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IBM PC340 -- an upgrade/restoration project

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First post, by einr

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Hey hey,

I've been having a lot of fun with my 486 the last month or so, playing games and calling BBSes and so forth, but since that system is pretty much functioning the way I want it, I'm going to start attending to another of my retro PC's:

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This is an IBM Personal Computer 340. It is one of the budget-friendlier versions of the PC300 line from the mid to late nineties. It comes in a pretty cramped, typically IBM desktop case.

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When I got it, it had been used in a carpentry workshop for various calculations and such and was really dirty. Lots of sawdust and dirty fingers, you can imagine... It only came with the system itself -- no peripherals. The monitor, speakers, keyboard and mouse I have scrounged up from various places. The keyboard and mouse are fitting enough, so I'm happy with those. I have a lead on a suitable IBM monitor that I might pick up -- though the Nokia is a really awesome monitor it's about five years too new to suit the system. I want it to feel as period correct and "IBM" as possible.

The specs currently are:

Custom IBM motherboard with PCI and ISA slots
145W Lite-On AT power supply
Intel Pentium 166 (I've upgraded this from the P133 it came with)
24 MB RAM (upgraded from 16)
0 K L2 cache (!)

On-board Cirrus Logic GD-5434 video, 1 MB VRAM

3,5" HD floppy drive
1 GB IDE hard drive #1 (this is the original drive)
1 GB IDE hard drive #2 (I put this in a bracket in the second 5,25" slot; it was recovered from a scrapped Mac Performa)
1 GB IDE CompactFlash card (put this in there for easy file transfer...)
Plextor PlexWriter 12/10/32S SCSI CD/RW (yes, this too is about five years too new for this system but I really wanted SCSI and a CD burner and this is what I had. I think it suits the system pretty well)

PCI SCSI adapter -- I forget the exact model number right now but I think it may be an Adaptec AVA-2906
ISA 3Com Etherlink III (3C509)
ISA Creative AWE64 Value

OS: Windows NT 3.51

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So I've had this machine for a while and it's been through a few configurations, but what I'm looking to do with it now is make it capable of Windows 95 gaming, but also I want it to be kind of a serious-business semi-workstation. SCSI, Windows NT, etc. Here's the stuff I plan to do:

  • Priority 1: There is NO L2 CACHE in the machine and I don't think there has ever been. I can't believe that IBM actually sold Pentium 133 systems with no L2 cache. There's "budget-friendly" and then there's just being cheap. This is just being cheap. So obviously, I want to install cache. For a system like this, I want 15 ns chips with a 12 ns TAG RAM, correct?
  • More RAM, too. I think this system will accept either EDO or FPM memory, but obviously only in identical pairs. I can't find much that will fit the bill currently. I want a minimum of 32 MB in this, preferably 48 or even 64.
  • The floppy drive isn't working right; it refuses to eject the disks. You gotta pry them out with something like a pincer. Fix this or swap it out for a working one.
  • More suitable monitor, maybe.
  • If I'm going to use this for gaming then the Cirrus chip won't do much good, especially not with just 1 MB of RAM. Find a suitable PCI video card with at least 2 MB and install it. Something like an S3 ViRGE maybe. I used to have a Voodoo Banshee in this but I didn't like it. It's going to be really tricky to fit two PCI cards, two ISA cards and the CF adapter in this machine... I think I can do it with mild violence and some cable management.
  • Install Windows 95 on the second HD and set up dual boot. Then, install OS/2 Warp (not sure if 3.x or 4.x yet) on the CompactFlash card and set up TRIPLE boot! I want this to be not only a gaming machine but kind of an operating system playground. I already have NT 3.51 on it... Later I kind of want to see if I can get OpenSTEP running and maybe some other unusual systems.
  • There is a plastic bezel thing missing around the floppy drive. This bothers me a bit. If I ever find a donor system to use for parts or someone who has a bezel lying around I will definitely replace that.
  • Not really important, but if I come across one, maybe install a different SCSI CD writer that is more period correct.
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Okay, so that's it for now -- I know there's no good pictures of the inside but the case is so cramped and annoying to work on that I'm absolutely not pulling anything apart unless I have to -- that is, until I get my cache chips.

I'm going to use this thread to post updates on this project as it happens 😀 Cheers for reading!

Reply 1 of 6, by buckeye

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That's a "primo" 486 setup you got there. Been looking for something similar on ebay and such but they ask for a lot of "coin" - plus most of them look like they've been taken to the woodshed.

Asus P5N-E Intel Core 2 Duo 3.33ghz. 4GB DDR2 Geforce 470 1GB SB X-Fi Titanium 650W XP SP3
Intel SE440BX P3 450 256MB 80GB SSD Asus V7700 GF2 64mb SB 32pnp 350W 98SE
MSI x570 Gaming Pro Carbon Ryzen 3700x 32GB DDR4 Zotac RTX 3070 8GB WD Black 1TB 850W

Reply 2 of 6, by JidaiGeki

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Nice setup, old IBMs are pretty well built, even if they don't have the most exciting specs. I've got a PC 330 which is also missing its plastic sliding cover ... irritating isn't it!

Anyway, here's the IBM guide to withdrawn desktops from '94-'00, your PC340 should be on about p13-14. It should help figure out what you need.

http://www.lenovo.com/psref/pdf/dwbook.pdf

Reply 3 of 6, by clueless1

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The layout looks so much like my Packard Bell!
Souped up Packard Bell
BTW, my system has no L2 either, not even the ability to add it. It does not hurt performance much at all though.
Beautiful system, congrats!

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 4 of 6, by kanecvr

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...I'm not sure your system is fast enough to warrant a virge card (as in there won't really be much of a difference using a faster card). As for video memory, the only thing an extra 1mb of ram will give you is higher resolution support, not more speed. The 5435 performs somewhere along the lines of the Trio64 anyway, and it's a very compatible card for dos games, so I'd recommend you keep it. There usually is a way to upgrade the video memory on these IBM machines by adding two chips to on the motherboard in rectangular brown sockets (usually somewhere near the video chip).

Reply 5 of 6, by chinny22

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I like this "pizza box" size cases. Not much room to expand but I find the dimensions pleasing to the eye for some reason.

I got a Virge in my 486 (no onboard video) my thinking was I can play with S3D on one of my faster PC's for a bit first, but as kanecvr said it offers no real benefit over a trio in my 486 and don't have any other pci cards to use. I can see how the extra ram would be nice as your playing with different gui's though and gaming doesn't seem t be your main focus.

NT3.51 was a interesting choice, Our family 486/66 got NT4 when it was downgraded to family typewriter, slow bootup, but was quite well behaved once loaded up, moreso then 95 anyway.

I'd scrap the floppy and get a Gotek, installing OS's is so much faster, simply due to the better reliability and changing disk is as simple as a button press. (I do miss the sound though)

Reply 6 of 6, by einr

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I'm afraid maybe my opening paragraph in the OP was confusing -- this system is not a 486, it's a Pentium 166. I'm referring to another system when I'm talking about my 486 😀

JidaiGeki wrote:

Anyway, here's the IBM guide to withdrawn desktops from '94-'00, your PC340 should be on about p13-14. It should help figure out what you need.

Thanks, man. I know what part number I'm looking for but it looks like it's impossible to find. One day, maybe...

kanecvr wrote:

...I'm not sure your system is fast enough to warrant a virge card (as in there won't really be much of a difference using a faster card). As for video memory, the only thing an extra 1mb of ram will give you is higher resolution support, not more speed. The 5435 performs somewhere along the lines of the Trio64 anyway, and it's a very compatible card for dos games, so I'd recommend you keep it. There usually is a way to upgrade the video memory on these IBM machines by adding two chips to on the motherboard in rectangular brown sockets (usually somewhere near the video chip).

The games this machine will be running are primarily Windows 95 games, of which I have several that take advantage of 3D acceleration (Incoming) and/or require 2 MB VRAM (Anno 1602) while still running fine on a P166. Also, to drive this monitor properly I need some decent resolutions in Windows. 2 MB would let me run 1152x864x16 which is okay.

For DOS games I have my DX4/100 which runs almost all DOS games I care about (that, too, has 2 MB VRAM just because I had spare chips -- in that case, though, I acknowledge that it's entirely unnecessary for the most part)

So that's why I think a first-generation 3D accelerator with 2 MB would be useful for this system. 😀

chinny22 wrote:

I like this "pizza box" size cases. Not much room to expand but I find the dimensions pleasing to the eye for some reason.

Yeah, it's a pretty box, and I love the moderne (Didot/Bodoni?) typeface on the "Personal Computer 340". So 90's classy!

chinny22 wrote:

NT3.51 was a interesting choice, Our family 486/66 got NT4 when it was downgraded to family typewriter, slow bootup, but was quite well behaved once loaded up, moreso then 95 anyway.

I love playing with old operating systems, and some of them still do not virtualize well in 2016 so real hardware is the only option for an authentic experience. When this system is done I'd like it to quint-boot Windows 95, NT 3.51, BeOS, OS/2 Warp and OpenSTEP. 😀

I find NT 3.51 cool because of the coginitive dissonance of a rock-solid, 32 bit operating system capable of long filenames, networking, running Windows 95 software, real multitasking, SMP etc... but with the Windows 3.1 interface 😲

chinny22 wrote:

I'd scrap the floppy and get a Gotek, installing OS's is so much faster, simply due to the better reliability and changing disk is as simple as a button press. (I do miss the sound though)

Yeah, Goteks are great, no doubt... but... I'm all about authenticity, so I do want that real floppy drive 😀 The CD burner, CompactFlash drive and Ethernet card already solves most of my convenience issues.

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