PC Tear Down

[ffemterb]

I found a computer in my house which, if I remember correctly, was the first one my family had. The parts are all dated 1994 or 1995 which would make sense with what I remember. I am scrapping it so I wanted to remove the hard drive and figured I would share some of the interesting finds.

 

The motherboard had two Intel PCI chipsets and a Cyrix processor. I found it interesting that the CPU used an AMD style mount but the board had Intel chips (if anyone has an explanation I would be interested).

Memory was in the same format as the modern DIMMs but they were labled as "SIMM" slots and went in on an angle and then stood up instead of being pushed down into the slot.

I'm not sure who made the video card but it had a single RCA style video out, along with a S-Video and VGA.

The sound card was actually the largest add in card in the computer. It had three RCA outs and a serial connector similar to a VGA but bigger.

As this was the mid 90s, there was no onboard ethernet (there actually was no IO on the board at all) so the computer had this PCI ethernet card. I was also amused that it was made in Canada.

In addition to an optical drive, the computer had a 3.5 inch floppy drive and this 5.25 inch floppy drive. I actually remember "gaming" on disks that size.

We had the hard drive "updated" to this massive 8.4GB drive later in the life of the computer.

 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Hope you kept the CPU. 

[mariushm]

4 minutes ago, ffemterb said:

Iok motherboard ... Intel VX chipset, socket 7 ... cyrix processor running at 150 mhz ( Pentium Relative performance 200 Mhz )

 

 

The motherboard had two Intel PCI chipsets and a Cyrix processor. I found it interesting that the CPU used an AMD style mount but the board had Intel chips (if anyone has an explanation I would be interested).

 

It's not an AMD mount, it's just PGA socket ... it's regular Socket 7  which was used for loads of processors of that era, and Super Socket 7 (for AMD K6-2 and Cyrix and others of that time is basically just a Socket 7 on steroids)

 

Intel later moved to LGA chips (processors with pads instead of pins) because it was cheaper for them - they got fewer processors at warranty because people no longer damaged pins, but pissed motherboard makers because they now had to deny warranties for bad sockets and have angry customers when they dropped things inside the sockets.

 

4 minutes ago, ffemterb said:

Memory was in the same format as the modern DIMMs but they were labled as "SIMM" slots and went in on an angle and then stood up instead of being pushed down into the slot.

 

They're called EDO memory and if I remember correctly you had to install them in pairs because they're 32 bit wide and processors already had 64bit memory interface. The black slot is SDRAM and that slot is already 64 bit wide so it was possible to install only one stick.

 

4 minutes ago, ffemterb said:

I'm not sure who made the video card but it had a single RCA style video out, along with a S-Video and VGA.

 

ugh ancient from the times where you could still buy 512 KB - 1 MB memory chips and add 1-2 MB of memory to the video card ... yeah has svideo or composite or maybe plain rgb through that rca connector

 

4 minutes ago, ffemterb said:

The sound card was actually the largest add in card in the computer. It had three RCA outs and a serial connector similar to a VGA but bigger.

 

It's so big because it has a IDE controller for CD-ROM drives (the adaptec chip on the left and the long connector) and the audio amplifier for the line out (the two 3 pin chips are linear regulators and the vertical chip between all capacitors is audio amplifier)

The jack like VGA is joystick connector.

 

4 minutes ago, ffemterb said:

As this was the mid 90s, there was no onboard ethernet (there actually was no IO on the board at all) so the computer had this PCI ethernet card. I was also amused that it was made in Canada.

Cool ... looks like it's only 10 mbps but I may be wrong, can't see other side... you sure that's an ethernet card and not a regular dial up modem card (it would make sense, you'd have a phone IN and phone OUT ... so your card is pass through for the phone line?

 

 

In addition to an optical drive, the computer had a 3.5 inch floppy drive and this 5.25 inch floppy drive. I actually remember "gaming" on disks that size.

We had the hard drive "updated" to this massive 8.4GB drive later in the life of the computer.

never liked samsung drives, they were a bit more noisy than maxtor and wd.

 

[geo3]

31 minutes ago, mariushm said:

They're called EDO memory and if I remember correctly you had to install them in pairs because they're 32 bit wide and processors already had 64bit memory interface. The black slot is SDRAM and that slot is already 64 bit wide so it was possible to install only one stick.

No, the cyrix6x86 was very far from being 64bit. This is from the mid 90's.  You wouldn't see 64bit until the AMD Opteron in 2003 and the Prescott based P4s from Intel in 2004.

[mariushm]

2 hours ago, geo3 said:

No, the cyrix6x86 was very far from being 64bit. This is from the mid 90's.  You wouldn't see 64bit until the AMD Opteron in 2003 and the Prescott based P4s from Intel in 2004.

It's not 64bit processor,i don't mean that. it's 32bit cpu with 64bit wide bus paths inside and 64bit wide memory controller ... think like video cards can have 256-512bit wide memory path.

 

ex

8086 16bit registers, 16bit external data bus

8088 16bit registers, 16bit external data bus (cheaper lower pin count chips)

80386 first "32bit cpu" 32-bit internal architecture, External data bus width: 16 bits, External address bus width: 24 bits

pentium p5 64bit internal bus 32bit address bus etc

 

and just the same other cpus in the pentium era used 64bit data bus in them, but they were still 32bit cpus (16bit and 32bit registers, 32 bit address bus etc etc)

 

[Unimportant]

11 hours ago, ffemterb said:

I found it interesting that the CPU used an AMD style mount but the board had Intel chips (if anyone has an explanation I would be interested).

Socket 7 was a Intel socket, introduced for P5 Pentium CPU's with bus speeds up to 66Mhz. Other CPU manufacturers, lacking their own credible platform at that time, simply made their CPU's to fit Intel's socket. A bit later down the line, Intel refused to share their Pentium 2 SLOT1 socket so other manufacturers stuck to socket 7 and upgraded it to 100Mhz bus speeds and even AGP support with the help of 3rd party chipset manufacturers like VIA and SiS.

 

11 hours ago, ffemterb said:

I'm not sure who made the video card but it had a single RCA style video out, along with a S-Video and VGA.

Afaik it's made by Trident itself, a ubiquitous VGA chipset manufacturer at the time. I wonder if the RCA behaves the same as the original IBM one

 

10 hours ago, geo3 said:

No, the cyrix6x86 was very far from being 64bit.

Socket 7's memory bus width is indeed 64 bit.

 

Looks like you're scrapping a nice retro game rig, sad

[ffemterb]

Thanks for all the explanations! I was sad to see it go but had a good time with the tear down.