grim2@cbnewsk.att.com (steven.j.pilgrim) (01/10/91)
I would appreciate any help I can get with this relatively basic question. How difficult is it to upgrade a 286-12 machine to something more powerful like a 386-25 or 386-33? I'm not a hardware guru. I've put in cards and changed jumpers on the motherboard for different video display settings but that's about it. I'm not afraid of taking it apart on the other hand. I have a large footprint Northgate 286-12. The only extra internal cards I have are a mouse card, VGA card, modem, and a joystick card. The disk controller is an RLL type. I have your basic three drives. I've read some articles here that say I should consider a 16-bit disk controller if I move up in speed. My basic questions are what do I need to look for when making a purchase through Computer Shopper for instance? Northgate does not sell motherboards separately so I will need to go to a different vendor. How can I tell if I will need to upgrade my disk controller? Is this something someone with my limited experience can handle? One other question. Since I don't want to do this procedure too often does getting a cache on my system make sense? How much memory is usuallly needed these days on the motherboard the applications coming out these days? Like I said, any help/insight you can provide is appreciated. Hopefully I can learn something to help someone else sometime. Thanks, Steve Pilgrim
vandevek@fergvax.unl.edu (James M. VandeVegt) (01/20/91)
In article <1991Jan9.185040.7909@cbnewsk.att.com> grim2@cbnewsk.att.com (steven.j.pilgrim) writes: >I would appreciate any help I can get with this relatively >basic question. How difficult is it to upgrade a 286-12 >machine to something more powerful like a 386-25 or 386-33? >I'm not a hardware guru. I've put in cards and changed jumpers >on the motherboard for different video display settings but >that's about it. I'm not afraid of taking it apart on the other hand. >I have a large footprint Northgate 286-12. The only extra >internal cards I have are a mouse card, VGA card, modem, and >a joystick card. The disk controller is an RLL type. I have >your basic three drives. I've read some articles here that >say I should consider a 16-bit disk controller if I move up >in speed. My basic questions are what do I need to look for >when making a purchase through Computer Shopper for instance? >Northgate does not sell motherboards separately so I will need >to go to a different vendor. How can I tell if I will need to >upgrade my disk controller? Is this something someone with my >limited experience can handle? One other question. Since I >don't want to do this procedure too often does getting a cache >on my system make sense? How much memory is usuallly needed >these days on the motherboard the applications coming out these >days? Like I said, any help/insight you can provide is appreciated. >Hopefully I can learn something to help someone else sometime. > >Thanks, >Steve Pilgrim What you already have done is the right idea except you have to go deeper. Assuming that the new MB fits correctly in your case and power supply, take out all your cards, unscrew the motherboard, put the new MB in, and replace the cards. I leave the HD controller to someone with more expertise. It would be my suggestion to upgrade to 16-bit archetecture whether the current one runs or not. As far as memory SRAM caches are concerned, more is better but it is also more expensive given the price of SRAM. I have seen 32K and 64K advertised frequently, but as high as 256K. I would probably go with a 64K cache on a 386-25 or 386-33. You find very few memory cache units with the 20MHz chip. And, if you are thinking about putting in a 20MHZ, put in a 25MHZ without cache instead, you will get better performance without too much more money. I am not sure if you are asking about conventional memory or not, but get at least 4 Meg in 1Mx9 SIMMS. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | James M. VandeVegt | University of Nebraska | | vandevek@fergvax.unl.edu | Computer Science and Engineering | ----------------------------------------------------------------------