Cool box you got there 😀 I did see that auction on ebay now that you mention it.

I like these old brand name boxes, everything you need is onboard and they are a minimum of fuss. Interesting that its got VLB and PCI slots while having onboard video and IDE as well.

Judging by the P24D/T jumper I'd say this is a 5v only board so you will be limited to a DX4 Overdrive, (the standard DX4's are 3.3V and won't work- for very long 😜 ) or a Pentium Overdrive.

No L2 cache is probably the only downer but you should be able to track some chips down for it pretty easily.

Fixed the images (correct order now)...

Cache doesn't worry me that much. Haven't tested how slow this machine gets once you turn off L1.

Wondering how the onboard GPU is connected to the system? 3dbench score seems a bit low, that could be either the missing L2 cache or the GPU is hooked up through ISA.

Other questions:

- Sync / Async jumper? what does it do?
- CLK / CLK1/2? does this refer to ISA clock?
- VL Salve Wait State 0 or 1? I didn't know there was master and slave?
- VL Master non burst / rd burst / read and write burst?
- 486-S or P24D? What does this mean?
- Seems it takes up to 512kb of cache. Nice

Sync/async jumper is probably the VLB clock speed, either synced to the FSB or running at its own speed.

Likewise, CLK or CLK1/2 is probably referring to the VLB clock, either at full FSB speed or half FSB speed. I don't know what speed it would run at in ASYNC mode, I'm guessing 33MHz regardless of FSB.

I believe that master/slave mode refers to VLB cards which have their own CPU's, like SCSI adapters. You need a master VLB slot to use such boards. Since you've only got one VLB slot I assume that jumper just sets whether that slot is master or slave. If all you are using is a video card or a basic IDE I/O card then changing this jumper won't make much difference.

The wait states are pretty self explanatory, just clock timings. Supposedly if you are running over 33MHz VLB bus you should have the wait state enabled for stability, although my machines work fine without it. Burst master jumper probably won't do anything without a master card.

486-S is a standard 486 I think, and P24D is a 486 with writeback L1 cache (standard 486 had write thru). P24D is a DX4 and P24T is a Pentium Overdrive.

Of course there may be a couple of errors here but I'm just going off what I've got in my 486 manual 😀 The options aren't the exactly same but I think they are close enough.

While I've got you here I've just won a Sound Blaster 1.5 brand new in box off ebay 😀 What were the model numbers of the CMS chips you used to upgrade yours?

Okido, more questions!

1. Is the onboard GPU, ISA, VLB or PCI?

There is a jumper to disable it, which is nice...

This chip is odd, I can't find any SCSI connector:

Jumper at the bottom left enables / disables something. No idea what:

No idea what this means...

Hmm not sure how this jumper works. How would I toggle between 25 and 33 MHz? Does the oscillator determine this?

AIC-25VL01Q seems to be the VLB IDE controller

iulianv wrote:

AIC-25VL01Q seems to be the VLB IDE controller

Okido that makes sense!

These are 486 CPUs I have. I will use the 486DX-33 because I don't know how to set the FSB to 25MHz yet...

The mach32 could be either pci or vlb, it makes little practical difference really. Both buses have similar performance at least on paper.

The Adaptec chip seems to be an IDE controller and the ADI2 jumper enables/disables it:

http://www.ryston.cz/petr/vlb/adi2.html

The 651 and 665 jumpers appear to be referring to an I/O controller
http://www.o3one.org/hwdocs/keyboard/an411.pdf

Not sure about the bus speed jumper you shouldnt have to swap crystals on a board of that age I would have thought... is there another jumper to pick between the two speeds somewhere?

I'm putting in the 486DX and checking if a 2GB CF card works...

Update:

CPU works. Get's quite hot though (haven't got a cooler).

2GB CF cards get's detected as 2GB, but can only format 512. Not an issue at the moment, I guess something like ontrack or maxblast is needed?

Acer. Yuck.

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

Acer. Yuck.

You do realize that most computers are built in the same factories using the same parts, right? The factory has a list of options the OEM's choose from then the factory builds the computers. It doesn't matter if it's Acer, HP, Compaq, Packard Bell, or whoever. The only difference is the name that goes on the front a maybe a few aesthetic details.

The difference is that Acer puts its label on the cheapest crap.

Acer does have that reputation...

Still the machine works fine after 10+ years 😜

PS: In Australia Acer has awesome sales training and incentives. So I guess I'm biased...

Anyway back to figuring out all the jumpers!

- I wouldn't mind getting some cache for this machine. What should I look for?

- Is the Mach32 ISA, PCI or VLB? How could I test this?

Also where is RG100, Amigaz, Tetrium, swaaye and everyone else 😢

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Also where is RG100, Amigaz, Tetrium, swaaye and everyone else 😢

I'm right here, matey 😀 but I'm at work so my hands are a bit "tied up"

Wish to help....have you checked if Acer still has any info? or stason.org?
There's also http://www.elhvb.com/mobokive/Archive/index.html

The Mach32 is most likely PCI, could be thru a VLB-->PCI bridge also
Can't remember if my ALi chipset MS4134 had that chipset combo

Hehe I feel like I'm throwing a party and nobody is coming 🤣

A few BIOS options are greyed out (L1 and L2 cache) and options to disable serial and parallel ports. Maybe there are options to unlock these items? For L1 the command line utility should work though...

Also! You won't believe it!!!!

The SB 2.0 I got from you finally works! And so do my two others!

I have no idea why or how and I can't explain it, but they do not work on my SS7 and Slot 1 board. All I got was super very faint / almost inaudible music and super loud static.

Now it's all good! They sound great, but the shielding is very very poor. You can hear a lot of background "activities".

Now testing my PAS16 to see if the "speed bug" is also gone...

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Hehe I feel like I'm throwing a party and nobody is coming 🤣

A few BIOS options are greyed out (L1 and L2 cache) and options to disable serial and parallel ports. Maybe there are options to unlock these items? For L1 the command line utility should work though...

Remember that most of us in Europe are working this time of day and the yanks are sleeping 😉

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Also! You won't believe it!!!! […]
Show full quote

Also! You won't believe it!!!!

Your SB 2.0 finally works! And so do my two others!

I have no idea why or how and I can't explain it, but they do not work on my SS7 and Slot 1 board. All I got was very faint music and super loud static.

Now it's all good! They sound great, but the shielding is very very poor. You can hear a lot of background "activities".

Now testing my PAS16 to see if the "speed bug" is also gone...

Cool, I had tested that card before sending it so I was suprised it had just "died" in the shipping

Maybe the card needs the infamois -5volt line or something?

First off, it would be a lot easier to see what's going on if you got a good picture of the whole motherboard, with the riser and drive cages removed. The detail shots are good, but it's hard to see exactly how everything is laid out just from the close-ups.

The Mach32 is most likely VLB, just extrapolating from the fact that the IDE controller is VLB. If other onboard stuff is running on VLB, it's very unlikely that the video would be ISA, but at the same time, the Mach32 was a bit early for PCI... it supported PCI, I believe, but it wasn't very common to do.

For the cache, looks like it'll take a couple different kinds of chips, probably one of them being the standard 28-pin 32Kx8 61256's and equivalents. If that's the case, you'll probably need nine of them, 8 for cache and one for TAG.

The cache options you see in the BIOS are not options at all. The cache is going to be set entirely with jumpers on the motherboard, and the BIOS only reports the settings.

Also, about the "Async/Sync" setting, that's not for the VLB, but for the PCI.