My 8086 Deskpro has been acting flakey and has a few issues.
Last night I powered on and it popped a tantalum capacitor, not the first one so that by itself is not a big deal or hard to fix but it has been giving me issues for the past couple of years.
Has a dead ISA slot and one that sometimes works and sometimes does not.
It's at the point that I sometimes dread turning it on because of the ol "well what next will go wrong".
Current Specs: 8086 Compaq Deskpro 8086
V30 CPU
8087 co-processor.
640k of ram
2mb Rampage card
3Com 903 8 bit eithernet card
XTIDE V1, bought as a kit and assembled it years ago.
Logitech bus mouse card
Microsoft bus mouse
Original Amber monitor and dual mode video card
16 bit MFM controller card that lets me use a 1.44 mb floppy and the original 360K floppy drive.
212 MB IDE hard drive.
First off I am not looking to add a X570 motherboard/3700X cpu/ 64 Gigs of ram/GTX2080 to it.
I already have tons of Pc's from a generic 8088 to a few Dual and Quad cpu Xeon servers, a couple of 486's, Pentium 75, 100, 133, K6, K6-2, Pentium 3, Athlon 64, Phenom 2 and on and on......come to think of it I really have too much crap but i'm single LOL.
I love that pc, been having it for decades so I want to keep the "feel" of it but get rid of the unreliability, I want to keep the feel and sounds its been having for decades.
I'm not interested in gaming on it so really no graphic intensive programs at all, mostly just text stuff.
So what to do?
I found a NOS motherboard, but i'm worried about the reliability of it.
Thought about a Deskpro 286 motherboard swap, then a 386 Deskpro board swap.... the 286 board would be just as old and the 386 is almost as old and has its own issues with the that design.
I want to keep Compaq DOS 3.31 and 5.0 when I feel the need to swap hard drives.
I want to be able to plug in the original MFM 20 MB hard drive from time to time.
I love the Amber monitor.
Keyboard is ok, i'm used to it.
Keep the bus mouse.
So I'm defiantly thinking of swapping out to a newer motherboard but new enough to be more reliable but still has only ISA slots, as I want to be able to use my isa cards, and hopefully with a cr2032, or a separate battery holder not a barrel battery.
Yes the power supply is non AT standard, also the motherboard is defiantly not standard either.
The power supply, I have three or four spares including one thats dead that i'm thinking I can easily mount a AT supply in it since its big enough and I could wire it to use the original power switch.
ATA motherboard mounting is defiantly doable.
So i'm thinking of a newer 386 or 486 board, only ISA no PCI slots, slow 386 or 486 with turbo and cache off at all times.
4 MB at most of ram.
Reuse the XTide card, bus mouse card, network card, occasionally use the MFM hard drive, I have both 8 and 16 bit controller cards, amber monitor I only ever used it on the higher resolution so a replacement video card that will drive it at the higher res is would I would want, I do not think the dual mode card would work correctly but I would give it a shot to see.
What about the keyboard connector? Deskpros that I have seen come with either a plastic one soldered on the motherboard at the front of the motherboard, or like mine a five pin header and a connector thats bolted to the case. Thats a easy fix as I can remove the replacement board keyboard and solder a jumper harness directly to the motherboard and run it to the original keyboard connector on the front of the case.
Also I have seen a 486 motherboard with a 5 pin keyboard header in almost the same spot as the original 8086 board.
So I guess I really need just to find the right motherboard, yes I know there were upgrade boards to retrofit the early deskpros to faster cpu's but I have only seen them in ads but they are old and weird too.
Any suggestions on a board?
Yea I also realize any 386 or 486 board I find is old also but at least they will be a few years newer and maybe give the old Deskpro a few more years of life.
Last night I powered on and it popped a tantalum capacitor, not the first one so that by itself is not a big deal or hard to fix but it has been giving me issues for the past couple of years.
Has a dead ISA slot and one that sometimes works and sometimes does not.
It's at the point that I sometimes dread turning it on because of the ol "well what next will go wrong".
Current Specs: 8086 Compaq Deskpro 8086
V30 CPU
8087 co-processor.
640k of ram
2mb Rampage card
3Com 903 8 bit eithernet card
XTIDE V1, bought as a kit and assembled it years ago.
Logitech bus mouse card
Microsoft bus mouse
Original Amber monitor and dual mode video card
16 bit MFM controller card that lets me use a 1.44 mb floppy and the original 360K floppy drive.
212 MB IDE hard drive.
First off I am not looking to add a X570 motherboard/3700X cpu/ 64 Gigs of ram/GTX2080 to it.
I already have tons of Pc's from a generic 8088 to a few Dual and Quad cpu Xeon servers, a couple of 486's, Pentium 75, 100, 133, K6, K6-2, Pentium 3, Athlon 64, Phenom 2 and on and on......come to think of it I really have too much crap but i'm single LOL.
I love that pc, been having it for decades so I want to keep the "feel" of it but get rid of the unreliability, I want to keep the feel and sounds its been having for decades.
I'm not interested in gaming on it so really no graphic intensive programs at all, mostly just text stuff.
So what to do?
I found a NOS motherboard, but i'm worried about the reliability of it.
Thought about a Deskpro 286 motherboard swap, then a 386 Deskpro board swap.... the 286 board would be just as old and the 386 is almost as old and has its own issues with the that design.
I want to keep Compaq DOS 3.31 and 5.0 when I feel the need to swap hard drives.
I want to be able to plug in the original MFM 20 MB hard drive from time to time.
I love the Amber monitor.
Keyboard is ok, i'm used to it.
Keep the bus mouse.
So I'm defiantly thinking of swapping out to a newer motherboard but new enough to be more reliable but still has only ISA slots, as I want to be able to use my isa cards, and hopefully with a cr2032, or a separate battery holder not a barrel battery.
Yes the power supply is non AT standard, also the motherboard is defiantly not standard either.
The power supply, I have three or four spares including one thats dead that i'm thinking I can easily mount a AT supply in it since its big enough and I could wire it to use the original power switch.
ATA motherboard mounting is defiantly doable.
So i'm thinking of a newer 386 or 486 board, only ISA no PCI slots, slow 386 or 486 with turbo and cache off at all times.
4 MB at most of ram.
Reuse the XTide card, bus mouse card, network card, occasionally use the MFM hard drive, I have both 8 and 16 bit controller cards, amber monitor I only ever used it on the higher resolution so a replacement video card that will drive it at the higher res is would I would want, I do not think the dual mode card would work correctly but I would give it a shot to see.
What about the keyboard connector? Deskpros that I have seen come with either a plastic one soldered on the motherboard at the front of the motherboard, or like mine a five pin header and a connector thats bolted to the case. Thats a easy fix as I can remove the replacement board keyboard and solder a jumper harness directly to the motherboard and run it to the original keyboard connector on the front of the case.
Also I have seen a 486 motherboard with a 5 pin keyboard header in almost the same spot as the original 8086 board.
So I guess I really need just to find the right motherboard, yes I know there were upgrade boards to retrofit the early deskpros to faster cpu's but I have only seen them in ads but they are old and weird too.
Any suggestions on a board?
Yea I also realize any 386 or 486 board I find is old also but at least they will be a few years newer and maybe give the old Deskpro a few more years of life.
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