wright@enotop.dec.com (MICHAEL wright) (01/03/90)
in the right direction) but does anyone know if the Intel 80286-12 can be replaced in a generic 286 clone with say a 80286-20 or 25 to improve speed?? If so with or without changing the socketed crystal and or the other 3 vlsi chips?? mike
wbeebe@bilver.UUCP (bill beebe) (01/03/90)
In article <7169@shlump.nac.dec.com> wright@enotop.dec.com (MICHAEL wright) writes: >in the right direction) but does anyone know if the Intel 80286-12 can >be replaced in a generic 286 clone with say a 80286-20 or 25 to improve >speed?? If so with or without changing the socketed crystal and or the other >3 vlsi chips?? >mike You can replace any Intel 80286 with AMD's or Harris' 80286 if they are the same pin package, i.e. PGA for PGA, PLCC for PLCC, or LCC for LCC. A Harris replacement would be the best bet if you get the CMOS version. As far as speed increases are concerned, that won't happen unless you boost the clock. Boosting the clock on clone boards is risky since the design is a lot closer to desing limits than the original IBM motherboard. IBM designed very conservatively, so that boosting the original 6 MHz motherboard to 8 or 10 had a high chance for success. I you can stand the pain and need more speed, buy another motherboard. 12-16 Mhz baby AT boards with NO MEMORY are around $350. For another $50 or so you can buy 16 Mhz 80386SX baby AT motherboards, again with NO MEMORY. If your old memory is socketed, and if you get a board with sockets that can support what you have, you can run the older memory on the new board. Hell. Buy a 80486 box. I've seen them advertized in PCWEEK for $3700, quantity 10, $3895, quantity one. You get a box with power supply, 4 meg ram, 32K secondary cache expandable to 256K, keyboard, and a real high-techie 1:1 MFM hard disk controller (can you say "throttle a CPU" ? Sure you can!). The motherboard is a micronics. I saw the ad in the back of the December 25th PCWeek. I don't remember page or manufacturer.