I've been itching to build a Socket 7 machine like the one I had when I graduated college, but I couldn't pass on this 486 for $10 (also picked up an early 80's Compaq Portable for $10, couldn't pass that up either!) This 486 is from 1994. My parents bought a 486SX during my senior year of high school a year earlier, so this was a pretty cool blast from the past. This has a 50 MHz processor, 4MB of RAM, 1MB of VRAM, 420MB HD, CD-ROM, and even a 9.6K modem in case I really want to do some vintage Internet surfing.

Posts fine, but won't load DOS or Windows from the hard drive because the CMOS battery's had it. And, the fun little guy appears to be soldered onto the pins. Is my only option to cut and try to solder a similar voltage battery in its place, or is there an alternate method available?

This thing is absolutely clean inside, no dust anywhere. Everything seems to be there, except I noticed there were no chips installed for SRAM, tag RAM, or DRAM slots; were these only installed for DX models?