My 486 lacks L2 cache and I think it's a bit overrated anyway. It's certainly not terrible without it.

Yeah I think this is true. When I had the M919 it still performed pretty well without the L2 cache. On my 386 I doubled the cache from 128kb to 256kb and didn't notice any difference- even 3dbench didn't score any higher.

Of course, killing the L2 cache on a 386 makes a noticeable difference to performance but I think the onboard L1 cache on the 486 CPU goes a long way to bridging this gap so L2 cache is not as critical.

Alphakilo470 wrote:

BTW, @retro,
If you can, take a look at your PCChips m919. I just noticed that on mine, there's no visible leads coming from the outer-most pins on the CPU socket and that there's visible metal in all but the outer-most pin holes. While I did get mine to post with the Pentium Overdrive chip which uses those pins a 486 would leave empty, it makes me think an Overdrive would never be a good idea for that board.

I'm sorry, but ATM I can't find this mobo. I'll keep looking...!

Edit: Damn, I can't find it. I found some other 486 mobos, but not this one. Sorry about that. It'll turn up eventually however...

Alphakilo470 wrote:

BTW, @retro,
If you can, take a look at your PCChips m919. I just noticed that on mine, there's no visible leads coming from the outer-most pins on the CPU socket and that there's visible metal in all but the outer-most pin holes. While I did get mine to post with the Pentium Overdrive chip which uses those pins a 486 would leave empty, it makes me think an Overdrive would never be a good idea for that board.

I found the mobo, at last! I hope this pic is OK.

I can't see anything though. Can you take a pic with less light?
Can you see anything in the outer layer of pin holes?
Btw, does the back of the mobo have 3 or 4 rows of solder dots behind the socket?

On the m919 I have, there's a full four rows of solder dots to correspond with the four rows of pinholes on the socket. However, only the inner three rows have pins sticking through them. The outer most layer literally has nothing but the empty solder dots. Aside from that, there appears to be no wire traces coming from them either.

Unfortunately, the focus on my camera is not very good. However, I'm hoping this picture came in clear enough. If you view it in full size and look closely, you should be able to see what I'm talking about.

Unfortunately, I've caught some winter bug, and I'll have to abstain from the exciting world of retro hardware for a few days. I'll dig out that mobo again as soon as I can, and take a pic of the underside.

retro games 100 wrote:

Unfortunately, I've caught some winter bug, and I'll have to abstain from the exciting world of retro hardware for a few days. I'll dig out that mobo again as soon as I can, and take a pic of the underside.

Ah damn. Hope you get well soon 😉
(and no touchy me plz!!!1 😜 )

Tetrium wrote:

retro games 100 wrote:

Unfortunately, I've caught some winter bug, and I'll have to abstain from the exciting world of retro hardware for a few days. I'll dig out that mobo again as soon as I can, and take a pic of the underside.

Ah damn. Hope you get well soon 😉

Thanks a lot. I feel ok to browse vogons, but I've got a temp and pulse is high, and I feel like c--p, hehe.