Hello from Southern New England

[Staggerwing]

Hi all,
Just wanted to say hello. I've lurked for a while but am now finally getting around to working on some retro systems I've collected over the last few years. First project is an AST Premier 486/33.

 

[seaken]

Welcome!

The AST Premier 486/33 was my second PC Compatible. The first PC compatible I bought was a Tandy 1400FD. Then I was gifted the AST 486/33 by a fellow computer club member who said "it doesn't work". I took it home and disassembled it and then reassembled it and got it working. I used it as my main daily driver for several years. I was a DOS only user and held out moving to Windows until I bought a copy of Win 3.1 from DAK. I used Win 3.1 and then Wfw 3.11 on the AST 486/33 until I got an IBM Thinkpad T23 (Pentium-II and W2K). Eventually I put the AST 486/33 into storage and was not used for years.

I recently resurrected it and put it next to one of my 286's next to my desk. There is a lot of nostalgia in that machine for me.

Here's my write up of it's refurbish on my blog:

AST Premium 486/33 Cupid

AST Premium 486/33 Cupid This was the second PC Compatible that I acquired, after the Tandy 1400FD I purchased and used as my first PC. (P...

seansoldcomputers.blogspot.com

Seaken

 

[Staggerwing]

Great pix at your link seaken.
I never had an AST so for me this one is a kind of 'practice run' to restoring an older computer of this complexity. I'm not sure I'll actually tear it down for a full clean yet.
Up to now I've cleaned up a few C-64s and an Apple IIc but that's it. I have collected a few different systems that i hope to get to eventually.
After this AST I plan to do a full refurb (at least up to my abilities) on a Leading Edge 486/33 that is nearly identical to my own very first PC. That's the one I want to really get right.
I tracked down matching monitor and mouse and have a Leading edge keyboard from an earlier model, probably a Model D. I also have a second LE 486 as backup or for parts.

 

[seaken]

Yes, it's always good to practice on a less important system until your comfort level comes up high enough to tackle your favorite machine. I have yet to fix my first Tandy 1400FD but I keep coming across possible ideas and am keeping a log. I hope to one day increase my skills enough to get it fixed. (I'm not yet very comfortable with replacing capacitors on circuit boards). The desktops are, for me at least, much easier to refurbish as compared to portables and laptops.

Seaken

 

[Staggerwing]

Hey all.
I finally got around to dragging out my Leading Edge 486DX and SX for a look-see. I wanted to make sure there were no ticking Varta time bombs. Luckily they both still boot up. I checked the PSU outputs on both and all the 5v lines look good but the 12 v lines, both + and -, vary between 9.8 and 11. Am I correct in thinking this mainly affects the floppy drives? I’m using a IDE to CF card adapter which seems to use only 5v.
Also, the DX has a bad RTC but I’m having trouble figuring out where the RTC is. I’d like to swap the DX’s bad one for the SX’s good one since I want to focus on getting the DX working first and the bad RTC means I have to reconfigure the CF HD every time I power up.
Does anyone know anything about where I’d find the clock chip on the board? There don’t appear to be any online diagrams of photos that look like mine. It’s the style with the CPU on a daughter card. I’d try to take the boards out for a look but they appear to be trapped in place by the drive cage which is riveted to the bottom of the case.

 

[Staggerwing]

I just realized I posted this followup in the introductory thread. Going to try it in the appropriate forum instead.