From: livigni@bldrdoc.gov (David livigni 303-497-5898)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.desqview
Subject: Re: Upgradable 386 Motherboard
Summary: more news
Keywords: VEGA, Symphony
Date: 7 Oct 92 17:56:23 GMT

In article <d5c802aM24OP01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com>, msl30@ccc.amdahl.com (Michael Lucash) writes:
> In article <5880@dove.nist.gov> livigni@bldrdoc.gov (David livigni 303-497-5898) writes:
<stuff deleted>
> >     My fear is that the board is a kluge.  It seems too good to be true,
> > it supports so many CPU's.  Some trade-offs were undoubtably necessary 
> > to provide such flexability.  The documentation states that the board runs
> > with 2-wait states with 386's, and 0-wait with the 486-50.  This implies that
> > 386 performance may have been sacrificed to obtain optimal 486 performance.
<stuff deleted>
> >      The other frightening thing is the built-in 10-year battery.  I can't 
> > even find the relevant chip, wonder how hard it would be to replace.
<stuff deleted>
> >
> > David Livigni
> >
> Right now I am running 70ns memory and have seen no problems.  I did get 
> OS/2 yet so I can't comment on that. I should have it loaded up in 2 weeks.
> I wondered
> about the wait state deal also.  But as I started thinking, I came up with the
> idea about the 486 having the Cache so it could run faster without having to
> wait for memory.  
> 
> As for the built in 10year battery, I think it is near the keyboard connector
> but I forget.  It is a chip that looks like a battery backed SRAM because it is.
> I just purchased one for a friend and they cost $16.  The one on this board is
> a standard clock/calendar/battery backed SRAM that most others use.
> 
<stuff deleted and lines edited>
> 
>         Keep me posted and I'll do the same,
>               Mike Lucash 

I have fairly extensively tested the upgradable Vega motherboard and am very
happy to say that no problems have been encountered.  QAPLUS and CHECKIT 
diagnostics run find, and report that the 386-40 is slightly faster than my
AMI Baby Screamer 386-33.  It seems that little performance was sacrificed 
in the 386 mode of the upgradable motherboard, I'll publish the complete
results when I get time to run them.  My 70 ns memory has not given
any problems either, my friends OS/2 problem may very well be due to his
80 ns RAM.  Happily Fastback also works fine in high-speed DMA mode even
with the motherboard in turbo mode!  (I worked on a DTK motherboard which
would not pass Fastback's DMA tests when in "turbo" mode, and was unreliable
with turbo off.  What a piece of JUNK!).  The FAST A20 option is fully 
supported, and is on the bios setup menus.  
   As for the battery, the only unusual chip near the keyboard connector
is the big one that says "Symphony" on it.  Is that the one?  Or does the
battery backed chip look like an ordinary chip?	 Perhaps the battery sits
in the socket under the clock chip?  How old was the "10-year" battery
you replaced in your friend's machine?

   Two new issues did crop up:
   (1): Manifest reports that the motherboard's shadowing 
of system and video bios is slower than QEMM's shadowing.  This
is not the case on my AMI motherboard.  So tonight I will attempt to disable
the motherboard's shadowing, recover the shadow ram with QEMM, and let QEMM
do the shadowing.  This has not usually worked in the past since the shadow
ram is typically non-standard, but if it does the system will be slightly
faster and I may get 100 k or so of RAM back since all 384 k is not needed
for shadowing.  
   (2):  The documentation for the motherboard talks about a jumper 
that sets the ISA buss clock speed.  They list a table with
entries like CLK, CLK/2, CLK/4, etc.  But the options in the actual bios
are 0, 1, 2, 3, etc.  It is presently set to 1 which appears to work for
the 386-40.  But this setting will probably have to be changed when the
CPU is upgraded and the crystal is changed.  So my question is how do the
bios settings relate the the settings given in the documentation?  Any ideas?

   So far, so good.  It appears that this "cheap" clone motherboard is as
good as the much more expensive AMI, and is upgradable to boot!  The only
thing it lacks is the built-in IDE drive controller and ports (about $40
add-ons for the Vega).

David Livigni
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@   Anything stated here is my opinion only    @
@   livigni@bldrdoc.gov                        @
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