For me, having, both, 386 and 486 sockets on the same board kills the 386 experience. I don't even want to see the solder pads for a 486 socket on my 386 board.

Obviously it would be quite silly to use something like 486HPi on a motherboard that already had a 486 socket.

feipoa wrote:

Does anyone know of L1 cache enabling software for Intel/Cyrix/AMD DX2/4 CPUs? All I could think of at the time was SetMul.exe. I ran setmul.exe L1E. The program spit out a pretty nasty error, but according the CHKCPU and CACHECHK, the L1 cache is enabled. I confirmed L1 was working by running varous benchmarks.

Please don't use V1.2A (alpha) of SetMul anymore. Before there was an announcement on the SetMul page that there was something wrong with v1.2A, but I removed that warning since I figured everyone had updated by now. v1.2 and v1.21 are good.

Haven't read your whole project description yet, but so far it is a very interesting read.

I must have missed that announcement. Before Marvin was split into sub categories, the threads moved off the start page at a rapid rate.

gerwin, will version 1.21 remove that error when enabling the cache on 486 CPUs?

feipoa wrote:

http://www.vogons.org/download/file.php?id=32748 […]
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This is quite spectacularly insane, and truly is in a league of it's own.

Interesting to see that something like this exists and is possible, but really... there is no competition against any 386 upgrade / equivalent. It's almost like this is league 1 whereas any 386 upgrade and Blue Lightning are all in League 2.

On vcfed.org, there is a user that did the same 5x86 upgrade, only he upgraded an original IBM PC/XT using an intel above board. Now that's hardcore.

In my opinion, the Transcomputer module with the Am5x86-160 is so overkill that it starts to loose some interest. I'm working on something now which will hopefully bridge that gap.

I ordered a 25 mm x 25 mm fan for the IBM BL3 and a 30 mm x 30 mm fan for that Evergreen Am5x86-133 upgrade module. I don't understand why Evergreen sold that module with such a small heatsink and no fan. It gets damn hot. For the BL3, it doesn't seem to get hot at 50 MHz, but I'm running it at 100 MHz, so figured it might need a fan?

Being frustrated with how to realise heatsink options for these hot SXL2 and DRx2 chips, I modified a 486 clip-on style heatsink/fan to clip onto a 386 chip. Then added a 30 mm x 30 mm fan. The glue is JB Weld. I love that stuff.

Was the 5V SXL2-50 intended to be used without a heatsink? It gets quite hot.

Late to the party as always...

Finally, got around to testing her... and, she works on all the 386 motherboards that i've tried.

Will look to have a play with her over the weekend if i've time, and possible take some benchmarks... for the fun of it.

Hulk Smash!

Pretty large footprint on that thing. Does it work with an Am5x86-133/160?

I am pretty sure I remember some people on vcfed upgrading this module with a 5x86.

feipoa wrote:

Pretty large footprint on that thing. Does it work with an Am5x86-133/160?

If you think that's BIG, you should see the Blue Lightning (DLC2) adaptor I have, It also works on the 386 boards I've tested: -

Have not yet tried Am5x86-133/160, will check.

feipoa wrote:

Does it work with an Am5x86-133/160?

It does... can set clock multiplier to x2, x3, and x4... ran it on one of the Forex boards I have kickin around...

It's a nifty wee thing! Do you know if it can be used with IBM's 5x86C? I have one of those with a blue heatsink, but have misplaced the 5v - 3.3v step-down adaptor.

These upgrade modules seems awesome! 🙄

Did you try booting into Windows 3.1 with the L1 cache enabled?

feipoa wrote:

Did you try booting into Windows 3.1 with the L1 cache enabled?

No, just DOS & Win95. Why, what happens in Win 3.1?

EDIT: -

Ah ok, I went back and saw what you did. More for real life function testing.

This I will do... I may also run additional benchmarks... DOOM/cachechk etc

I should probably mention that the 386 Forex motherboard I used has options in the bios to enable/disable both internal and external cache... it is a pure 386 board too!

Also in speedsys... I noticed a small drop down in transfer speed just before it switched from L1 16K to L2 256K. Did you not say you were experiencing spiking or something similar?

In your motherboard photo, only 128kb is installed, but in the speedsys capture it reports 256kb. Do tbe older forex boards support 256kb cache?

Also, the L2 cache speed in the image is barely faster than main memory.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

In your motherboard photo, only 128kb is installed, but in the capture it reports 256kb. Do tbe older forex boards support 256kb cache?

Also, the L2 cache speed in the image is barely faster than main memory.

Good point, and yes, I will look to sort this next time I use the board.

It's a new board for me having received it in the last few months. Apart from powering it up when I bought it, this is the first i've played with it. It does support 256kb... that is what the jumpers are set to... so I guess only 128Kb was left in. An oversight, I really only wanted to test the CPU module.

Gives reason to play more with 😀

386_junkie wrote:

No, just DOS & Win95. Why, what happens in Win 3.1? EDIT: - Ah ok, I went back and saw what you did. More for real life function […]
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feipoa wrote:

Did you try booting into Windows 3.1 with the L1 cache enabled?

No, just DOS & Win95. Why, what happens in Win 3.1?
EDIT: -
Ah ok, I went back and saw what you did. More for real life function testing.
This I will do... I may also run additional benchmarks... DOOM/cachechk etc

It would be of interest to see how it stacks up against the benchmarks I posted and if you can get sound working properly under windows. I find another good test for system compatibility is to get sound, SCSI, and ethernet all working together.