Mercury KOB 815ep TFSX, a rebadged ECS board?

Recommended by Wim's BIOS...

Mercury KOB 815ep TFSX
BIOS String: 01/16/2002-i815E-ITE8870-MB815ATC-00
2M BIOS
USER manual:
http://www.mercury-pc.com/download/uplo ... OB815E(1.0).pdf

I get tired of the KOB boot up splash screen. But it seems that there is no option in BIOS SETUP to turn it off. I am just looking for an alternative BIOS.
I searched part of the BIOS string,

http://www.supportbios.info/resultado.a ... &Idioma=EN

and from the almost identical ECS editing style of the KOB manual, it seemed ECS boards would be my best bet.
I read through the P6I series manuals:
http://www.ecsusa.com/downloads/manual_p6i.html
Unfortunately, I didn't find a match (P6IPAT is closest possible with similar BIOS update release notes but not a match in layout) .
Any idea? Thanks.

[edwin]

Open the case and check for any sticky labels near the CPU or memory slots with the kobian part number on it. Remove that and you may revela its original ECS model number.

There is "MB815AT REV: 1.0" printed on the PCB right next to the AGP slot. Nothing else except some jumper instructions.

I googled String "MB815AT" and "M815AT", found some Chinese and Russian sites about PC-Chips MB815AT(Under their local brand names, with the same support site www.pcchips.com.tw). The layout and the color is quite the same with my mobo.

To my disappointment, no entry concerning the mobo in question was found at pcchips web site. Clue lost.

P.S. I am quite confused by the relationship among ECS, PC-Chips and T&W Electronics.

[edwin]

PC Chips and ECS motherboards came from the same manufacturing lines. Now I'm not too sure about their current relationship but largely PC Chips=ECS. PC Chips boards have been sold under more than twenty "brand" names including T&W Electronics, Alton, Amptron, Ability Electronics, PC Ware, PC Wave etc.

Alright, I dropped the identification issue, just removed the kobian.bmp from the BIOS files with CBROM and flashed. All is fine now.
Maybe I'll aquire some BIOS reverse engineering skills someday to take a closer look at the code, to see that if BIOS of P6IPAT is indeed compatible with 815ep TFSX. Just for curiosity's sake

Update: This morning I decided to give it another shot. Bingo! TW815EPS-T is exactly what I am looking for. BIOS modules except some strings are all the same. Odd that Google didn't come up with that answer.

[edwin]

Maybe Google can't look inside bios files...

Hi there,

A i was also having the same problem as bigcannon. I also opened the case and checked for stickly labels and i didn't find a part number or ECS model number. After reading through the rest of this post i have been able to fix my problems.