My computer started out from some parts that I had picked at
Gateway ,
(used parts).
The motherboard is a 486DXLB made by micronics, it has 8 slots
, 2 are 32 bit, there are 2 on board IDE controllers, the bios has
been up graded by
Micro firmware
so that I can use larger hard drives & also it has the option
to write protect the MBR, (Master Boot Record). There is 52 meg of
RAM on the MB,(cant have to much RAM), the board is about 5 years
old.
The processor is
Evergreen Cyrix processor 586-133, with 32k of onboard cache,
it comes with a cache write back utility, which is great, other wise
everything would bottle neck at the board,
(I have seen a lot of improvements in all the parts of my system).
The original processor was a Intel 486DX2-66
To test the improvement of my system I used Wintune,
(which can be gotten from
Windows magazines webpage)
The case,(I don't know who makes it, was given to me) is a
tower, has a 300 watt pwr supply, 6 ext. bays, 6 int. bays &
digital read out on the front.
[ DRIVES ]
All the information is stored on 1,8.4 gig IBM IDE drive,
1, 1 gig WD IDE & 1, 2.1 gig WD IDE. these are
Western
Digitals,(who also has a good drive utility, fstdsk.exe).
There is also storage on
a
colorado 250 tbu (tape backup). I use colo`s SW
(software) in windows for work groups & I use arcades SW in
windows 95, NT. the arcades SW lets me use 800 meg tapes.
I have a 8x CD-ROM made by TOS , nothing special here,
but that it runs well with all my SW & OS`s
(operating systems).
There is a 3.5" 1.44 & a 5.25 1.2 floppy drives, in case
I work on older systems.
[ CARDS ]
The video card is a
Diamond Viper, with 2meg of VRAM on it, the bios
is ver 3.09, performs very well in the wintune test, I do wish that
Diamond would write some new drivers for it.
The sound card is an original sb16 card made by creative labs,
there are new drivers for it on Microsoft's web page, works well
for what I use it for. the sound comes from
Atec Lansing
speakers & woofer.
I have a small network, (4 systems, 1, 386sx40, 1, GW 486pci,
( its my daughters ), this system, GW 300 mhz, & 133 GW also, all
but the 386 is a GW ( gateway 2000 ), 2 cards are NE2000 compatible,
brand ANSEL, their support is not real good & they don't have
a web page, the tech I spoke to has never heard of
DOOM, some problems in DOS linking.( windows 95 & DOS
problems, the others are SMC crd`s.).
One of the most important cards in system, my modem, the
modem is a USR,(US Robotics)
it is a x2 winmodem, USR made for Gateway, its an OEM..
[ MISC ]
there is also a scanner ( flatbed ), digital camera,
HP 694c printer & a snappy.
[ OS`s]
The OS`s I use are all
Microsofts,
DOS 6.22, with WFW 3.11,Windows 95,NT 351 workstation &
NT 4.0 sever. all are a multiboot option at startup.Here are the
configurations I use.
