AOX/Kingston MicroMaster Processor Upgrade Card Part 2

[CamCraft1]

Can you review the dell optiplex i see in the corner.

[NJRoadfan]

I had a PS/2 Model 50Z with the AOX Micromaster 386 upgrade board (pre-Kingston, 386DX 20Mhz I think). Certainly made the machine more usable giving it 8MB of RAM and the ability to run Windows 3.1 in 386 Enhanced mode. Looks like your card was configured to disable onboard memory, a wise choice because it slows down the system a lot to use planer RAM.

[uxwbill]

@NJRoadfan I'm running that same card in a PS/2 Model 50 (no Z). It's definitely an improvement, though I had a lot of trouble finding the option disk for that older card. Luckily, someone had it squirreled away.

It's been my experience that running with the planar memory enabled, especially in these machines with a 16/24 bit bus causes lockups and odd behavior after a while, in addition to the performance penalty. So I just leave it off.

[NJRoadfan]

@uxwbill The lack of the MMSETUP program was a problem for me as well, no issues finding the ADF though. I still have that card along with a WD8003 ethernet card and a Adaptec AHA-1640 SCSI card out of a rare Leading Edge Model D3/MC clone should I ever get a MCA machine again.

[ChiefLeftenant]

I see Dell Optiplex

[MarkNF82]

Would anyone happen to know if this would work for PS/2 clones as well, or just genuine IBMs. I have an NCR 3421 - 386 sx20 system. This would be a great upgrade if I could find one. That and a microchannel sound card.

[uxwbill]

@MarkNF82 In terms of electrical connection, I'm sure it would. I'm much less certain about the software side of things. NCR's reference disks behave differently than the IBM ones--and sometimes the difference is a big deal. This is especially true with the MCMaster, as I believe its utility disk modifies a number of files on an IBM reference disk.

[LordSamuelJ]

Nice monitor! It would look great with my AST Adventure 400 :)

[Maxxarcade]

I'd love to see how well an AMD 5x86-133 upgrade CPU would work on that card. It did wonders to my old 486 systems! Evergreen and Kingston were a couple of the companies that offered them. They had their own on-board voltage regulator, and were true plug-and-play in every system I tried.

[uxwbill]

@Maxxarcade Kingston actually sold some of the last ones with their "Turbochip" badged AMD 486/133 onboard. The later generation cards usually take the upgrade well, older ones (the 25/33MHz switchable ones in particular) don't always take it well.

[onetoughtechie]

man you seem to know alot about computers!!! Do you do this stuff for a living? If not you should consider a carreer in the field!!! Like your vids alot also love the nick names !!!!!!

[Segadude3000]

Whats next to the 5 1/4 inch floppy?

[uxwbill]

@Segadude3000 It's a Mountain Systems tape drive. I have an idea of what tape it would need to work, and I know I was given some suitable media at some point, but I've never used it.

The Model 60/65/80 systems were only made for a single device in that bay. But this modification hasn't caused problems and looks to be done well, so I've left it alone and will not be changing it.

[Segadude3000]

cool thanks man!

[bluedeval]

what kind of camara do you use

[uxwbill]

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ1.

Yes, it is really sold as a still camera. However, I have been very impressed with the quality of video that it captures.

Someday I might get a proper DV (or whatever the current thing is) camera and use that.

[tpirjunky]

Well between June & today, you kept me very entertained with the Keykeeper's Big Brown Piece of Junk & the Forgotten Grain Truck.

[uxwbill]

Is that a way of saying that you're wandering off?

You should stay tuned, because I have a lot more PS/2 stuff to talk about as time permits. Next up will be a Reply board. (That is another form of upgrade, although you probably knew that.)

[tpirjunky]

Oh no, not at all!!! I was just saying that you guys have an awesome variety of videos, from cars to computers to Mtn. Dew dessert & to keep up the good work. I'm not going anywhere.

[37474748]

awesome... never tought this would come!: :D

[rhblakeman]

Bill this is why I gave away the 60/65/80 model boat anchors that had the handy handle to tie the rope to the boat with and kept the 8595-OPT besides a few desktop oddities that have been in storage for eons. I ran a web server off the 8595 for a while with W2k Server (yeah it worked) then got 2 PC Server 330's loaded for $100 shipped -the OPT sits beside the desk holding spare hard drives and cdroms since 05. I'll fire it up, find out I have a dead cmos battery, and run it soon

[uxwbill]

I used a PS/2 Model 65 as a web server at one point in time. It actually went pretty well. The processor upgrade was the unreliable part, so I pulled it. After that, the system just ran and ran.

You should pay attention to the clock battery. Unlike any of the other types that I have seen, the CR2032 used in later PS/2s *will* leak. Many of the PS/2s I pulled out of Texas had that problem.

[rhblakeman]

The 8595 has a block with pigtail I believe. If a 2032 leaks and eats the contacts it's easy enough to desolder a holder off a cheap Chinese mobo that failed to replace it. Dell makes plenty of crap motherboards that blow capacitors, I have non-returnable cores from service work I've done. Until I get the new shop done the OPT (I call it OPie) will have to sit tight even if the battery is spewing nasty stuff LOL

[uxwbill]

If it's stock, it will have a CR2032 battery. I've only seen the pigtail battery used in one PS/2 related item and that is the Model 25 Reply Board.

You should not let that battery go unchecked. It will spill onto the planar and eat traces if it leaks. And it will damage the battery socket, which is a pain to fix or replace even if you have replacements.

[rhblakeman]

There are 4 or 5 types of non-coin batteries in PS/2's - one with a special pigtail you can flip to tell the machine to clear the password, one that's a photo type plastic encased, some with Dallas RTC chips, etc. I dont think (might be wron) that I've ever seen a coin battery in an IBM PS/2 machine. The 95's battery is fine, I fired the machine up this morning and although time is slipping (says it's Sept 15th 09) it's still holding the settings. Time to replace it for sure.

[uxwbill]

Yep, I've seen a lot of the variants, including the NiCad used in the L40SX. (I try to remember to power up the L40SX and let it have a few hours to charge that battery up, in order to keep it alive and stave off any leaking or other bad behavior.)

It took me a while to get the technique down, but I've also moved into reworking Dallas clock modules. Sometimes you have to--there hasn't been a DS1387 module made since the mid 90s. I'm going to try reworking the DS1397 in an EISA Deskpro 386.

[rhblakeman]

Ah, found a site that shows them. Yes the 2032 is in the 95, I just changed it (I keep 3 on the rack fresh). There is an encased photo battery CRP2 that sits (usually) on the speaker in the 8573 mod 70 portable (75 uses a pigtailed battery), the 50, 60, 65, 70 and 80. I can't remember what the model 40 and below used but some I think are XT style and dont have one. I forget, have a bad case of CRS today.

[uxwbill]

Forgot about the P75! Yep, it does use one. (I actually put a holder full of AA batteries in mine, but then it died of capacitor disease.)

The Model 25-8086 stands alone as the only unit not to have a real time hardware clock with battery. Even the 30-8086 had one.

It seems like the ISA PS/2s are divided between a DS1287 module or a CR2032 battery.

[CWM480]

so how much memory is in it?

[uxwbill]

8MB on Planar/8MB on MCMaster board, for a total of 16.

Using the on-planar memory results in a serious performance penalty, so the MCMaster can turn it off and use only on-board memory. It's the traversal of the Microchannel bus that causes the slowdown.

[flushstuff]

Off topic but would u ever sell any of ur old computers or any?

[uxwbill]

Not unless I have way too many of a particular type, which hasn't happened yet. (Although I do have a few Model 25 8086 systems that I would let go.)

[vwestlife]

Companies who made those clip-on 386SX upgrades gave you a test program to see if your chip could support the upgrade. But these upgrades typically used Cyrix 486SLC-based CPUs, which were really just a 386SX with a 1 kB internal cache and the 486 instructions added, so the performance boost wasn't much. Upgrades which used the IBM 486SLC/3 "Blue Lightning" chip with 16 kB cache were much better but harder to find and more expensive.

[talldude123]

I'm suprised a 486 can run Windows 95! But what a speed difference

[uxwbill]

Windows 95 requires a processor that can handle 32-bit x86 instructions. Even a 386SX qualifies for this, although its hardware enforced speed penalty (all 32-bit operations going out of the CPU must happen in two cycles) really kills performance.

Lots of people ran Windows 95 on the 486. I had a pretty hot system built around an AMD486 processor back then. It worked very well and even outdid some lower end Pentium systems.

[weasel2htm]

AST, a friend of mine had a AST Computer, he used to say AST stood for "A S***ty Terminal"

[uxwbill]

I have the computer that this monitor came with. Apart from a dead hard disk, it still works.