upgrading a 33 mhz?

[cherrie669900]

My son bought a comp and now he wants to upgrade it. Is there any way to upgrade such an old comp? and if so, how do I know what to buy to upgrade it? Thank you, Cherrie

[Paleo Pete]

Well, a bit more system info might help. but chances are it can be upgraded to an extent.

If it's a 486-33, you can go to a 66MHz CPU, possibly an overdrive CPU that will bring it up to 83MHz or so. If the motherboard supports DX-4 as well as DX-2 it might accept a DX-4 CPU at 100 or 120 MHz. If it's a 386-33 you're probably stuck at that speed.

Memory can also be upgraded, depending on how much it has now and what type it supports.

Larger hard drives can be added up to a point, it may have a limitation of either 540MB, 2GB, or 8GB depending on BIOS and controller type.

Another possibility is spending a few bucks and upgrading to a Pentium motherboard and CPU. A Pentium CPU in the 200-266MHz range and a board that supports it could be available for about $100 or so if you know where to look. Most of the rest of the existing system can be used if you decide on that route, such as sound cards, video, modem, etc.

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[cherrie669900]

thanks, pete. here is the info that i think u needed to help me. 66 Mhz, DX2, display type- VGA/PGA/EGA, Base memory-640 kb, ext. memory 7168 kb, hard disk- 47. I hope this is what you needed. Thanks, waiting for ur reply. Cherrie

[Paleo Pete]

OK, if you can find one, the motherboard might support the DX-4 CPU, but since they were obsolete at least 5 years ago, they're hard to find these days.

Hard drive type 47 doesn't tell me much, almost any drive can be that type, that means it's user defined in BIOS. If the board has onboard IDE controllers, it will probably handle at least 2GB, possibly up to 8GB, depending on the operating system. DOS/win3.x will only handle 2GB partitions, win95b and up can use FAT32 which allows up to 8GB, more on later Pentium boards. Hard drive size depends mostly on BIOS and controller type.

8MB memory is the main performance consideration. You can probably add more up to 64MB and it will make a big difference.

Same for video, the VGA/PGA/EGA is the standard BIOS setting. FInd out what specific card you have, an upgrade might be possible, but don't expect much, even if it has a PCI slot, it might not support many of the newer cards, since it won't support PCI 2.1.

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[cherrie669900]

Can you tell me how to find that information? I am kind of new to this stuff...LOL...

[Reid]

I had used an Evergreen 586 upgrade in place of a 486DX2-66 CPU. It benchmarked like a Pentium 60. With the memory max'ed out at 32M, it would run Windows 95, not fast, but tolerable.

I believe that 486's had a 540M hard drive limit unless drive overlay software was used.

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rdrummond@thesimpsons.com

[Reid]

Cherrie,

The Evergreen 586 seems to still be available, but at $80 to $90, you may prefer to upgrade to a Pentium board as Pete suggested, although that is a lot more involved than just putting in an upgrade chip and extra memory on your current board. The 486 likely has a VL-bus video card, which will not fit in a Pentium board.

Does your system have a CD ROM drive? If not, that can be tricky to add to a 486 system. The 486 boards I have worked with did not recognize a CD-ROM when connected to the hard drive cable, so a separate controller, sometimes part of the sound card, had to be added.

If need further help, you can also write to me directly.

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rdrummond@thesimpsons.com

[Paleo Pete]

To find out what hard drive you have, and what controller, you'll have to open the case. The hard drive info is on the label. (Brand, size, usually parameters) The drive size should be listed during boot, on the second screen. You'll see a rectangular box, with your system info. The [Pause] key will suspend booting so you can read it. It has a ribbon cable about 2" wide attached to it. If it's attached to the motherboard, it's an onboard controller. If it's attached to a card in one of the slots, you can't use more than 540MB without a different controller, unless someone already installed one.

The video card should be listed in Device Manager if you're running win95. In DOS/Win3.x use msd from DOS. Type msd at the command prompt.

To find out if the video card is ISA, VLB or PCI...

ISA is a black slot made in 2 sections, about 6" long total.
VLB is black, about 9" long, 3 sections.
PCI is a white slot, about 4" long.


This is a 486 board, with VLB slots, (top 3) Isa slots, (The 4 below the VLB) and no onboard controllers.
http://www.zing.com/picture/pba851f63c7c08dd40ec2b3d25ad50be1/ff428090.jpg.orig.jpg

This Pentium board has ISA slots, (the 3 at lower right), and PCI, (the 4 white ones to the left of them). It also has onboard controllers, but they're hard to see. http://www.zing.com/picture/p691aba03216ab9f1c3d034c2a51d4f27/ff42808e.jpg.orig.jpg


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[cherrie669900]

ok. i opened it up and this is what it has....Caviar 31600. AT Compatible Intelligent Drive.
Drive Perameters: 3148 cyl. 16 heads...63 spt. 1624.6 mb...
Western Digital....
ok, now.. thats the hard drive, right?
and it is attached to a card at the bottom but i am still trying to find out what that is...lol

[Reid]

I found a manual for your GMB-486UNP board. I'll take a look at it and get back after checking it.

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rdrummond@thesimpsons.com

[Paleo Pete]

Reid...Post a link!! We wanna see too!! lol

cherrie: The card the hard drive is connected to is an IDE controller. Since it's a 1.6BG drive, it's apparently an EIDE card, (Enhanced IDE) to handle larger than 540MB drives. It still might be limited to 2GB, but that would mostly be related to the FAT table, rather than the controller card.

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Soon as I come up with all the answers...they change the questions!!

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[Reid]

The manual link (http://hongfaith.com/manual.htm) was not working just now, but I did download the GMB-486UNP PDF file last night. The graphics did not come out well, but it is better than nothing. The specifications and jumpers info (http://www.pinteq.co.za/486unp.htm) also help. I also found a BIOS update (http://www.gemlight.com.hk/biosindex/biosurl/486unp.htm) link.

Pete, just in case you are wondering, I got the motherboard part number in a separate e-mail from Cherrie.
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rdrummond@thesimpsons.com

[This message has been edited by Reid (edited 12-02-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Reid (edited 12-02-2000).]

[Reid]

Cherrie,

I may have forgotten to ask, does the system have a CD-ROM drive?

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rdrummond@thesimpsons.com

[cherrie669900]

Yes, Reid, it does have a cdrom, but it quit working for some strange reason.... It tells me that it couldnt find the d:/ drive...lmbo

[Reid]

It would be helpful to see if a CD driver is being loaded during boot-up.
If you had a Windows 98 Startup disk to boot with, it would try loading "universal" CD drivers, which would be a test of the hardware.

What operating system is installed: DOS, Windows 3.1, 95, 98?

Is the CD-ROM connected by a ribbon cable to the same place the hard drive connects to? I'm asking because the 486 boards I have worked with needed a separate controller card to work with the CD-ROM.

I hope I'm not getting too technical.

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rdrummond@thesimpsons.com

[xor_chad]

Hey
I hate to be the one to say this, but...
The money you will spend upgrading this baby is still going to leave you with a system that wont even meet the requirements to run office 2000.
My suggestion is to cut your loses and save up for something newer.
You will pay MORE for older memory and smaller hard drives for this thing.
Anything pre Pentium MMX is a bad investment. Laters...

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Chad Wilson
C++/ASM Programmer
PC Support Technician

[cherrie669900]

Reid.. The cdrom is connected with a cable to the same place. yes..and it had windows 95 on it but i tried to install windows 98 and it said that it couldnt load it because it didnt have enough room on hard drive..

[Reid]

Xor_chad,

I agree with not spending money on the old system, but I have extra hardware from that vintage sitting around, so I made e-mail arrangements to send memory and an upgrade CPU for it. I thought it would be a good learning experience for her son, and also recommended that they save their money for an adequate system when they are ready to upgrade.


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rdrummond@thesimpsons.com

[Reid]

If the computer is still running Windows 95, find the hard drive capacity by double-clicking My Computer (It may have been renamed), then click once on the C: drive, and note the Free Space and Capacity. If it will only boot to DOS, enter chkdsk at the prompt to see the available space and total disk space.

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rdrummond@thesimpsons.com

[Reid]

Windows 95 is probably the practical limit for a 486. Check this advice (http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/tech/98/06/26/help.html) about operating systems for a 486.


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rdrummond@thesimpsons.com

[Paleo Pete]

Thanks for the links Reid. I couldn't find anything on the model number alone...and wanted to know if the DX-4 was supported, looks like it's not.

As far as spending money on a system of this type, it would depend on what kind of parts you need, availability and price range. If you look around a bit some of the parts can be found cheap, since they're sitting around unused and unwanted. I'd check local computer shops and see what turns up. Resale shops sometimes have older systems for under $20 that may have usable parts. CSO (http://www.computersurplusoutlet.com) and PriceWatch (http://www.pricewatch.com) are good online sources for parts at good prices. Some of the online auctions might be worth a try as well.

And as Reid posted, I'd stay with win95 for a 486. It will run win98, but it will be slow.

Hard drive capacity has already been posted, 1.6GB. That's plenty to run win95 and room for some other programs, but stay away from large games...

Also, as already stated, it should be a good system to learn on, since you're not trashing a new $1500 machine if you make a serious blunder.



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Soon as I come up with all the answers...they change the questions!!

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[Reid]

Pete,

I thought the hard drive capacity may have come from the label on the hard drive, so I was curious to see what the system was seeing it as, since there might be a BIOS and/or controller limitation.

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rdrummond@thesimpsons.com