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Restoring a Gateway 2000 4DX2-50 80486 Desktop (Warning: Lots of images)

kc8eyt
kc8eyt said:
You need to turn off any "shadowing" of the video and BIOS as well. Typically in CMOS you can enable/disable video and system BIOS shadowing.
Click to expand...

I'll give it a shot.

What does this do kc8eyt?


GiGaBiTe

"According to various internet sources, WC1 needs a 386SX at 16-25 MHz to run at an acceptable speed.

You can try various "slow down" utilities, but I find those generally cause timing issues."


Should I be looking at a 386 system now too? I'm in.


Thanks.
 
I am looking at a 386 16mhz for sale. Can I put a faster 386 processor in it?

Hewlett Packard HP VECTRA QS/16S Intel 386 16MHZ


Thanks.
 
JimLahey said:
kc8eyt


I'll give it a shot.

What does this do kc8eyt?


GiGaBiTe

"According to various internet sources, WC1 needs a 386SX at 16-25 MHz to run at an acceptable speed.

You can try various "slow down" utilities, but I find those generally cause timing issues."


Should I be looking at a 386 system now too? I'm in.


Thanks.
Click to expand...

BIOS (which is ROM and slow) can be copied (shadowed) to RAM which is fast, drastically speeding up BIOS routines that are called. By turning shadowing off all calls will be made to ROM.
 
JimLahey said:
I am looking at a 386 16mhz for sale. Can I put a faster 386 processor in it?

Hewlett Packard HP VECTRA QS/16S Intel 386 16MHZ


Thanks.
Click to expand...

According to Stason and Wikipedia, no.

https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/H/HEWLETT-PACKARD-COMPANY-386-HP-VECTRA-QS-16S.html
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HP-Vectra-QS165-PC-386CPUBoard_01.jpg

CPU is located on a daughterboard along with the RAM, and is soldered on. The only thing you could easily try is to desolder the oscillator, put in a socket and put in a faster oscillator. This would be overclocking the system, so stability is not guaranteed. I'd imagine you may be able to get at least 20 MHz out of it using a 40 MHz oscillator, I think the existing oscillator is 32 MHz.

There are rare "snap-on" 386 upgrade chips that do clock doubling, but these are very hard to find today and expensive. They also defeat the purpose of getting such a system, to run WC1.
 
JimLahey said:
The system board on this 386 I'm buying looks to be socketed cpu. Upgradeable.
Click to expand...

While the CPU is socketed and can be replaced on that daughterboard, the oscillator is not socketed, and would need to have a socket installed. Since that daughtercard revision has three oscillators, the CPU and FPU may have different oscillators controlling them, requiring multiple sockets to be installed. But this still relies on the chipset being able to run faster, which may or may not work. All of the chipset ICs have "20 MHz" stamped on them so they may not run at a faster speed.

JimLahey said:
If I do find a cpu that will work, do I need to have co processor match mhz? If I remember correctly doesn't a 386dx have coprocessor built onto cpu?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

386 CPUs don't need to run synchronously to the 387, but it depends on the logic board design. Some boards use the same crystal for both, while some boards use independent crystals. Obviously a 387 running at a slower speed than the CPU will make floating point performance worse.

And no, the "DX" suffix on a 386 doesn't mean the FPU is integrated, that only applies to 486 CPUs. The difference between SX and DX 386s is the bus width, SX means the CPU has a narrower 16 bit data bus with a 24 bit address bus. The DX has a full 32 bit data bus and address bus.
 
kc8eyt said:
BIOS (which is ROM and slow) can be copied (shadowed) to RAM which is fast, drastically speeding up BIOS routines that are called. By turning shadowing off all calls will be made to ROM.
Click to expand...

My system shadow is enabled and I can't change I'm bios any ideas? I have disabled video shadow.

Thanks.
 
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