Closed Skt 3 CPU, VESA/VLB GFX card & Old ISA cards.

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tokyoracer

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I recently got an old DOS / Win95 486 machine and it has some very unusual but probably fairly low end hardware inside and am wanting to replace them with more powerful and commonly supported alternatives.

Would love something like:

  • A Soundblaster (an AWE32 would be AWEsome :p).
  • A Gravis Ultrasound (Any version will be cool).
  • An VLB / VESA GFX card (anything hardware accelerated would be ideal).
  • RJ45 network card (though I may have one of these laying about somewhere already).
As for the CPU it's a Socket 3 AMD 486DX2 CPU @ 100Mhz.


Does anyone know what the max CPU and RAM this could take? I am afraid I can't tell you much about the motherboard as the only info I can get is the model number "JK-042A". Anyone got any info on this obscure mobo?


Thanks in advance!
 
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I recently got an old DOS / Win95 486 machine and it has some very unusual but probably fairly low end hardware inside and am wanting to replace them with more powerful and common alternatives.
Would love something like:

  • A Soundblaster (an AWE32 would be AWEsome :p).
  • A Gravis Ultrasound (Any version will be cool).
  • Voodoo series card (One most ideal for a 486 setup?).
  • RJ45 network card.
As for the CPU i'm not sure what is in there but I know it's a Socket 3 CPU.
Does anyone know what the max CPU and RAM this could take? I am afraid I cant tell you much about the motherboard as the only info I can get is the model number "JK-042A". Anyone got any info on this obscure mobo?
Can you find any jumpers with some descriptions next to them? Most S3 motherboards had jumpers for 25 MHz, 33 MHz etc. FSB setting and many of them could use faster processors than they were designed for (higher multiplier). I'm guessing it might run a DX/4-120 or 133 MHz if you could find such a CPU.

And while I do have a Gravis Ultrasound with box, manuals and everything, I don't feel much like parting with it. Maybe some day I'll again get a machine that can use it. And I can again try the joy of fiddling with its jumpers for a couple of days trying to resolve IRQ/DMA conflicts. :)
 
Can you find any jumpers with some descriptions next to them? Most S3 motherboards had jumpers for 25 MHz, 33 MHz etc. FSB setting and many of them could use faster processors than they were designed for (higher multiplier). I'm guessing it might run a DX/4-120 or 133 MHz if you could find such a CPU.

And while I do have a Gravis Ultrasound with box, manuals and everything, I don't feel much like parting with it. Maybe some day I'll again get a machine that can use it. And I can again try the joy of fiddling with its jumpers for a couple of days trying to resolve IRQ/DMA conflicts. :)
Oh I wouldn't dream of such a nice complete example of an Ultrasound, just a bare card will more then suffice I don't intend to collect it, but actually use and enjoy it. :)

As for the jumper settings, yes there's loads and I can defininately locate the various CPU settings though were they are printed, there are no jumpers to be found near it which it odd but it has the following settings...

CPU: 486SX, 486DX, 486DX-SL M6.
CPU voltage: 3.3v, 3.45v, 5v.
CPU freq.: 25MHz, 33MHz, 40MHz 50MHz.

Finding the corresponding jumpers is one of the hardest games of hide and seek I have ever come accross. 'Where's Wally' springs to mind. :roll:

P.s. I can also see settings table printed for something else to do with CPU's saying: M7, AMD-DXL, UM486 and P24C. Any idea what that is about? The CPU I currently have inside this is an Am486 DX4-100 (3 volt).
 
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@ Tokyo

I've got an old Crystal sound card in ISA flavour - are you interested?
 
  • An ISA Voodoo card.
I see that you changed it to ISA Voodoo card. Does that even exist? I only ever saw them as PCI. Also, any Voodoo games are probably not going to run well on a 486. It belonged to the P-II times.
 
@ Tokyo

I've got an old Crystal sound card in ISA flavour - are you interested?
Thanks Merlin, but I have my heart mostly set on a Soundblaster mate, sorry. :(

  • An ISA Voodoo card.
I see that you changed it to ISA Voodoo card. Does that even exist? I only ever saw them as PCI. Also, any Voodoo games are probably not going to run well on a 486. It belonged to the P-II times.
You're right, they don't exist thanks for letting me know. A Trident card would probably be best I reckon.
 
I have an ISA soundblaster somewhere, the one with the Mitsumi CD port on it if that's any good?
 
You're right, they don't exist thanks for letting me know. A Trident card would probably be best I reckon.
I also seem to remember the Tseng ET4000 being popular back then, although I don't know how it compared to the Trident cards. But I guess if you want high-end 486 you need a Vesa Local Bus card?
 
I remember the Tseng was sought after as it was one of the first cards with hardware acceleration.
Another great card of the time was the ATI vga wonder.
 
I can't say I am well up on ISA video cards. The ATi varients look pretty good but anything hardware accelerated would be super.
 
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