Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!lethe!yunexus!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen
From: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Which motherboard? & Power supply?
Message-ID: <3081@sixhub.UUCP>
Date: 3 Feb 91 22:36:35 GMT
References: <1173@culhua.prg.ox.ac.uk>
Reply-To: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: *IX Public Access UNIX, Schenectady NY
Lines: 59

In article <1173@culhua.prg.ox.ac.uk> mason@robots.ox.ac.uk (Ian Mason) writes:

| I am thinking of upgrading a XT motherboard to either a 20MHz-286 or
| 16MHz-386sx. The questions are:

  Start by dropping the 286 idea. There are enough programs, even common
ones like PKZIP, which use the 386 if they find it, and run much faster
for it. People will tell you that a 286 at the same clock will run the
same program as fast, and while true, the problem is that the 386
version will run up to twice as fast and won't run on the 286 at all.
That also goes for neat memory managers like QEMM, etc.

  An SX isn't much faster for most things, but it is a lot more likely
to be useful in 2-3 years.

| 1) Are there any particular make of motherboard that I should avoid?

  I don't like to try to list avoids, you can get a brand name m.b. like
AMI or Micronics and be pretty safe. I get my 16MHz SX boards from
American Dealer SUpply and Support (408-720-9292) and the price just
went up to $385. WHile this is not a checp price, and they will try hard
to sell you their 20MHz model, I have used about a dozen of these and
run DOS, UNIX, and Xenix on it with success. I have not tried the 20MHz
board, as it is completely different and I want reliability rather than
speed in most cases. If I want more than that I would buy their 25MHz DX
board, not a fast SX.

| Are there any particular chipsets (e.g. TI, UMC, C&T, DTK) that I
| should avoid? Any praises as well? [Addresses & tel. nos. of suppliers
| would be most helpful.]

  The board I use has the NEAT chipset. If you like to be able to adjust
things the way you want you'll love it. It also has EMS support if you
like hardware rather than 386 (like QEMM) implementation.

| 2) Power consumption: how much can a 150 or 200W power supply handle? 

  I never found the limit of 200w unless I was running industrial
control. 150 should be fine for up to two HD and 16MB RAM + SVGA.

Note: 

(1) my experience is *only* with the 16MHz version of the board, not
the 20. The 20 is a new design made in a different factory. I'll try it
when I must.

(2) I had one board which was thermal sensitive. They gave me a choice
of shipping the old board and getting a new one by return mail or
getting a new one right then and billing my plastic if I didn't ship the
old one back.

(3) I have only talked to one technical guy and he knew what he was
talking about. The order takers don't strike me as technical (but they
don't need to be, do they).
-- 
bill davidsen - davidsen@sixhub.uucp (uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen)
    sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX
    moderator of comp.binaries.ibm.pc and 80386 mailing list
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me