bradd@gssc.UUCP (Brad Davis) (12/27/88)
Does anyone out there have experience with any of those AT-compatible 386 motherboards? Especially regarding AMI, Micronics and Haupagge brands as these appear to be the most popular/reputable. In particular, have you had any buss or bios compatibility problems? How does it get along with Windows 386? OS/2? Unix/Xenix? DesqView? Would you do it again? The situation is that I don't really have the budget for a whole new box, and a brain transplant seems like a much better solution than an InBoard. Any advice from anyone who has been in this position would be greatly appreciated; would you go with one of these, install an InBoard, or just put up with your (6MHz IBM) AT until you can afford a new 386 machine? Please email if possible; I will summarize to the net. Brad Davis ====== ====== ====== Graphic Software Systems == == == (503) 641-5364 == == == == == == uunet!tektronix!sequent!gssc!bradd == == == == Disclaimer: I'm a mushroom. ====== ====== ====== "Practice safe computing. Wear a write-protect tab."
bcw@rti.UUCP (Bruce Wright) (01/10/89)
In article <5815@gssc.UUCP>, bradd@gssc.UUCP (Brad Davis) writes: > > Does anyone out there have experience with any of those AT-compatible > 386 motherboards? Especially regarding AMI, Micronics and Haupagge brands > as these appear to be the most popular/reputable. In particular, have > you had any buss or bios compatibility problems? How does it get along > with Windows 386? OS/2? Unix/Xenix? DesqView? Would you do it again? > > The situation is that I don't really have the budget for a whole new box, > and a brain transplant seems like a much better solution than an InBoard. > I would agree that for most applications a new motherboard is better than an accelerator product. Nowadays, the only really good reason to go with an accelerator rather than a motherboard is because you have some hardware which is dependent on the old board (say, because the bus speed is not compatible with the motherboard) that you can't get rid of. I am not however convinced that replacing a 286 or 8088 motherboard with a 386 motherboard is cost-effective. The cost of 386 motherboards is so high compared to the cost of a complete 386 machine that it actually becomes attractive to sell the 286 or 8086 machine and buy a complete new 386 machine. The differential becomes even greater if you have a significant amount of memory on the 286 (you may not want to use 286 memory boards on a 386, so that means getting the 386 memory board which often takes incompatible memory chips -- so you can't even cannibalize the 286 memory boards!). Likewise if you want to upgrade the disk drives - if you just upgrade, you wind up with a bunch of parts rather than a whole machine; usually you can sell a complete machine for more than a handfull of miscellaneous parts. Obviously every case is going to have unique considerations - depending on the hardware you already have (and may need to discard/sell/replace/keep) and what you want to replace or augment it with. Bruce C. Wright
trd10523@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (09/15/89)
Does anyone out there manufacture (or know of a manufacturer) of 386 motherboards? I'm looking to buy a couple, but if the price is right I might be interested in a moderate quantity. I'm looking for a manufacturer because I want to eliminate as many "middleman" costs as possible. Please e-mail replies. Many thanks in advance. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// / Todd Davis ARPA: trd10523@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu / / Computer Engineering Student / / University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign / ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////