Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!bu.edu!bu-cs!bucsb!apollo
From: apollo@bucsb.UUCP (Doug Chan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: yo mother
Message-ID: <193@bucsb.UUCP>
Date: 11 Jan 90 18:37:39 GMT
References: <20726@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <42900059@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: apollo@bucsb.bu.edu (Douglas Chan)
Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Organization: Boston Univ Comp. Sci.
Lines: 48

In article <42900059@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu> dkchen@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu.UUCP writes:
>  I am planning to have a mother board upgrade for my Turbo XT, too.
>  All I heard from here are the successful cases, is someone out there has
>  bad luck swapping mother board? Maybe we can learn more from him (her).
I upgraded from an 4.77 mhz XT board to a 25 mhz 386 baby AT board (what a
jump!)  Anyway, I found a few problems:
 1) The baby AT sized board won't mount properly into the XT case.
    On my XT case, it uses 9 stand-off posts (metal ones, not the snap-in
    plastic things) but only 3 will match the holes on the new board.
    I wanted to drill new holes in the case and move the posts but I
    didn't have a drill w/ me at the time...  I ended up fixing the board
    in place w/only the 3 posts and I took the other 6 off of the case,
    fixed them on to the board and glued the end of the posts to the case!

    This problem would occur w/older style cases... I believe the newer
    cases use plastic stand-offs placed on sliding/slotted rails.

 2) After the board was installed, I had to place the drive rack back in.
    Guess what...the baby-AT board is about 3/4" longer than the XT board
    and that prevented one of the rack's support post/leg from going in.
    Solution: Bent the rack's leg out of the way and made sure the rack
      wouldn't touch the top of the motherboard.
    Again, the newer cases shouldn't have this problem... I checked one
    and the support leg didn't exist.

 3) A minor annoyance but I'll cover it anyway... The 150W power supply
    seemed a bit marginal.  The problem only shows up when doing a cold
    startup - a lot of times the system won't boot but pushing the
    reset button will always get it started.  Sometimes the HD really 
    has a hard time getting started (this never happened w/the XT board
    installed so it most likely isn't a 'stiction' problem).
    This may not be a problem on some systems...if it is, obviously, get
    a larger power supply. 

>	Also, is it true that all the cards (multi. func,mono/Herculus,
>	HD controler, etc.,) for my Turbo XT can be used on a 386SX mother 
>	board without any problem?
No problems here but watch out for the bus speed (this board has 8/8.3/12.5
mhz settings)... luckily all my old cards can run at 12.5 mhz.
For the HD controller, since it is an XT card you'll have to configure
your system set-up for 'no drive C: installed' since the controller will
handle everything.
Also, note that AT cards are taller and you won't be able to re-assemble
the case.  This may be important if you get a 386 system w/ a 32-bit slot
and the only 32-bit memory expansion card happens to be an AT sized card!

-Doug
apollo@{bucsb/buengc/buengf/raven}.bu.edu