Intel486dx33 wrote:

It's running stable now. and MP3's play better with WinAMP v2.02 and v2.05.

Which ingredients were required to make it stable playing mp3s?

I think just using an older version of Winamp that supports the 486 CPU.

Why do you "think" that is all it took? Can a 133MHz Am5x86 with Winamp v2.05 play mp3's with the scrolling song name and spectrum display?

I think this is going to be the best this build can do without a bios update.
It’s not great but it works better than before.
Everything works, Networking, Internet and MP3 playback.
This computer would definitely run better with WinNT351.
I think this CPU was build for WinNT351 and NOT Win95 as stated on the CPU.

I used an Am5x86-133 in 1997 with Win95a and didn't find it slow. I didn't use it for 3D gaming. And it seems like mp3s didn't become popular until 1998.

I think I am going to give up on WIn95 and go with A dual boot DOS/WIn3.11 for Workgroups with TCP/IP 32 patch for networking. The computer performs fine in DOS I already benchmarked it and it run good.

How about DOS/Win NT 3.51? That's a unique setup.

feipoa wrote:

How about DOS/Win NT 3.51? That's a unique setup.

How would I do that ? Two partitions ? Or install DOS first in one partition and then WinNT351 I same partition ?

Well, I have only done DOS + NT4, but NT 3.51 looks like it has a similar boot loader. So you can try installing DOS onto a 2 GB partition, then make another 2 GB primary partition and try to install NT 3.51 on that. If the NT 3.51 installer is anything like the NT4 installer, it should create a boot option for your DOS partition and your NT 3.51 partition.

feipoa wrote:

I used an Am5x86-133 in 1997 with Win95a and didn't find it slow. I didn't use it for 3D gaming. And it seems like mp3s didn't become popular until 1998.

Your right. It works fine with Win95 , That CF card really makes the difference.
I just had problems playing MP3 files.
But it works okay for MP3 now. Just had to change some default settings to streamline it.

I think I will just leave it alone and call it done.
For a 5x86 it’s pretty fast and it’s very stable. No lockup’s or crashes.

Are you able to play mp3's with the "autoscroll" filename at 133 MHz?

Intel486dx33 wrote:

I think this going to be the best this build can do without a bios update. It’s not great but it works better than before. Every […]
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I think this going to be the best this build can do without a bios update.
It’s not great but it works better than before.
Everything works, Networking, Internet and MP3 playback.
This computer would definitely run better with WinNT351.
I think this CPU was build for WinNT351 and NOT Win95 as stated on the CPU.

Oh, you have enabled the FFT bars (fast fourier transformation). That draws CPU power too.

Disruptor wrote:

Oh, you have enabled the FFT bars (fast fourier transformation). That draws CPU power too.

That is the same as the spectrum analyser that I referred to previously. The user did not comment on the status of the spectrum analyser or autoscroll filename.

feipoa wrote:

Disruptor wrote:

Oh, you have enabled the FFT bars (fast fourier transformation). That draws CPU power too.

That is the same as the spectrum analyser that I referred to previously. The user did not comment on the status of the spectrum analyser or autoscroll filename.

Yes, I went back and disabled everything in WinAmp that I did not need.
MP3's play a little better now.
I will just have to stick with Music CDROM's which play great on this computer.
If I want to stream music from the internet, I can hookup a bluetooth adapter to the input of the sound card and stream music from my iPad.
Or I can stream MP3's from my NAS.

feipoa wrote:

I used an Am5x86-133 in 1997 with Win95a and didn't find it slow. I didn't use it for 3D gaming. And it seems like mp3s didn't become popular until 1998.

Interestingly, I recall using mp3's before that. I remember still playing mp3's on my brother's 486DX4-100 around 1996 using WinPlay3 (Winamp was only released in 1997) but, then you couldn't do much else on Windows, since it really used up quite a bit of CPU power.
However, I do agree that widespread distribution probably only started around 1998 with the launch of the popular file sharing web sites.

Switching the jumpers for 133mhz. did not make this computer perform any better.
I think I need the bios update for it to run better but I do not have an eprom or eprom programmer so that will have to wait.
Currenntly at 160mhz Win95 works fine. I only had problems playing MP3 files but they play acceptable now.

feipoa wrote:

In general, I was rather unimpressed with the PC Chips M918. It might be of benefit to try some other motherboard's BIOS on this board, provided it is the same chipset. On my list is to try the Gigabyte GA-5486AL BIOS on the M918 in hope for some speed benefit.

I think you are right. This guy has a Gigabyte 486 bios on and ALI chipset motherboard and is getting good performance. Where can I get Gigabyte bios rom ?

Here is v1.06 and v1.07. I think the ROM without the version is 1.07, with me changing some default values.

feipoa wrote:

Here is v1.06 and v1.07. I think the ROM without the version is 1.07, with me changing some default values.

Do you happen to know what eprom chip I can use for this ROM file.
A re-flashable eprom chip ?

I have just recently received that exact same motherboard. I don't suppose you have a link to a manual handy? Though I bought PCs from the 386sx25 period onwards, I didn't start building my own PCS until about the Pentium 2? 3? 4? era. So I am used to motherboard manuals to tell me where to plug all the LED and power connections to. I presume they go somewhere between JP19 and JP31, but I am not sure which would be which. Any help would be appreciated. 😀