Let's overclock and improve this old 286 motherboard

In this video I take this old 286 motherboard that’s good and make it great! This is one of those projects that didn’t need to happen, but I had fun doing it and I feel turned out great. I always get excited when I’m able to take something and improve it, especially something old and forgotten.

-- Links

BIOS from this motherboard: (I also included a copy of the datasheet)

Second channel video where I first show this motherboard:

Adrian's Digital Basement Merch store:

Adrian's Digital Basement ][ (Second Channel)

Support the channel on Patreon:

My GitHub repository:

-- Tools

Deoxit D5:

O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)

Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:

Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:

Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:

Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:

TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM programmer: (The MiniPro)

TS100 Soldering Iron:

EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:

DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:

Magnetic Screw Holder:

Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)

RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)

Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)

Heat Sinks:

Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)

--- Instructional videos

My video on damage-free chip removal:

--- Music

Intro music and other tracks by:
Nathan Divino
@itsnathandivino

[dynadd]

You made the day of a 51 years old boy! It brought me back to my endless nights of fiddling, programming and trying to muffle the sound of my dot matrix to avoid awaking my dad... lol! 8 mbs on a 286.. crazy!

[hanswurst]

ahhh i can remember back in the late 80s we had a 286 at home .... great memories with monkey island and lemmings and stuff :D

[jodynelson]

Looked in an old computer shopper 1992, several sellers have SIMM memory listings with a line that says: ” SIPP $5 more per module”

[jessiec]

This is an exciting video. Changing to more modern memory slots. Very cool. Very impressive. I have never seen any of those old type memory with the pins installed. I started building computers in 1995. And where I worked, I purchased some of their computers. I know when I first started, I had to install a card with the IDE pins. And the floppy as well. I built computers for neighbors, and I could warranty them for 3 years, that is what they gave me on every computer board I purchased. Watching you convert the sim sockets Rocks! I am so happy it worked!

[CPUGalaxy]

The oscillator next to the FPU socket is for separate clocking the FPU if desired. The jumper should choose between synchronous mode for the FPU which would be the half of the CPU clock (24 MHz /4) or asynchronous mode which gives you the possibility to clock the FPU higher if you install a 287XL or ITT up to 20 MHz. I recently pushed one of my 286 boards to the limit with this experiments. Cheers, Peter

[JarheadCrayonEater]

This is great!
I was a PC repair and clone build technician from 1990-1995 in Denver, at the start of my career.
I'm 47 now, and this brings back great memories!

[porklaser]

Fantastic conversion!
I converted simm modules to SIP by using "turned pin" style male-male pin headers. They're pretty easy to solder on, they're the correct pin pitch, and they mate perfectly with the turned pin style female sockets on the motherboard.. What's easier though is you can just stuff the raw simm sockets in to the sipp headers. No need to solder or anything. If the spacing is right just stick 'em right in and they work. Granted de-soldering the old sockets and putting the headers in proper is better but the easy way works in a pinch.

Also nice this motherboard with those "3 chip" modules. Older 286 boards often only post with the "9 chip" sort.

[mark_mcnaughton]

I wish I could have watched you on youtube in the 90’s. I’ve learned so much from you. Thank you.

[BaronVonBeef]

You can certainly make use of the thin solder in a pinch, just twist together several strands

[Clavichordist]

When I used to work as a PCB assember and later as a tech, I was shown to bend a pin or two over carefully to hold a socket or IC in place prior to soldering. This made the assembly and soldering process go pretty quickly without risking having something loosen up and end up partially soldered on the board. This was really important prior to putting PCBs through the wave soldering machine.

[UKSCIENCEORG]

Nice to see CMOS which isn't focussed on changing fan LED colours!

[jasmijndekkers]

Hi Adrian, Great job you did with this motherboard. Nice to see you working and testing on. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands

[ultrametric]

That much RAM in a 286 cries out for Xenix or OS/2!

[evarlast]

I only worked the PC repair shop from Aug'95 to Sep'97. Only saw one mobo with SIPP. Never saw a 286 with that much memory. Never saw simm slower than 80ns (that I know of). You show all the coolest different stuff.

[Duddie]

I really enjoyed this video. Being you were able to upgrade the Ram slots. Very impressive. I have plenty of those old boards in storage. I will do the same upgrade. Thank you for up loading this video. My experience with computers started with the 8088 models. I lived close to a Fries Electronics. That is where i purchased my computer boards, ram, Processor chip and Ram. I really do not like to purchase computers, I rather build my own.

[pleappleappleap]

My favorite old-computer overclocking adventure was getting an Am5x86-133 running with a 50MHz base clock. I needed to use a giant heatsink, but it was stable.

[-IFFTI-]

SIPs soldered directly to the board are hell.

I've pulled a bunch of SIPs from industrial controller boards. The solder used to mount the pins must have a much higher melting point than the solder used to mount them on the board. I suspect there's some silver in there.

Excellent episode, full of technical tips. 👍

[ArchangelTirael]

Unexpected Adrian and Michael MJD crossover! :D

[JapanPop]

We had this board in my dad’s pc! We upgraded from a turbo XT. 1MBx4 SIPP RAM, 16 mHz Harris 80286, and i287, too. We were able to skip a generation from 1992 to 1994 and later would put an i486sx in that case.

[martinoverthrow]

Hi Adrian, many years ago (1980 - 1990's) i worked at a PC manufactures, and we use to also add the SIPP pin to SIMM Modules, the pins came on a roll of 10, 000 or so and came in various pitch spacing, so it was easy to cut a batch of pins for modules which were held in the pitch spacing by a metal ribbon which you broke off after soldering the pins, with a bit of flux and a little skill you could convert a SIMM to a SIPP in about 10 Minutes.
Regards Martin