• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

testing all my 72 pin ram exercising a 486sx

wdegroot

Experienced Member
Joined
Sep 19, 2006
Messages
132
I dug back in the garage not the heart of the pile but the side of the pile
My quest: a working 486 with 72 pin sockets so I could test ram one stick at a time.
I had another HP vectra pc but after several hours and fiddling I decided the boot up was too hard to see.also the vga port had a missing hold and I had to make a isa video card work.
This is a gateway 2000 ( [proper video connector) sx 25. and the sockets are on the left edge. Still I have trouble sometimes putting them in. bad eyes/fingers.
lots of 4 and 8. an occasional "2". and a few others larger in capacity.\

several I could not get in they were about 1/2" longer . anybody use these?
and one had notches at both ends.
I can imbed photos in my mail.

The gateway system will take single and double sided sims. But some are either dead or incompatible. some do nothing others beep.
I am open to suggestion what next to try them in.
From my reading, ss can be up to 16, ds can be 16,32 or possibly 64?.
The 486 sx is soldered to a pcb that plugs in the large older style zif socket. more or less full sized 496.
it is unlike the other one I have with a fan.
and is much smaller.

front panel says it is a Gateway 2000.
Physically is is like the hp vectra that has one missing hole in the vga port. an annoyance.
The VLM mb? after doing this and that I read the box it says DEAD
 
minor pc crisis. my pc main pc would not boot.
wanted to go to lan boot
seems the c ( ide) was jumpered wrong
amnd the system was trying to boot from the sata drive.
it took a while to find it
we were suspicios of the ide controller when both drives sent us to the lan.
data was ok
back to the gateway
it had the longes cable and there was no auto detect of the hd.
I could not get it to boot or see a floppy
I have no idea why
but I am still at it
I have the numvers for the hd and will ebter them in manually
I changed the cables and think something got messed up.
does this use a floppy cable with a twist or straight?
 
Whatever you do, make sure that you check the DRAM SIMMs one at a time. One of the uglier episodes of PC history is DRAM from different vendors not playing well together. 72 pin DRAM is 32 or 36 bits (depending on parity), so that shouldn't be an issue.
 
I changed the cables and think something got messed up.
does this use a floppy cable with a twist or straight?

A floppy drive cable has 34 pins and an IDE (harddisk) cable has 40 pins.
So if you use a floppycable you will have some pins left ;)

Also an IDE harddisk cable shouldn't have a twist in it, it should be straight through (as far as I know).
 
Back
Top