#486buildoff 486DX-50 Web Server with EISA SCSI RAID

This is my first video for the #486buildoff challenge. I revisit a project I messed with a couple of years ago, but didn't make a video of at the time. Apologies for the sound and video quality in places! It's intended to be informative and (hopefully) interesting rather than 'good'. Previous efforts to improve the quality of my videos have affected my mental health negatively so I'm embracing keeping it simple. The project got corrupted towards the end of production, however, leading to some noticeable glitches.

If all goes to plan I'll also do a video on my 160MHz 5x86 machine, and also share my findings from comparing the 486DX/50 to the DX2/66.

I'm going to try and keep it online between 21:00 and 09:00 GMT each day during September 2022.

00:00 Introduction
03:03 The motherboard (TMC PET-48PN rev 1.0)
07:03 Cache, RAM & CPU (Intel 486DX/50)
09:38 Graphics card (2theMax ET4000 W32i 2MB VLB)
10:33 SCSI-2 Cards (Adaptec AHA-2742AT EISA, DPT SmartCache/SmartRAID III EISA aka PM2122+CM4000+DM4000)
13:43 Storage (Seagate Barracuda 4LP 32171N & 4XL ST32272N SCSI-2)
17:46 EISA configuration utility
23:44 RAID configuration (DPT Storage Manager)
26:15 Installation of perating system (Windows NT 3.51)
28:30 Installation of Microsoft Back Office Server 2.0
30:43 Testing the RAID fault tolerance
32:35 Hardware recap and building the system
36:44 Putting the server online
38:04 Outro

Links of relevance (working as of September 2022):

[badrolix]

In the evening I will make myself a strong cup of tea and watch your video in detail in a calm home environment. Have a nice day, comrade!

[OCROldComputerRebuilds]

WOW thanks for the shot out. I'm glade you did the EISA system. You have went above and beyond for the build off. I have never seen a full size scsi card. I don't know were to start on what I love about this system. The whole system is a perfect masterpiece. Thank you for sharing you passion with us all.

[vswitchzero]

What an awesome build, Andrew! I love it and really enjoyed the video. I never owned a board with EISA but always thought it was such a promising standard as an ISA replacement. It’s too bad it didn’t get more adoption. That SCSI card is really epic too. The LED display on it is so cool. Gotta love the DX50 also - such a unique chip. I hope to pick one up some day. I signed the guestbook 👍😁

[geekwithsocialskills]

Really nice 486 build. I'm going to try and sneak a 486 build off video on my channel before the end of September. I have two options, either a Intel 486DX-66 or a Intel 486DX2-66. My only hold up at this point is finding a proper case to use. Hopefully I get that sorted in the coming days.

[SUCRA]

Man! This is the most complicated 486 build I have ever seen! I don't know how you know so much about 486 networking, but it absolutely baffled me 😅 Congrats on the build and in the video. On another note back in the late 90s I owned a 486 DX 50 myself, and believe it or not, mine was stable. And I could run games my friends with early pentiums were running like NFS, with interlaced graphics, but still. This was an interesting video, thanks!

[O.Shawabkeh]

Clicked to watch a show of hardware and games, ended up with new technical terms and few thing never seen before.
Thank you man!

[jikissgamer]

This is awesome! I never knew anything about EISA or Windows NT before this video. I learned quite a bit from watching this. It's very cool to see what a server from the 486 days would have looked like. Excellent video!

[spladam]

Very unique build Andrew, this is a fantastic choice for the build off, ending with this beautiful relic back in service on the web. Well done mate.

[HighTreason]

That is a very nice build. I have to suspect your cache stability issues might be entirely the fault of that OPTi chipset, as they always seem to be finicky things - I don't just try to stay in UMC/SiS land for no reason, you know. Not sure if they ever made an EISA chipset, though. OPTi, by contrast, seem to have made one for everything, even solutions to problems that never needed solving.

Worked with EISA just once. Never again. DPT controllers too (You'll see, soon enough. Strange parallels.), never again. I'm surprised by the RAID5 support, as that definitely doesn't show up on older hardware very often.

There is another 486 web server out there: Mine. No Windows NT; all DOS and it's been off for a while. Need to get back to that project some time, as it was supposed to be a museum of machines I own. Also had it stream video. ISA only machine and at a mere 33MHz, as the board tops out there. It has occasionally served a static version of the main site when the modern server has been out for repairs. It's all still there ready to go when time permits.

[OzzFan]

Such a fascinating system! I really enjoy watching builds like this where something a little bit different is done to showcase in the video. Thanks for sharing!

[davidhunt]

Nice one, I do like these in-depth projects to re-create server environments from the 90s - only relatively recently considered "vintage" I had a DX50 VLB build BITD - took a while to get stuff that would work reliably. EISA still ran at the 8MHz clock no matter what CPU was installed. Caches on array controllers aided striping and mirroring, but the speed of the CPU is so much quicker than the I/O bus - hence VLB and PCI.

[Injectr]

Loving this build. You’ve actually built the build that I was planning for my PET48PN Rev.1. That is, until my motherboard died on me. :( it’s still on my bench, waiting to be repaired.

That SCSI gear is really awesome. I think you might be able to fit another HDD under the PSU. :)

Have fun on using this awesome little machine. I know I already through this video. Many thanks for that!

Cheers!

[stevecps]

Loved the video - Proper memories of running a web server with SQL Server on NT 3.51 from when I started work experience in 1996! I can't remember what the site did now but I remember we ran it on a DEC/Digital workstation :)

[DextersTechLab]

Hello! Would love to be part of this but a big Q gets in the way, have fun all! 🙂

[honuswagnercardman]

Guess I was 2 months late for the website since it seems to be down now :(

[rasz]

Loved the video!
>(content loudness -0.1dB)
Looks like you tried to optimize audio, but went too far. You peak and clip multiple times :(, for example @5.01 "tier".