Old 486 System

[Rich]

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Hi

I'm currently thinking about making myself a standalone FTP server.
The main problem I'm trying to get around is the noise. I can't
afford to get all special quiet add ons so was thinking of getting an
old 486 and sticking it in the cupboard.

- From my memory the 486 had no computer fan apart from the power
supply and so should be quieter. As the 486 BIOS will not accept a
80 Gig harddrive I'm looking at getting a USB 2 PCI card and using an
external case for it.

Any one got any experience on installing a PCI USB card on a 486
computer? Someone has mentioned to me that a lot of 486 used an old
version of the PCI format and so USB 2 card maynot work???

I do have a spare AMD 850 but its noisy as hell and I do not want to
leave my quiet laptop on all the time.

Thanks.

Rich

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[Jan Alter]

I don't see why it shouldn't work to get USB 1, but you'll need to be
running Win98SE, probably with a minimum of 64 mb of RAM. Also there are no
native USB 2 drivers for Win98SE. The card itself may have special USB2
drivers written for 98SE, but then again (and I'm uncertain about this) you
may need a minimum of a Pentium____ for the USB2 to actually function. At
this juncture you're discussing gerbil power to horsepower in mhz language.

 

[kony]

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Hi

I'm currently thinking about making myself a standalone FTP server.
The main problem I'm trying to get around is the noise. I can't
afford to get all special quiet add ons so was thinking of getting an
old 486 and sticking it in the cupboard.

It's asking for trouble to place any system in an enclosed area. You
didn't make clear that the cupboard is enclosed, but thought I'd go ahead
and mention it.

Today the choices for quiet systems, providing you don't use something
post-Athlon era, are many. Today's dirt-cheap low-end socket A coolers,
when paired with a very low RPM fan (whether it be a different than stock
fan or on a fan controller, an adapter to reduce voltage or 7 or 5V, or
whatever the method) can be an inaudible way to cool anything socket 7 or
370, up to a Tualatin 1.5GHz... it is not necessary to go with such an old
system that due to it's age the reliability is questionable, the
performance quite low (including network performance, drive performance
and size support, memory capacity, etc, etc). IMHO, the sweet spot for
such a system would be a Pentium 3 700, in a Via 694X motherboard. It
gives modern enough support for fast networking, over a GB of memory,
ATA66 to 100, and some have 48LBA support for large drives, plus USB, AGP
Universal slot, etc. Alternatively there's the Via Eden and similar
platforms, also low heat and many need no heatsink fan.

- From my memory the 486 had no computer fan apart from the power
supply and so should be quieter. As the 486 BIOS will not accept a
80 Gig harddrive I'm looking at getting a USB 2 PCI card and using an
external case for it.

Quiet isn't necessarily about number of fans, but how fast you run each
fan and the type of fan. For example, a Panaflo L1A (in whichever size
the application calls for) is very quiet to start with but certainly
inaudbile at 7V. A simple, low-part count system that doesn't use a lot
of power, create a lot of heat, can also have a Panaflo fan used in the
power supply. In other words, a Tualatin 1.5GHz (or other Via, or
Coppermine based Intel Celeron or P3) based system with an undervolted
Panaflo on the heatsink and another Panaflo in the power supply, can
easily be quieter than a 486 box with only the original fan in the power
supply.

486 boxes do not have PCI 2.1 support for USB2 cards, the performance
should be incredibly poor if it works at all. The external enclosuer, if
providing adequate cooling for the drive, may also create a significant
amount of noise. Given that the system will be on, presumably 24/7, the
long-term effects of high temp might be more pronounced, or rather, the
lifespan limitation from elevated temps is sooner reached. IMHO, the last
part you want to fail is the hard drive unless you're also making regular
backups, which of course you should but it doesn't always happen as we
see time and time again from various posts.

Any one got any experience on installing a PCI USB card on a 486
computer? Someone has mentioned to me that a lot of 486 used an old
version of the PCI format and so USB 2 card maynot work???

LOL, I should read ahead more often.

I do have a spare AMD 850 but its noisy as hell and I do not want to
leave my quiet laptop on all the time.

Most any box can be quiet enough to be inaudible providing you start out
with something creating only modest heat, use medium to large CPU
heatsink, low-powered video card, and the right fans.

Other good candidates for low noise:

K6-2 or -3 underclocked (& undervolted if possible)
Celeron 300-400, PII-400, Celeron 900 (Tualatin), Celeron 533-800
(Coppermine)

Integrated Video
ATI Rage Pro Video (doesn't even need a heatsink on GPU).
Liquid-bearing hard drives

IMHO, your target platform should be at least new enough to support AGP
video... even if you don't want/need AGP video, that is a time when OTHER
features like PCI support, UATA, USB, larger memory support, etc, were
implemented and matured enough to be viable.... even if you did end up
adding a USB2 or PCI ATA card. Also keep in mind that with ACPI OS
support the CPU will run pretty cool, the peak power and heat radiation as
per manufacturer specs will be greatly reduced while CPU is sitting idle,
as it would be over 90% of the time. A Celeron 566 would not need a fan
on the heatsink at all in this 90% idle situation, for example, but it
would be good to put the very low RPM fan on the 'sink just in case a
problem arose, like an OS error that puts CPU in a busy loop.

 

[Juhan Leemet]

It's asking for trouble to place any system in an enclosed area. You
didn't make clear that the cupboard is enclosed, but thought I'd go ahead
and mention it.

Yeah. Why not put it in a basement, or someplace where you might actually
want some of the heating? You do need some airflow. I remember the sad
case of a $10K Sun server left for the weekend in a small room on the top
floor of an office building in summer, and the A/C conked out. Some stuff
actually melted before the system crashed. Some disks were unrecoverable.

[lots of good info and suggestions snipped]

Depends. In 1992 (or so) I had a 50MHz 486 (a "fire breather" in those
days) that really cooked! The engineer that built that system had to put
an extra fan in the case to blow across the CPU heatsink (so it wouldn't
catch fire?). His solution worked. Fastest system for a while.

I don't know if they are still around, but there was an Intel overdrive
that was not too expensive (at least from surplus houses). It converted a
486 socket to an 83MHz Pentium, with extra cache and built on fan. It runs
pretty cool. I have a couple of test/play systems still running those. The
advantage of running old stuff for testing/play is that you don't really
care if/when something happens to your experimental stuff. Not shiny new.

or get one of those EIDE add on boards (e.g. Promise Technology) that add
IDE slots and also include a bit of addon BIOS that understands bigger
disks. I have used those before to expand old systems.

you might also find an old/used SCSI adapter (e.g. Adaptec) at some swap
meet or eBay, to expand by adding used SCSI drives (no BIOS limits).

As other posters have suggested, you might be able to quieten the AMD.

IMHO, your target platform should be at least new enough to support AGP
video... even if you don't want/need AGP video...

Huh? What does AGP have to do with these requirements? I bought a
relatively new HP just a couple of years ago without AGP (unless you count
built in Intel graphics?). Many integrated mobos did not have AGP socket.

My impression is that mass storage via USB or firewire is a relatively new
(and therefore expensive) solution.

BTW, I'm a bit biased, but I would recomend running Linux (or some other
*nix) and serving up files (and providing other useful services) using NFS
or Samba (SMB workalike). Works great for me. YMMV

 

[George]

Sounds like it'll be baking in the cupboard. I give it about 3 days max...

 

[kony]

Huh? What does AGP have to do with these requirements? I bought a
relatively new HP just a couple of years ago without AGP (unless you count
built in Intel graphics?). Many integrated mobos did not have AGP socket.

AGP video, not AGP socket.... as I mentioned, that was not for the feature
or performance of the video, but an indicator of the age of the chipset...
in other words, I could've tried to list every possible chipset made that
supports AGP, or all those that don't, but far simplier to just mention it
that way. Integrated motherboards without an AGP slot may still use AGP
video. Any motherboard with video via a northbridge chip is using AGP
video. Any motherboard with a separate chip "could" be using AGP, as it
was a transition for a while, but more often PCI, before the Pentium 2
era.

My impression is that mass storage via USB or firewire is a relatively new
(and therefore expensive) solution.

It's not bad, maybe $20-40 for the enclosure, another $15-30 for the card
if the board doesn't support the interface, but certainly slower than
ATA33 for USB or ATA66 vs firewire. Even so it doesn't seem to meet the
requirement for low noise unless the drive runs hot, and is just an
unnecessary complexity and expense.

BTW, I'm a bit biased, but I would recomend running Linux (or some other
*nix) and serving up files (and providing other useful services) using NFS
or Samba (SMB workalike). Works great for me. YMMV

Yep, that's a good idea for described use, no point to windows unless it's
necessary, or the learning curve is too steep... really no point in
spending hours trying to tacking a new OS just to get an FTP server going,
though these days there are probably a lot of micro distros pretty much
ready to roll.

 

[CBFalconer]

I'm currently thinking about making myself a standalone FTP server.
The main problem I'm trying to get around is the noise. I can't
afford to get all special quiet add ons so was thinking of getting an
old 486 and sticking it in the cupboard.

- From my memory the 486 had no computer fan apart from the power
supply and so should be quieter. As the 486 BIOS will not accept a
80 Gig harddrive I'm looking at getting a USB 2 PCI card and using an
external case for it.

You don't need all that. I have an 80 mHz 486, no fans, with a
bios that locks up trying to boot an over 8 GB disk, and even then
won't access more than 4 GB. The solution is a baby card that
intercepts and installs it's own HD bios, and leaves the rest
alone. This is available in both ISA and PCI format (or was a
couple of years ago). I forget the firms name, and nothing shows
up here except at boot time, and I forget where in ROM space the
system is set to install itself. At any rate, once installed I
believe it can handle something like 137 MB drives. The card is
tiny - about 4 by 1 inch (10 x 3 cm).

There is, and always has been, a standard bootup installation of
added bios software. No need to flash anything. If you remove
the card, the machine goes right back to the original
configuration.

IIRC the card cost about $40, and handles 4 IDE drives. No wiring
changes needed.

 

[philo]

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Hi

I'm currently thinking about making myself a standalone FTP server.
The main problem I'm trying to get around is the noise. I can't
afford to get all special quiet add ons so was thinking of getting an
old 486 and sticking it in the cupboard.

- From my memory the 486 had no computer fan apart from the power
supply and so should be quieter. As the 486 BIOS will not accept a
80 Gig harddrive I'm looking at getting a USB 2 PCI card and using an
external case for it.

Any one got any experience on installing a PCI USB card on a 486
computer? Someone has mentioned to me that a lot of 486 used an old
version of the PCI format and so USB 2 card maynot work???

I do have a spare AMD 850 but its noisy as hell and I do not want to
leave my quiet laptop on all the time.

heck, i'd just underclock your amd-850 and use a low speed cooling fan

 

[JT]

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Hi

I'm currently thinking about making myself a standalone FTP server.
The main problem I'm trying to get around is the noise. I can't
afford to get all special quiet add ons so was thinking of getting an
old 486 and sticking it in the cupboard.

- From my memory the 486 had no computer fan apart from the power
supply and so should be quieter. As the 486 BIOS will not accept a
80 Gig harddrive I'm looking at getting a USB 2 PCI card and using an
external case for it.

Any one got any experience on installing a PCI USB card on a 486
computer? Someone has mentioned to me that a lot of 486 used an old
version of the PCI format and so USB 2 card maynot work???

I do have a spare AMD 850 but its noisy as hell and I do not want to
leave my quiet laptop on all the time.

Thanks.

Rich

Instead of fighting with a system that will be too slow for what you want
to do, and probably won't support the PCI usb 2.0 card (haven't ran across
a 486 motherboard that supported PCI 2.0 spec, which all current PCI cards
are) get one of the low powered, fanless Mini-itx systems with a VIA
processor onboard. Will be quieter and use less power than a 486, and will
work with current hard drives and other peripherils.

JT