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Help with a "challenge"

T-R-A

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May 17, 2009
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Western NC
Recently my boss gave me an old machine (not that I need any more) to tinker with. Told him I could likely get it on our network at work (i.e.--running Win2K/XP) It's an older POS (point-of-sale) unit with a Intel 486DX4-100, a 1GB HDD and a single 3.5" FDD. It has a Flytech A47 MoBo which (after hunting around for a partial manual) doesn't mention support for a POD63/83 CPU. It will accept 64MB of 72-pin FPM RAM, so there's enough for "half-decent" support of an nLited version of Win2K. But Win2K requires at least a Pentium CPU (as best as I can find out on the net). So here's the question: anyone have any experience with "forcing" a POD upgrade on a MoBo or have success getting Win2K installed on a 486 (without the "drive-swap" trick)?
 
486s definitely will run Windows 2000 with no modifications. They don't use any Pentium specific functions.

I run Win2k on my 486-120. It runs "okay". It is sluggish but I would say it's usable. Keep in mind that 64MB of RAM is about the minimum for 2K

Make sure you can cache all 64MB of RAM (you'll need 256K of cache)
 
Cool. Was under the (apparently false) belief that it did have Pentium-specific checks during installation. While I'm not expecting anything close to what most people would consider "usable", I'ts nice to prove my boss wrong (we actually have a good relationship...he just doesn't believe old machines are usable for much). It'll likely get reformatted to use a light version of Linux in the end.
 
Recently my boss gave me an old machine (not that I need any more) to tinker with. Told him I could likely get it on our network at work (i.e.--running Win2K/XP) It's an older POS (point-of-sale) unit with a Intel 486DX4-100, a 1GB HDD and a single 3.5" FDD. It has a Flytech A47 MoBo which (after hunting around for a partial manual) doesn't mention support for a POD63/83 CPU. It will accept 64MB of 72-pin FPM RAM, so there's enough for "half-decent" support of an nLited version of Win2K. But Win2K requires at least a Pentium CPU (as best as I can find out on the net). So here's the question: anyone have any experience with "forcing" a POD upgrade on a MoBo or have success getting Win2K installed on a 486 (without the "drive-swap" trick)?

The 486 mobo wouldn't need any specific modifications to run the POD. The POD has its own voltage regulator, so you're covered there. If you can drop it in the socket, it should at least run. Performance with the POD is a different animal. I have several high end 486 motherboards that run under the POD, but there have have always been 'gotchas' performance-wise. One must remember that the POD was a clever Intel marketing tool back when the cost of the new Pentiums were nearly out of sight for the average user. You should give it a shot and let us know how it works out for you.
 
Yep, knew about the on-board regulator, but given the way the MoBo is jumpered now, I'll likely leave the 486DX4-100 in there assuming there's no issues with the "nLited" Win2K installation. I've got a POD83 and several POD63's available (the 83MHz one in a machine I'm reluctant to "dig out" from the pile). Also available is a PNY Quickchip 5x86-133 (though I'm still hunting for info on it concerning the DIP-switch settings on the bottom of the chip). That would also require a "re-jumpering" of the MoBo (back to 5V/33Mhz), so it may or may not get put in service as well. Any info on the comparison of the three (486DX4-100, POD83, and 5x86-133) would be welcome. Who knows, this may become my primary machine at work---since nobody there (besides me) is old enough to have worked closely with anything less than a P4.
 
I don't have any concrete benchmarks on the POD 83 MHz, but I have compared Windows 98 SE and some applications on that and an Am5x86-133 (@ 160 MHz.)

The POD-83 was slower in pretty much every task I threw at it. Windows 98 SE took noticeably longer to boot, the GUI was sluggish, games ran slower in both DOS and Windows and PIO transfers on the hard drive and CD-ROM were slower.

I'm guessing besides the lower clock speed, the Pentium core being hobbled by a 32 bit memory bus has the biggest impact in performance. I think the only reason to own the 62 or 83 MHz POD versions is for novelty or for people that want to run Windows XP on a 486 machine.
 
A Pentium is a Pentium.
Which means two things:
1) The FPU is way WAY WAY faster than the 486 (which is why eg Quake runs better on a POD83 than on any 486-derivative).
2) It is a superscalar CPU, so it can execute two instructions at a time. Code that is properly optimized for the Pentium's two pipelines can run up to twice as fast as a 486 at the same clockspeed.

With the proper software, the Pentium 83 is nothing short of a monster compared to any other 486-like system.
In my Compaq Deskpro system, it performs about equal to a Pentium 75 in practice. The bus is not that much of a bottleneck (the Pentium has quite a bit of fast cache).
 
A Pentium is a Pentium.
Which means two things:
1) The FPU is way WAY WAY faster than the 486 (which is why eg Quake runs better on a POD83 than on any 486-derivative).
2) It is a superscalar CPU, so it can execute two instructions at a time. Code that is properly optimized for the Pentium's two pipelines can run up to twice as fast as a 486 at the same clockspeed.

With the proper software, the Pentium 83 is nothing short of a monster compared to any other 486-like system.
In my Compaq Deskpro system, it performs about equal to a Pentium 75 in practice. The bus is not that much of a bottleneck (the Pentium has quite a bit of fast cache).
A faster FPU won't help in most operating system operations where are mostly integer and logic ops. For 3d games, an FPU is huge though.

In practical use, a Pentium doesn't usually have a 2x speed advantage over a 486. Particularly on a slower bus
 
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