Reply 40 of 46, by zapbuzz
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jasa1063 wrote on 2021-07-04, 15:06:I wanted to have a 386SX/40 in my retro PC collection, so I put together a system with the following specs: […]
I wanted to have a 386SX/40 in my retro PC collection, so I put together a system with the following specs:
TD70AN motherboard
AMD 386SX/40 CPU
IIT 387SX/40 Math Coprocessor
4MB memory 60ns (4 x 1MB 30-pin SIMMs)
MicroLabs Ultimate TrueColor ET4000AX 1MB ISA video card
Goldstar Prime2c multi I/O card
Sound Blaster 16 CT4170 sound card
3Com Etherlink III 3C509B Ethernet card
CompactFlash to IDE adapter with 2GB CompactFlash Card
ISA ROM card with XTIDE universal BIOS for disk handlingEverything was working fine except the system time would not update when powered off. It has a new barrel battery, so I was bit stumped. I found pictures of the same motherboard online and I noticed they all had the two middle pins of the 4-pin connected labeled CN7/EXT BAT jumpered. When I jumpered those two pins it is now keeps time just fine. There is no cache on this motherboard so the performance is solely based on the speed of the memory and the latency. I have this tweaked to the fastest settings the BIOS allowed. Here are a few benchmarks:
Norton SI 8.0: 29.2
3DBench 1.0: 10.7
Topbench 0.40a
Score: 65
Memory: 182
Effect addressing: 111
Opcode exercise: 102
Vid adapter speed : 326
3DGame opcode exercise: 84The pictures are from the seller I bought the board from on eBay. Overall I am very happy with this build.
I had something simular back in 1998 but it had a intel 386 plastic processor and a removable chip for 640kb ram. These were awesome because of the 1 chip memry meant less latency due to less traveling data i/o.