Converting a Compaq Prolinea 4/33 from HDD to CF, and upgrading to 486 DX2-66

[Compgeke]

As far as I know converting a Compaq Prolinea 4/33 to use a Compact Flash card should be easy, although I want to make sure what I'm doing is correct.

The Compaq Prolinea 4/33 is an interesting system, as mine is from June 1993 and it has built in IDE\Floppy\Serial\Parallel\Graphics (Tseng ET4000), as well as built in PS/2 ports. It has 4 72 pin SIMM slots, 3x 16-bit ISA slots on a riser card. It has a single 5.25" drive bay (occupied by 1.2 MB 5.25" floppy), a external 3.5" drive bay (occupied by 1.44 MB 3.5" floppy) and an internal 3.5" drive bay for a hard drive.

As for my 1st question, I want to replace the hard drive with a Compact Flash card. This here should be simple, just add a IDE to Compact Flash adapter and a CF card. Make sure the BIOS can recognize it and have fun. The adapter I found is here, a IDE to CF adapter that replaces a expansion slot blanking plate for easy removal.

Going off of the Compact Flash conversion, I will need a Compact Flash card. I don't know what all will work. The only card I have right now that isn't a 4 MB or 32 MB card is a 512 MB Lexar "Platinum" 40X card. I have no idea if this will work, I can't find anything about it on the internet. From this, does anyone know of a card that can be acquired for around $5 or less that will work, and be anywhere from 256 MB-2 GB (FAT16 partition size limit).

As for the final question, upgrading the original 33 MHz 486 DX to a 66 MHz 486 DX2. As far as I know the DX2 will run on the same config as a 66 MHz 486 DX, as it uses the same bus speed and voltage with a internal 2x multiplier for the 66 MHz. I myself have a computer with a 66 MHz Intel 486 DX2 that I can try as long as I don't risk completely burning up my processor and\or computer.

 

[uxwbill]

The CF card will have to fall under whatever BIOS-introduced disk size capacity limits this system might have. I seem to remember that a similar Deskpro machine topped out at 528MB. "Disk overlay" software would let you use a larger CF card.

As far as I know, any CF card will do for this task. I've had good results booting many systems from a 2GB card sold by Transcend for about $12. You will need an adapter to connect the CF card to the IDE connector in the system.

It should be a simple drop-in affair to use the 486DX2 processor. The system may have jumper or switch settings for a DX2 processor, though you probably won't have to change them.

 

[Compgeke]

I'm not sure what the hard drive limit is on this system, but I currently have it running with a 1.3 gig IDE drive, although before I had a 2.3 gig in it so I'll play around when I get home. I'll also try a DX2 upgrade when I get home, currently 167 miles out of Sacramento (according to the sign) on I5.

 

[Compgeke]

Upgraded the processor to a DX2 and it's running great, so that's solved.

Edit: Just ordered 2x IDE to CF adapters. My mom wouldn't let me get that exact one (she won't order anything directly from China :/) so I got 2x generic ones from the US for $1 more each. Might not have the bracket, but who cares as long as it works.

 

[RWallmow]

Upgraded the processor to a DX2 and it's running great, so that's solved.

Edit: Just ordered 2x IDE to CF adapters. My mom wouldn't let me get that exact one (she won't order anything directly from China :/) so I got 2x generic ones from the US for $1 more each. Might not have the bracket, but who cares as long as it works.

It should work just fine, all those CF adapters are electrically the same. While most CF cards will work as hard drives, I personally lean to the SanDisk ones, they are usually worth the extra money, usually faster than the competition and almost guaranteed to work in UDMA mode, where as many no-name's will have troubles working in UDMA modes. I have also seen where sometimes no-names won't take a MBR correctly and can't be made bootable, or have random read/write errors, for the little bit more a Sandisk costs, its worth it to me for peace of mind knowing it will work, and keep working.

While there is A LOT I will buy from china, but flash memory is one thing I would NEVER buy direct from china, they over-rate their cards, they re brand their junk as other major manufacturers, and most of the time their flash memory dies QUICK. Most of the flash memory they sell directly is stuff that the major mfgs rejected, so its just asking for problems buying that junk, lol.

Someone else mentioned Trancend, them, Lexar, and Kingston are also fairly reliable, and will usually work as a HD replacement, however they are usually much slower than their advertised speeds. In the case of a 486, probably not a problem, but if you were shopping for a nice card for a DSLR Camera or modern computer they probably wouldn't cut it speed wise. My one Trancend "133x" card would only sustain that speed till its buffer filled up, then it slowed to a crawl (about 4x speeds) which is useless in a DSLR camera or fast computer (one photo on a DSLR would fill its buffer).

 

[Compgeke]

I got the adapters the other day, and the Lexar Platinum 512 MB 40x card works great, OS/2 Warp 3 is quite speedy booting from a CF card. As of right now I'm not worried about running out of space as I have 300 megs free.

The only problem I ran into is that my LCD won't sync to 43 Hz (which is the refresh OS/2 gave when I tried to set to 800x600), but I'll try a CRT I have in the garage that won't destroy itself from bad frequency, only tell me the input is out of range.

 

[RWallmow]

I got the adapters the other day, and the Lexar Platinum 512 MB 40x card works great, OS/2 Warp 3 is quite speedy booting from a CF card. As of right now I'm not worried about running out of space as I have 300 megs free.

Lexar usually work well, 512mb is probably fine for just the OS and the basics, but you may want larger if you are going to load up anything else and store data on this. You said you had a 2gb HD in that PC once, so its probably not limited to 520mb, I would bet it would go all the way to the 8gb ceiling, and probably beyond with OnTrack.

The only problem I ran into is that my LCD won't sync to 43 Hz (which is the refresh OS/2 gave when I tried to set to 800x600), but I'll try a CRT I have in the garage that won't destroy itself from bad frequency, only tell me the input is out of range.

I don't know much on OS/2, but I would bet there has to be some way to tell it to refresh at 60hz, especially one as new as Warp 3. Maybe one of the OS/2 guys can chime in on that one, I never really ran OS/2 other than in a VM.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Video on OS/2 is a very messy affair. The place to start is by locating some drivers for your chipset and then using System Setup to select the correct parameters for your display. There's also a DOS-mode utility that does the same thing; my memory is a bit blurry on the details.