, that is often being mentioned. And you could run Quake I guess 🤣

Your BIOS ID strings indicates that you actually have a "SARC" brand chipset. Cyclone is probably just some rebranding. As far as I can remember Sarc was actually part of PCchips.

But I shouldn't really have any of the problems that Pcchips boards were known for? Was model made before they went bad?

computergeek92 wrote:

But I shouldn't really have any of the problems that Pcchips boards were known for? Was model made before they went bad?

PC Chips are like other other brands, there are good boards and not so good boards and even good revisions and bad revisions. They always made cheap boards so their PCBs are not top quality.

PC Chips mostly got bad rep during the late 486 era with their fake cache chips and during the Socket-7 / Slot-1 era with "creative chipset rebranding". Generally their Intel chipset boards are OK when fitted with real cache and their VIA MVP3 Super Socket-7 board M577 is probably one of the least bad MVP3 boards.

From my early days of collecting PCs since 2011 I came across some bad quality PCchips boards as well as other brands.

Remember the Socket A ones? The worst motherboard I ever owned was the PCchips M810LR-H. If you think of any problem a board could have, that one had it all..

Also ECS was real bad too. The Socket A K7S5A was cruddy but not as bad as my PCchips. I think that's because I had a newer revision of the ECS board. Mine would occasionally lose bios settings with the cpu settings and it would not boot when the cmos battery was dead. I think this is because it was one of the first jumperless Socket A motherboards. My PCchips M810LR-H had the same problems. Lastly, the K7S5A was unstable with some older PCI cards, so much that it would not boot properly. Despite all this, the motherboard I used for my first ever brand new build-a-pc which was the Socket AM3 ECS A880GM-M6 gave me ZERO trouble in the few years that I owned it! 😲

So continuing on my list of bad motherboards, I owned a Socket 7 Amptron (PCchips) PM8700: a generally flaky board. The model before it named PM8600 was a complete disaster as per the Red Hill Tech site. My PM8700 was more reliable with the 60MHz fsb Pentiums, but still gave occasional audio glitches. It was a bit prone to lock ups when used with 66Mhz fsb Pentiums.

I also had an Acorp 5TX52. That Socket 7 board would only post if the ISA sound card was in the last ISA slot! It was unreliable with different ram or hardware, and for some reason (Though it could've been faulty) it would do the post memory test 2 or 3 times randomly. Eventually it failed to post with anything and I threw it out.

computergeek92 wrote:

From my early days of collecting PCs since 2011 I came across some bad quality PCchips boards as well as other brands. […]
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From my early days of collecting PCs since 2011 I came across some bad quality PCchips boards as well as other brands.

Remember the Socket A ones? The worst motherboard I ever owned was the PCchips M810LR-H.
Also ECS was real bad too. The Socket A K7S5A was cruddy too but not as bad as the PCchips. I think that's because I had a newer revision of the ECS board.

For the Socket 7 era I owned an Amptron (PCchips) PM8700, a generally flaky board. The model before it named PM8600 was a complete disaster as per the Red Hill Tech site.

I also had an Acorp 5TX52. That Socket 7 board will only post if the ISA sound card is in the last ISA slot! It was unreliable with different hardware, and for some reason (Though it could've been faulty) it would do the post memory test 2 or 3 times.

I seldom agree with the Red Hill Tech site.

I used to build cheap systems using the "VX Pro" motherboard back in the late 90s and I did not have any issues at all. Sure they had a rebranded VIA chipset with somewhat worse performance than the Intel chipsets but stability wise they seemed totally fine.

The "BX Pro" and "BXcel" Slot-1 boards on the other hand are total crap and not stable at any FSB speeds other than 66 MHz although they often were sold as 100 MHz FSB boards, I just got a second one! 😀

Skyscraper wrote:

The "BX Pro" and "BXcel" Slot-1 boards on the other hand are total crap and not stable at any FSB speeds other than 66 MHz although they were sold as 100 MHz FSB boards, I just got a second one! 😀

Why would you buy something so hideous? 🤣
If I collect old hardware I only keep the good stuff.

computergeek92 wrote:

Skyscraper wrote:

The "BX Pro" and "BXcel" Slot-1 boards on the other hand are total crap and not stable at any FSB speeds other than 66 MHz although they were sold as 100 MHz FSB boards, I just got a second one! 😀

Why would you buy something so hideous? 🤣
If I collect old hardware I only keep the good stuff.

AT form factor Slot-1 boards are not very common and paired with 500 or 533 MHz PPGA Celerons on slotkets they are suitable for building fast DOS systems. Their legendary crappiness is just icing on the cake!

The motherboard in question isn't a M396F by chance is it? I used to have a 40MHz one, and it was really not bad as far as 386SX boards go (would have been great with some cache though). I always wondered what it would have been like to desolder the CPU and stick on an SXLC-40.

I don't know the exact name, but on the Ebay listing it is named "CX Technology SXD"

A late-era 386SX 40 board with 4MB ram and the Cyclone chipset. That's all I know.

philscomputerlab wrote:

computergeek92 wrote:

Or does lacking an fpu on my board make much difference? I plan on using the system with DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11, so no demanding use with later software with Windows 95.

Nope. There is Falcon, a flight simulator, that is often being mentioned. And you could run Quake I guess 🤣

Just configured 386SX-33 with Cyrix 83S87-33 and run Quake demo for the "fun" of it - it gets exactly 1.0 FPS 🤣

🤣 That's pretty cool!

I remember running Quake on a slow machine, it would take forever to load, and at first I thought the machine was frozen.