Can this thing double the performance of your vintage PC in just seconds?
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- Опубліковано 15 жов 2021
- Back in the 90s, there were some pretty neat little accessories for your IBM PC compatible. This little thing has the potential to double the performance of your PC in just a few seconds.
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E4 Rev C
E4C-7 0.001
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I played Doom on a 25Mhz 486 as a kid and enjoyed it despite the frame rate. When I eventually upgraded to a Cyrix 166, I was astonished how much faster the plasma rifle shot.
I bet the dragon claw in heretic was even more aggravating to the ears, too
(486SX with 4MB ram for Doom/heretic etc here, too)
@@Beany2007FTW what's crazy is we had 8MB of memory. My Mom had it upgraded at a local shop so she could run Word Perfect.
@@thedopplereffect00 8mb? You could have played Duke Nukem! I tried that using a virtual ram program (aka a DOS page file, functionally) and oh God that didn't work well.... :D
that's the same config i had back then 486sx25 4mo ram (and still have). with some tweaks with a floppy boot disk on autoexec bat config sys to ensure the system had only what required for games, this system was able to run pretty well. The onboard cache chips did probably a good job too.
dude that's hysterical lol
Hi Adrian! Actually, this mainboard has an external cache. I repaired a very similar mainobard on my repairathon in April this year. The MX chipset has 8KB of integrated cache into it. I also didn't know about that, but I was surprised to see that cache later. Anyway, this upgrade is quite a rare piece of hardware, I never saw one myself. Thank you very much for showing this!
love your videos! awesome stuff on youtube
Not rare there are tons in Japan
And the best use ibm blue lightings 16 and 32bit versions
Mainobard. I assume that's Shakespeare's favourite Irish cousin?
I have a 40MHz 386DX motherboard that has MX Chipset as well, how does one find out if it's got integrated cache. If there is one, how to enable it?
EDIT: Turns out, my BIOS is nicer to me about that part. Simply enabling it from BIOS settings did the trick.
@@benholroyd5221 lol :D
I "upgraded" my 386 SX 20 with one of these to 486 back in the day. It worked perfectly fine and allowed me to use all sorts of software that was first coming out on CD ROM at the time. I was stationed in the Panama Canal Zone at the time and ordered it through Computer Shopper. The whole computer was "lost" on the trip from Panama to Ft. Hood. I made a claim with the government saying that it was a 486 and not a 386, but the movers recorded what was on the stickers on the outside so I got next to nothing in compensation (this was when the Pentiums were coming out). It always rankled me, but it was a Packard Bell....so no great loss in the cosmic scheme of things.
well it gained you a good story :)
Sorry about your loss and thank you for the info!
But it was a great loss. You got screwed by the government one more time...
Hilarious - I made a 286 20 Mhz machine for my friend in 1996 with leftover parts from our school project (we made 30-40 computers work out of a pile of parts, we were allowed to keep one each, except the 486 machines)
It was awesome, it even had an EGA monitor!
Well, one day he was home-invaded and someone stole it (in the late 90s lol). His dad put the claim on it as a 286 computer. The insurance misinterpreted it as a 266. MHz. Pentium II. He got a $4000 cheque from them!
That was the last EGA monitor I interacted with.
The early 386SX era PBs weren’t bad machines. It was around the 486 era they started getting cheap and nasty.
This is simply an Evergreen 386 to 486 upgrade module with the "Ti486SXLC-40" and is designed to fit over the existing chip, or into a socket if the motherboard is a socketed cpu. "REV to 486" was the name. 286 to 386 upgrade chips also used similar socket upgrade to plug into a 286 socketed motherboard.
It took me around 10 seconds to read your comment.
I'm 7 minutes into this 30:56 video, and I'm thinking this video is 30 minutes and 46 seconds too long
@@strangevisions5162 aren't you the smart kid on the block!?
@@strangevisions5162 Hee!
I'm at 5:00, but I'm an idiot, just with a short attention span.
Still, thanks for making me smile.
@@strangevisions5162 Adrian's videos could often benefit from a bit of editing, it's true, he beats around the bush a little. In his favour though, he's knowledgable and informative, he gets the point across even if it takes him a bit longer to do it than some. The points are nearly always interesting to me.
Often when you want information, text is better than video, but people don't write text websites any more. For some reason there's not as much money in it I think. Blame it on the ignorant masses getting online. Still, video can be more entertaining, so videos like these can hit somewhere in the middle, still doing a good job. I'm pretty sure I'm (and you are) in a minority in preferring just to read stuff with maybe a diagram on the side.
The real hack-work where people reverse-engineer stuff like old consoles, is all done in text on boards, for their increased information density and accuracy, their conciseness. And if you can find a Usenet group that's still going, that's the best. Did you know Usenet had nothing to do with piracy for the first 40 years of it's life!? Which isn't surprising because it's a fucking terrible, awful inefficient way of sharing files. You weren't even allowed to post files AT ALL in most groups!
@@greenaum as to text vs video, I am old now, and I would rather listen to someone talk than I would read the same information. Though I have vision issues, including dyslexia, so even some of my college courses were put on tape, so I could listen to them. It was rather funny listening to people who were not tech savvy reading electronics and programming texts.
Looking at the datasheet for the 386sx, it makes more sense that this would use the FLT# (float) signal, which will isolate the 386sx from the board, allowing for use of an in-circuit emulator which is clipped onto the chip to act as a replacement for the processor.
Yes, I used to sell In-Circuit Emulators using that great feature and such sockets.
I just saw Jan Beta installing a Furia Accelerator upgraded in his Amiga 600.. that connects in the same way than this one... >> ua-cam.com/video/vxcvJI8Q9jQ/v-deo.html
maybe the Data sheet of the Furia Accelerator Upgraded .. have more info about how this works??.. if disable the "original onboard chip" or what..
So it is a direct bypass of the entire processor?? So its a 486 hijack?? Thats so cool!
@@Ramdileo_sys the 68k and the x86 CPU's are too different to assume they work the same way in any regard.
Back in '94 or '95 I acquired a de-commissioned work pc, an AT&T 386sx 40 mhz desktop with onboard crystal dynamics video and base 640 k ram. It came with DOS 5.0. I pimped it up with more ram, an 8 bit sound blaster, a math coprocessor, a copy of Dos 6 and Windows 3.1, even a pata controller and cdrom after pulling the 5.25 floppy to make room...and ultimately an Evergreen upgrade just like you are showing. It was already end of life tech before I got it and I kept adding all this additional end of life upgrades on the cheap from Tiger Direct, and Egghead. My kids loved the thing, playing Doom, and lots of other dos shareware games. My youngest son got through his chickenpox when he was 3 or 4 by playing a Disney Mickey Mouse preschool game I bought from Office Depot for way too much. Thanks for the reminder.
I recall these referred to as "Piggybacks" and there were even some variations available up through the Pentium II. The IT guy at my local library growing up had one installed in his where the original CPU folded into the piggyback which was then slotted and had it overclocked to the point he had a box fan pointing towards an open case. I thought it was the coolest thing. In this particular case, both processors were active.
Stuff like the Pentium Overdrive chips that also had a big package.
And in some way like how the DX x87 upgrades were fully functional chips that simply disabled the already installed SY chip.
its called slotkets back then 😅
Well I love that I came across this channel. It brings back memories of the good old days in the early '90's when we were learning about the IBM PC's and making clones and upgrading everything. I remember all these benchmark tests and this was the fun part of upgrading. This is great stuff and I have subscribed and will be viewing more of the videos.
11:47 ISA runs at 10 Megabirds? That's nice! :D Gave me a little laugh :D
At that speed it really makes this thing fly!
The performance of this system will go sky high!
thats faster in that machine. dont compare it with today's machine .
I heard "MegaBerts" which I agree is pretty much fine. 10 "MegaErnies" is a problem though... ;)
I'd upvote, but I don't want to ruin the NICE 69.
Back in the 90s a company I worked for upgraded all their 386sx machines with these. They were quite expensive but considering that nothing else needed to change it was seen as cost effective. The big issue was Windows 95 and the need for more RAM, by 1996 most of these upgrades became e-waste and we got new 486 PCs.
That is a very cool little upgrade, I would have loved one of those for my 386 back in the day.
Asserting FLT# is how these worked - causing the signals in the original 386sx compatible chip to tri-state. This was intended for in circuit emulation without desoldering the chip, but meant you could piggyback another chip. From the Intel 386 manual:
Float is an input which forces all bidirectional and output signals, including HLDA, to the tri-state condition. This allows the electrically isolated Intel386SX PQFP to use ONCE (On-Circuit Emulation) method without removing it from the PCB.
That great feature and these sockets were also used to replace the processor with an In-Circuit Emulator for development and debugging. That also gives you harware breakpoints, real-time trace etc, etc.
I used to sell such development systems for embedded systems development :-)
Amiga 68000 CPU and "Denise" also had the same capability, what was that, 1988?
@@Gerard423653 do you still have any of the equipment? I have been trying to source the "socket" that fits over the JEDEC standard package of the 386sx for a project.
@@ianhanschen or beter, supertap 386
@@davidewhite69 FFS, Amiga fanboys never die. Yes, in-circuit emulation existed in the '80s. Commodore didn't invent it. Calm down.
We had some similar devices at my first IT job in the mid 90s, to upgrade 386SX-based IBM PS/2s. But they had IBM 486SLC2 chips (which were different internally from the Cyrix 486SLC) on them. They helped us extend the life of some outmoded machines, and upgrades often came out of a different budget than new machines, so that was part of the appeal.
I have a Make-It-486 on my Commodore A2386sx Bridgeboard in my Amiga 2000. The thing can either run at the motherboard's (in this case the PC Bridge card's) speed or double its host's clock internally. The same small DOS software which lets you enable the cache also lets you enable the clock doubling inside the 486slc. There are manufacturer specific, but also "generic" Cyrix 486slc configuration software exist, which can do this. So you don't even need to change the crystal on the motherboard.
Oh yes this is what you were working on in the background of your previous mail call video. I was wondering what the heck you were up to. This is AWESOME thanks for the sneak peak the other day.
Thank you for posting this!
I had one (with a different heatsync) as a kid. Was gifted to me from a friend of my father.
Spent years looking for more info, but couldn't even find any info on it actually existing. Now I have proof it was a thing, I was starting to doubt my own memory.
Cool upgrade! The 386sx-40 was my first PC, so I'm very nostalgic for this kind of hardware. I wasn't very good at PC hardware back then, so I just ran that machine as-is for years. Thanks for the video!
From what I remember, Cyrix designed the 486SLC, but they were fabless, so they had IBM make the chips for them in exchange for IBM being able to produce some of the chips under their name. So, there were both Cyrix and IBM 486SLC chips.
I build a 486slc/33 way back because the cpu was cheap. Warcraft 2 would stutter if too many characters was on the screen fighting 🤣🤣🤣
I remember when the cyrix 6x86 came out it was
Quick for the time
Texas Instruments as well.
If I remember correctly, part of the agreement with IBM was they could only sell slc's under the IBM name as complete systems.
There were ultimately clock-doubled versions of these chips as well (Cyrix 486SLC2) running at up to 66 Mhz.
@@xaenon Yeah, TI had a manufacturing agreement with Cyrix as well. I was recently reminded of that.
I do remember some IBM PS/2 models having the 486SLC2 in both 50 and 66 MHz models, but I don't remember if the chips were labeled Cyrix or IBM.
The Cyrix_IBM partnership occurred later when they were making the 6x86. The 486SLC chips from Cyrix and IBM were, ironically, different and completely separate chips. The Cyrix version was made as an upgrade path to the 486 from the 386. The IBM SLC chips were called "Super Little Chip" and were based on the Intel 486SX.
Hi Adrian. Very very interesting video!! And this cpu upgrade is a really rare piece. Even I am missing it here in my collection. Was absolutely great to see this part running. Thanks for sharing. 👍🏻
Where have you been? Missing your videos!
Older motherboards from the early to mid 90's are fascinating to me. I wish I had the boards from PCs I had back in 1994/6.
I have a pile, some might work !
You can still buy them on eBay.
I had PILES of them. I have a small pile now, but they're all NFG.
If you get a chance, pick up a 440 BX motherboard. It's Slot 1, so think Pentium 2/Celeron. Was a rock solid chipset back in the day though.
@@VenomStryker stick a celeron 300a in it, overclock to 500Mhz
Your intro just won my subscription sir. I love your channel already!
I enjoyed the video. I love all the information you give out! Thanks for the show!
This is really taking me back! The first PC I owned was a 386SX-16. After a couple of years, I transplanted a 486SLC-33 motherboard into it; my very first motherboard swap. It was my first (failed) overclocking experience, too: I could set the CPU to run at 40 MHz, but it was not at all stable at that frequency. Funny how big a difference those seven little clock ticks made back then.
I first played DOOM on that 486SLC, and that was exactly my experience with it. It was playable for the most part, as long as I didn't run it full-screen. There were moments when it would slow down to a slideshow, though. I'd have to turn the detail down to low, which made everything look even blockier.
It was a decent upgrade for other, less demanding DOS games, like Wolf 3D, X-Wing, Wing Commander, etc. But that board got left in the dust very quickly. I think I got mine in 1993 or 94, and by 1996, the new games that were coming out wouldn't even run on it.
Incidentally, I remember seeing ads for those snap-on chip upgrades in PC Magazine. They weren't cheap, but when the cost of a 486DX was in the multiple thousands of dollars, they were probably the most viable upgrade path for most people with 386SX machines.
Haha your story is almost identical to mine, I had a shop bought 386SX in the early 90s, and my first ever experience with PC building was transplanting a 486DX board into it with a sound blaster sound card and S3 virge graphics, Wolfenstein and Duke Nukem ran fine, but then a friend gave me Doom, on a big pile of random assorted 3.5in floppy disks 1 of which just did the old click click whirr whirr "please insert a disk into drive A:" thing so I had to get him to go do it again lol, then I had to run Doom in a really small screen size and when ever the action got a bit too crazy everything would just slow right down and step frame by frame, but i still thought it was all so cool haha
Enjoyed this video. It's been a very long time since I have seen hardware like this. I remember fighting with the make it 486 upgrade. Not this same one but same era. Thanks for making this video. Fun to watch and see.
Although I did hit the like button, I must say this is the slowest paced video video I ever saw on your channel.
In the days I helped a lot of people with upgrading their 386 sx and dx machines to a cyrix 486dlc or slc processor(sometimes with the usual desoldering of the 386 cpu). It was a pretty common upgrade. The cool thing is you can leave the 387 fpu on the board after you installed the 486. I still have such setup running where I replaced the 386dx40 with a 486dlc40. Won´t overclock though.
15:51 3D Bench is a blast from the past! I remember being excited that my Diamond Speedstar 24X not only was quicker than my old Trident 8900, but tolerated ISA bus overclocking very well for an even bigger performance increase.
OMG! This brings back memories. I had a Cyrix 486 that got me through my university days.
Just some thoughts:
- it's more accurate to say that the 386SX is a 386 that is bus compatible to the 286 than that it is a 286 with 32bit extensions.
- A mainboard that has VLB and a 386SX form factor CPU does actually exist, it's called the Alaris Leopard. It has an IBM 386SLC on it (a weird 386 486 hybrid chip) and VLB does have a 16 bit mode which it utilizes.
That is too cool! I just looked it up now and I do not recall ever seeing anything like that before. Only thing similar was those DLC vesa boards. I wonder how they resolved addressing limitations and such?
@@wishusknight3009 it runs the VLB at.16 bit data and 24bit addressing. Which wasn't an issue as ram access was still 16 bit. So you gained some performance over ISA, but a real 486 would smoke it.
IBM later made 486s in 386 packages for use as integrated CPUs on motherboard with a 468 socket for upgrade later.
@@ionstorm66 I didn't realize VLB cards could still operate with half of the data lines disconnected.
Hello Adrian, As always, thanks for a very interesting episode!
That being said, I would not call those shiny miracles just "crystals", they are at least a complete crystal oscillator (XO), but probably more likely a temperature compensated oscillator based on a crystal (TCXO), some of them are also voltage controlled via a simple DAC to be able to change their output frequency (VCTCXO) and others have built in programmable dividers to change their output frequency, usually those are controlled/programmed via serial data.
Very cool. Tinkering with old tech like this is very therapeutic.
I remember looking into upgrades like this back in the mid-90s. I was using a 286/12MHz and was, like anyone, wanting to upgrade. Unfortunatly, my 286 was an AMD part that was soldered to the motherboard. From what I read, and I might be wrong pulling memories from over 25 years ago, those CPUs were lacking a "Disable" pin so you had to be able to remove the chip. I ended up just rolling with the 286 until 1998 when I built a P166MMX based machine.
I really had a very nice elektronics store that would let me trade the whole motherboard. I swapped my 286 12Mhz for an AMD 386 40Mhz that stayed with me for a long time. Lateron it got used as a home server, i was writing fax/modem server software back in those days. Got a 486DX 50 after that (That one was very expensive) and went trough a lot of pentiums after that.
This was cool Adrian! Thanks for this! I have always wanted one of these chips for my 286.
You still run 286 cpus ?
Fascinating video, thanks for showing off the CPU upgrade!
Why didn't I find this channel 4-5 years ago.... This stuff is amazing!
Apologies accepted for playing doom slowly ;-). Your videos are so great! Thank you, Adrian
I tried one of these in the 90's and it did help. How much I can't remember, but it was a boost in capabilities.
Well done Adrian, interesting info...I never heard about it either....I liked the new camera angle too....very professional :-)
Great video as usual Adrian, thank you
I just learn a lot, thanks for such an awesome video. I feel like going to my mother's house and digging up my old 386DX and trying to turn it on again jajaja. Thanks again for such an amazing video, made me remember my old days.
ohh that is a very interesting 396 upgrade module.
The CPU is a TI486SXLC (16bit version of the TI486SXL).
It is an Cyrix 486DLC variant with 8KB of L1 cache!
There is an official datasheet of this chip available.
Should be able to run at 40MHz without a problem.
You need to check the Cyrix tool an play with the cache and other options.
The 8KB L1 cache should be visible in the speedsys tool and cache check tool.
I have some info about this tool on my 486DLC video.
CPU Galaxy also has a video on a similar chip the TI486SXL2 (clock doubling).
hopefully your comment sticks. I made a comment about this and it dissappeared.
Yup, if its a clock doubled variant it might not be comfortable with the faster bus speed. I know that most of the clock doubled chips are fine with it but there are always exceptions to the rule. Anyone with one of these funky Cyrix (the TI branded chips are basically clones) based accelerators should try the Cyrix config utility if you get weirdness with Setmul, that might be part of the problem.
I had no idea such thing existed! Thanks for showing it
Man ! You should be "cloned" or "preserved" and put into a museum for the next generation. Thank you very much, very informative.
I had no idea content like this existed! Phenomenal. Thanks!
Very interesting video! Also some useful pointers for me, as I have one of the 286 to 486SLC upgrades you mentioned. Mine is an Evergreen upgrade with I think a TI branded chip on it. Great tip about the setmul util for enabling the cache!
Man, when that green pink and orange screen came up I felt like I was back in 1990. Great video.
I pulled about 10 of these off of dead business computer boards when I was salvaging old hardware.
Most of them worked had to toss 3 of them.
Damn I miss those days.
PS just found your videos and have been binge watching.
Man this takes me back, I remember boosting my gramps computer when I was growing up, he was always an early adopter on tech, and shared his hobbies with me. I knew what it was as soon as I saw the back!
Hi Adrian. Loving the long videos 👍
Have you verified that it's not the RAM chips being too slow for the new clock?
Yeah, that might be worth trying. Put the original crystal back in and run those same tests on the Am386SX-40 soldered to the board. If it still acts up, then better ram will likely fix everything. Get some nice 60ns (16 megs would be ideal) simms, install FastDOOM and a better video card and go to town!
Well, he said the motherboard ran fine at 80 MHz with the 386SX...
WaitStates in the BIOS will be your friend there.
I think extra capacitance from a module on top of the existing one corrupted digital signals at too high frequencies.
Hi from Beaverton! This brings back memories. In '94 I had a 386DX-25. In '95 I picked up one of those Cyrix 386 to 486 upgrade kits at Egghead Software that internally clock doubled. I do remember seeing a neon green sticker on box and magazine ads noting different SKUs for the different clock speeds. Such as 16/33, 20/40, and 25/50. I think you were spot on as you were overclocking that poor little Cyrix CPU. 👍
You just got me started to get back into the restoration of my vintage collection of 8086, 80386SX and, of course, 80486 DX2 and DX4 :-). Thank you
I actually just finished restoring my old Power Pc G5 I bought at a yard sale for $60 years ago. Found a neighbor giving away an old apple Cinema Display to complete it. After finally getting it all to work, I realized there’s not much you can do with it anymore besides run native apps. Most modern websites don’t load properly with the outdated web browser
What do you do with them just out of interest?
@@maccagee693 The plan is to have them restored in as mint as possible condition, install the appropriate OS-es and software (+some games, ofc) and then ... well enjoy them and keep them as a small "x86 evolution museum" such that interested people will have a chance to touch and feel the roots of modern computing. There is something hard to describe when playing Doom II on a 486 DX4 with SoundBlaster and a little CRT monitor.
@@catalinstavar7010 I had a 486DX growing up as a kid. I was in love with it. It would actually be very nostalgic to own one today. Just to tinker with. Maybe write a few little BASIC programs to run on it or something
@@baldbutton1983 Exactly. Even if it took half a night only to get the irqs sorted, serial mouse and other things, it really puts a smile on my face booting the machine up...
The hold line is used for DMA requests, so using that to disable the cpu might be a problem for ISA cards that use DMA
But the FDD uses DMA and given how widespread they were used, there should not be any noticeable problems. If there were any, such CPU upgrade adapters (thought very rare by itself) would instantly fail on market. Needs deeper investigation how this works, I can't find an explanation right now.
Maybe it disables dma only intermittently
Yep, it's completely possible to do that, and *any* CPU actually does that regularly but... to do it in hardware the LOCK line is used, which simply causes the CPU to ignore the HOLD line. So HOLD line can be used to disable your CPU and replace it with another one, so Adrian isn't completely wrong here, but it would require some external arbitration logic and not simply piggybacking another chip to the same wires. As too many people already mentioned here, 386 has the normally unconnected FLT pin, which disables all the outputs (but not inputs, so the original CPU is still clocked and receives interrupts, so some of the internal units are trying to work and it explains why its so hot too). 286 doesn't have such a pin, so direct upgrade from it is still impossible, but rather few very late 286 models were produced in such package anyway.
@@derpinbird1180 SImilar to Z80 cyclestealing?
@@user-gi1vg4ck1p Multiprocessor or bus mastering I/O would require a separate bus arbitration device and also isolation buffers depending on the actual configuration but on a simple PC board it might just work in normal situations.
Love the intro has a classic PC show feel to it lol.
Nice find, and great video. The oldest Macs had an upgrade like this that used inverse DIP sockets to snap onto the top of some of the DIP circuits on the motherboard. These upgrades were not processor upgrades, but the RAM-Snap upgraded 512KB -> 2.5MB, and the SCSI-Snap added a SCSI port that poked out of the battery door. I still have an operational 1985 Macintosh 512K with these upgrades.
Again, these instabilities look like hard overclocked ram, random freezes, sporadic program restarts and fallouts... all of those could be linked to ram, could also be the chipset but I know to little of that era of pcs. Mine is athlon xp and up to socket 775.
Yep memory way back then I think they had a capacitance issue, but what with MY memory giving me hell due to "6 plus decades of wear N tear" I have to say don't quote me on that, as it may have been a graphics memory hair pulling nightmare that I am getting things messed up by..
The early memory used in these platforms were hardcoded speeds, unlike today where you have the memory waiting for the processor, the memory ran at its own speed and quite often the CPU was left waiting for the memory to be ready for an operation.
This did change with the memory standard after the SIMM socket was phased out where the memory speed was tied to the bus speed rather than it's own thing.
there are reported (magazine: c't) cases where chips degraded on e.g. 286's models. namely the RAM could get a little out of spec and then everything chocked. there can be combination of thermal and power and aging... when having the same (but in maybe different directions) happening to the mainboards chipset.
@@alexanderstohr4198
Say what Now?
Don't know exactly where you are at?
But at a hunch, Let me say everything degrades, But it should be noted when it comes to physics the rate of degrading depends on the stresses applied, Eg: Lets say we have two identical circuits and each circuit has a capacitor one circuit is with a capacitor rated at 5 volts and the other circuit a 15Volts capacitor, both circuits BTW have 3.3 volts applied to the capacitors, so obviously both circuits would be very reliable for around a decade or so if not a half a century, but the question is how long exactly?
If both capacitors were manufactured with the same materials and in much the same way, obviously one will not last as long as the other.
And when it comes to semiconductors much the same applies "keep in mind all semiconductors have a natural capacitance" and Atomic structures so with stress, degrading occurs.
So having said all that, Say what now?
It's cool that you get so enthused about the computer NOT crashing on Doom.
The world is a better place with this man. 🙂
I thought it was the '-FLOAT' pin that disables the 386SX - The Intel 'A'-step CPUs (all 16MHz, CPU Reset Signature of 2304h) failed to implement that correctly, which is why some later Intel 386SX CPUs are visibly marked "C-STEP". The Intel 386SX 'B'-step is 2305h, and 'C', 'D', and 'E'-step are 2308h.
What a blast from the past! I remember hearing about those Cyrix Stacker chips. Never saw one though. I grew up in Dallas and I remember going to Cyrix with a friend once to buy a motherboard. Those were the days! lol
This chip reminds me of an earlier version of the Pentium Overdrive for the 486. Thanks for the upload!
This reminds me so much of the Amiga Vampire chip.
That is what I thought. The Vampire sits over the 020 chip on the Amiga 1200's motherboard.
I had one of these years ago. I vividly remember playing Doom at that speed, and the upgrade allowed me to play Comanche as well.
Hi Adrian. This is comment 387 - make of that what you will. :-) First time seeing your channel. I loved this video! I didn't know that one could go from a 286 to a "486." Also, it is so cool that it shows that serious overclocking back in the day and today are both hardcore by swapping hardware on motherboards/components. 😍 Cheers from South Africa.
Back in the day I had an Evergreen make it 586 that went into the ZIF socket on the 486 MB completely replacing the 486. I was also able to run the system with the 487 co-processor in the system along with the Evergreen, I don't remember any specific numbers this many years ago BUT, it DID move CONSIDERABLY faster, and that was with NO over clocking of the chip in any way.
Thanks for the memories with this little slice of history, BTW, nice channel! L8R
Hi Adrian
I always think that you used all intereting topics, but you always suprise me with good and intereting one! 😁
I wish you ali best and more interesting topics. 👍
Thank you for going down these rabbit holes so we don't have to! Same level of satisfaction. :)
Fascinating stuff! I was on the amiga platform with equivalent speedwise accelerator, a 68030 at 50mhz so I missed out on all this, though to be honest I liked the amiga platform a lot more back then! I jumped straight to a P75, skipping the buggy 60 and 66 version. Hated dos and w311 while adjusting to the loss of the amiga software and ease of use. Started to like it when windows 2000 came out. Can't really remember what happened to my old system. I think I've donated some of it to kids moved out of their parents house due to issues. And one to a foundation in seal rehabilitation. Oldest systems I still have are P3s and P4.
I did the same! Used an Amiga 1200 with a 68030@50MHz (Blizzard III?), then switched to a P90 with Windows NT 3.51, skipping all that MS-DOS and HIMEM non-sense.
Cool video again mate, keep up the good work. Also you look like a younger Richard Dreyfuss. Jaws was a great film!
Years ago, my brother had a 386sx machine, and he had one of these installed in it, except it was Cyrix-branded and had a very prominent green heat sink on it.
Back in the early 90's I had an IBM PS/2 Model 30-286 with a 10MHz 286 CPU. At the time Kingston Technology made a number of upgrade modules for different CPUs. I bought one called 386SX/Now and you removed the original CPU (with the provided CPU puller) and plugged in the upgrade module. The 386SX ran at 25MHz and the module could even accommodate a 387SX math chip if you so choose. You booted the computer with a driver that enabled the memory cache and you instantly doubled the performance. It was a worthwhile upgrade. I still have the PS2 but regrettably sold the upgrade module long ago. I wish I still have that, it is insanely rare.
I remember them, gave me flashbacks to putty boxes and full size crt monitors.
That's a nice little upgrade board you've got there! I ordered a similar one a year ago but it got lost in shipping :-(
So I ordered a 5V Ti 486SXLC2-40 chip (the same one as on your REV to 486 386SX2+, which is the official name of this board. It's actually a TI part on your upgrade which features 8k of L1 cache and clock doubling, not Cyrix as this older motherboard sees it as its older brother, a Cyrix SLC), desoldered my i386SX and soldered the 486 chip on. I had some stability issues at first but It's running great now. I have to put in some faster memory to be able to run it at 40 or even 50MHz but I really like little projects like these!
The pin to disable the soldered on 386SX is the float-pin or FLT#. When pulled low, it disables it.
oooh those bios colors bring back memories
I actually have one of those (a make-it 486 replacement chip). I used it to "upgrade" a 286 upgrade board for an 8088. Mine was a Cyrix 486SLC (Think 386 SX with the 486 instruction set, but slower). Then installed it into an IBM XT. It did actually boost performance a LOT. Problem is you are still stuck with 640k of ram unless you install an ISA EMS memory card. One of the coolest and most worthless upgrades I ever did.
Imagine how fast you can play alley cat tho
@Lil Engine Sick "dangerous animals" icon
always cracks me up how many UA-camr say "without further ado, let's get to it"... and then proceed to play a intro, lol
Hi Adrian, I remember I could run doom with a 386 DX33 and 2 MB of RAM no problems since that was my main machine at the time. Then I upgraded to 486DX2-50 and eventually overclocked the same chip to 486DX2-66 and LOVED IT! Thanks for the great video!
a DX2 or DX4 were amazing upgrades! I had been running a 486 SX 25, over clocked to 33, and had ordered in a DX2 66 for a customer build. CPU arrived on a Friday, and mother board was delayed, and back then, you had to make any damage claims on CPUs within 48 hours of delivery. So, the DX2 went into my machine for testing over the weekend. Yeah, I was hooked, and had to get myself one at that point.
@@javabeanz8549 In my country I don’t recall having access to DX4s at the time I was playing Doom mostly during ‘94 and maybe ‘95. I do recall that the 386DX2-66 was the absolute beast at the time and the price made it really unaffordable, that is why I ended up overclocking my 386DX2-50 by accident and since it worked really nice I ended up using it as such until I upgraded.
Woah this brings back nearly erased memories. It felt like distant deja vu but I am sure now. I had this on my first computer in Sweden in the mid-90s. I remember now that we had a 286 or 386 and we clipped that Cyrix board onto it and got a huge speed boost. They were much cheaper than a new computer.
I once sold a 486DX2-66 (100?) on ebay. Per my ad, I instructed that people should check their motherboard to see if they can change the speed to 33MHz. Turns out the winner of the bid had a 486SX16. He is very excited to run across my ad and win the auction. I asked him to let me know what happens. He reports he could not believe the speed difference and was a very happy buyer. A++. 😀
so BEAUTIFUL Colored text/cui BIOS!!!
It’s an upgrade. I actually used one of these back in the 90’s. The one I used was a Cyrix brand. It bypassed the soldered on processor and made a minor difference in speed as I recall. It’s been a while. Mine did not have the heatsink on it.
Looks like a similar hack I made to my Commodore Amiga 386 bridgeboard. Turned it into a nice 25Mhz 486SX ( and with the ZIP ram removed and replaced with SIMs, a whopping 16Mb of RAM)
Great to see the Cyrix device. Thanks for uploading.
It seems like such a long time ago when I used such components. My first PC, was a 486SX, 25 mhz machine that I upgraded to a DX2-50 for $250 dollars. The DX cpu could run Doom quite well back in the day, while the SX was severely hampered. It is sad that today's young gamers missed the "real" massive explosion of gaming and processing power that occurred in the 1990s, for this was the decade when the most massive computing leaps really took place. Also, the amount of money necessary to keep up with new PC cpu's and graphics cards, back then, was simply ridiculous, but well worth it!
Last decade smartphones were evolving as fast as PCs in the 90's. Currently VR gaming is uncharted territory where new innovative concepts arrive one after another. There will always be a thing that is new and exciting, but it will most likely be a niche thing in it's most interesting period.
On the other hand, videos like this and a comment section were unimaginable! I think PC tech would would have plateaued if not for the internet. Imagine if we had to wait for smartphones before the internet was developed, and PCs remained just glorified Word Processors, and all the good games were only on specialized game consoles. A possible but very different world. IMHO, PC tech can't be meaningfully separated from the Internet, at least not in the 90s.
Yes it was absurd, a pc could become obsolete in few months, today I can still play a lot of games in 1080 with a 2014 machine.
Yeah, I'm glad I don't have to pay $4-5K for a "top of the line" pc anymore.....lol.
@@squirlmy Much of the reason I like gaming on PC is the power of the components. That, and I can use things like trainers and editors if I want to cheat, while that is impossible on consoles. Sometimes I have a hard time with games and I just want to experience the story.
it's the way it mounts that gets me !
Cool video Adrian :D
I remember my first build was a 386 with either a 25 or 50 MB hard drive and both 3.5” and 5.25” floppy drives. I also remember how excited I was when I got my first color CRT after using mono for over a decade.
Hello Adrian, thank you again for your videos. Always a joy to watch, beside this crap on TV today.
It brings back so many memories and feel a little bit old with 36 years 😂👌
Stay healthy and remains the person you are.
Best regards from Germany.
Yes a nice little upgrade and a good socket, for my amiga 600 I use a vampire also a print over the 68000 with fpga but it always has a lot of contact problems. The 386sx packaging seems better designed I think.
You can find those sockets that just sit on top of other quad flat packages. A few modern accelerators and add-ons for machines like the Amiga use something similar I believe.
you just reminded me of when i installed Franke 387 DX to give my 486 SX an emulated math coprocessor, it allowed me to run some games (slowly). haha thanks for your vids mate!.
Hi Adrian! Great video i like it very much.... greeting from italy!!!
My thoughts on it crashing randomly is that it is due to the same reason it sometimes wont boot and gives you beep codes. If it's something dodgy that a slight wiggle causes, it could be that, after you've replaced the crystal.
I've not finished watching yet, but so far this is a trip down memory lane! Cheers for this video !
I have a few vintage PCs, only because I have vintage PCI video capture cards in it, which captures vintage VHS tapes perfectly.
I had something similar on my ironically enough 386SX/20, mine was an evergreen part "386 to 486"and gave a bit of a bump with a bit of software that would turn on some cache or something. Anywho, 👍.
I think the name, "Evergreen" rings a bell! I used to order things from a company called, "Tiger Direct" that had all sorts of things like that and of course the dreaded double your ram cd's !
Nice video. Back in the mid to late 90's I was working for a huge company that did upgrades and other things for our customers. Everything from Norsk Data mainframes down to Compaq, Olivetti and Corona "portable" machines. We did install a lot of these "486SLC Turbochip" into older IBM PS/2 models with the 486SX processors, as well as the "486 Overdrive" processors in many 486DX based computers. Sadly I threw away the one's I had back in 2001.. Still have a few nib old computers from those days, like a Compaq Deskpro 2000, AST something with a Pentium 166Mhz in it and a few others. Brings back memories. Btw: Try to measure the JP1 point on the chip with your scope.
Awesome theme music!
The superscape benchmark was the de-facto speed test for gfx cards, but then a few manufacturers modified there video card bios purely to increase the FPS in that particular tool, yes it did help with speed in a lot of games, but also caused glitches with other software, back in the day we tested this by replacing the bios chip (eg v1 for unmodified, v1.1 modified ) and a huge amount of games that worked fine with V1, started to crash or have missing artifacts with v1.1
ISA at 6.66MHz... the bus speed of the beast!
Luke! please, come 2 the future! the future of tomorrow! U'r such a great instructor!!
When I was working building and repairing PC back in the day, I worked with the slc's I remember there was some software that enabled the cashe that came with the chip.
This account is a goldmine. Glad I got here before your channel explodes