ZEOS Cobra motherboard

ZEOS Cobra motherboard, with 5 ISA, 3 PCI, and 6 SIMM slots.

As you can see from the specs, a nice board, but it only works at the speed of the clock crystal soldered on to the PC board, in my case at 60 Mhz. Otherwise a real quality board, if dated (it uses the mercury chip set)!

Slot Type Length PCI If six SIMMs are installed, 14 cm for sure, maybe even full length. Full length for sure if less. PCI Full length. PCI Full length, but shared with ISA slot. ISA Full length, but shared with PCI slot. ISA Full length if a small heatsink/fan is used for the CPU, otherwise only 24 cm. ISA 24 cm. (Blocked by heatsink/fan.) ISA 24 cm. (Blocked by heatsink/fan.) ISA 19 cm if any L2 cache is installed. Otherwise, full length if a small CPU heatsink/fan combo is used.

Length of add in slots are very important because some add in cards are so long that you can't fit them into your computer. All motherboard manufactures should include this information on their pages. Since they don't users like you and me will have to provide the values. These sizes are measured from the point that the back edge of the add in card fits into (AKA the metal slot cover), to the first obstruction on the board. BTW I define full length as a slot that is not obstructed by anything on the motherboard. Other obstructions in your case may limit the size of add in cards, severely if you don't have a tower. Some other facts: 16 bit ISA slots are 16.5 cm long. PCI slots are all 13 long. All cards of those lengths and shorter will fit in any motherboard that has an empty slot. Uncomfortable with centimeters? So am I, but I am working to change that. Just remember, there are 2.54 centimeters in an inch, if you need to convert these numbers. (You already knew that, right? :-)

There are a few flaws in this motherboard, but they are mostly universal, at least with modern motherboards.

1. There is no way to turn off the all OK beep heard every time the computer reboots, short of disconnecting the PC speaker.
2. When floppy check (which takes forever) is disabled, you can not boot from a floppy, no matter what the boot order is set to.
3. When rebooting, there is at least a 3 second delay between the [ctrl][alt][del] combo, and the clearing of the screen. My old 386 could do it instantly, why can't my Pentium? On the other hand I reboot much less than I did in those days.
4. No turbo switch! Geez, would it hurt that much to include one? This is Intel's fault, the PCIsets do not support turbo.