Uncreative Labs

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

What was the fastest 286 motherboard made? I have a lead on a 286/20 with (4) 30 pin SIMM slot, was wondering if anybody made one faster.

Joined: 27 Jan 2007 Posts: 274 Location: USA

i realy can remember but i thought there were 25mhz 286s i could be wrong

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

How speedy is a 286/20 anyway. Would it run Win 3.0 well (or 3.1)?

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

The fastest is probably either a 25MHz 286, or a 20MHz 286 with SRAM cache memory (yes a few do exist)

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 594 Location: Western NC

Best as I recall, they did top out @ 25MHz (apparently verified by: this---at the bottom of the page)

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Supposedly 33MHz parts were planned by Harris, but it got scrapped at the last minute.

In my opinion the 286-20 is a pretty fast machine. I have such a motherboard, and it is quite usable in DOS and for Windows applications that do not require 386 mode. Later when I have more time and money, I would like to play around with it more. I have an extra "make it 486" chip that I plan to heatsink and try at 40MHz. Too bad mine doesn't have the Coprocessor.

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 594 Location: Western NC

I had a 286-12 at one time (I know, not something to really brag about), and I remember how Win3.1 ran quite snappy on it (not having to deal with 386-Enhanced and all). I wonder how well the "make-it-486's" would work in my Compaq Portable II? (probably doesn't fit in DIP sockets...)

Joined: 28 Feb 2006 Posts: 127 Location: LI, NY

I have a 286-12 or 16 and it runs 3.0 pretty quickly.

A 25mhz 286 though? That makes me less proud of my 25mhz 486! lol jk.

Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 261 Location: WisConSin

One of my friends got a 286-25mhz system from Kwiktrip where she worked, 4mb of 60ns ram and a 40mb hard drive. It loaded most windows software faster than the packard smell 486sx machines I had laying around. If I remember correctly it was a Unisys machine in a relatively small form factor.

Sadly they threw it away after it started hanging at post, at the time I figured there was no use in keeping a machine of that type. For the life of me I couldn't get it to do anything besides display the HEADSTART VGA blurbage at startup and there it hung, VGA was onboard as was most everything else, I couldn't get it to do anything even after resetting the bios. Come to think I believe it had a math coprocessor installed which at the time I thought was useless on a 286.

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Make it 486 should work in a PGA socket without problems (if that's what you mean by "DIP"). Just buy a 70cent PLCC-->PGA adapter. I have one in my IBM AT and it works well.

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 594 Location: Western NC

DIP: Dual-Inline Package (but it actually is a PLCC---mistakenly I was looking at the 40-Pin FPU)

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Then you shouldn't have any trouble installing Make-it-486, as it is made for PLCC sockets. If you want one, this guy on ebay has one left:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Cyrix-Cx486SLC-e-33MP_W0QQitemZ230096325093QQihZ013QQcategoryZ1247QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem

Joined: 19 Oct 2004 Posts: 138 Location: Lynnwood,WA

My old 10MHz is overclocked to 12 Mhz via a co-processor enable glitch (I put in a 80c287/12, and it works great, but according to most CPU utilities I've used it lists it as a 12 Mhz CPU). That thing FLIES in Windows 3.1 with full stereo sound and 256 colors, it runs better than my 386 SX did, and is pretty useable for web surfing save the slow load times due to the hard drive bottleneck.

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Creepingnet, I noticed that your XT II has a Soundblaster Pro II installed. Do those really work in 8-bit slots?

Joined: 19 Oct 2004 Posts: 138 Location: Lynnwood,WA

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Creepingnet, I noticed that your XT II has a Soundblaster Pro II installed. Do those really work in 8-bit slots?

Amazingly yes it does. The 16 bit end hangs off though, and I think when in 8-bit mode, the CD-ROM controller is disabled. It works great otherwise though, I use it for making Midi files once in awhile, that and running the XT through a guitar effects processor to use the FM synth as a regular synthesizer.

Actually, at least 75% of the cards in the machine are 16 bit......

EGA/VGA Adapter = 16 bit = OTI 256K VGA/EGA Dual Card
SoundBlaster = 16 bit = SoundBlaster Pro II
Hayes Modem = 8-bit = 2400 Baud? Internal Modem
Microsoft Bus Mouse card = 8-bit = Microsoft Bus Mouse, 2nd version
Ethernet Adapter = 16-bit = DLink Etherlink II/16 TP
SCSI Adapter = 8-bit = Advanced Information Concepts Int/Ext SCSI
Floppy Controller = 16-bit = Goldstar IDE/FDD Controller, IDE Disabled
Last Slot = Open, might be incompatible with some cards = nothing