30-0100-DO1131-0101111-070791-HT18C-F Really OLD 386

[Hardware Junkie]

Yeah well that's just insane. Lets be reasonable. Its a 386.

Also, recently I managed to use a make shift battery pack using AAs with parts from Radioshack.
Just gotta improvise sometimes.

[running_wild]

First off guys, thanks for all the attention and help, really apreciated.

Secondly, I thought i might attach a bit of an e-mail i received from esupport (the officail ami bios supplyer or something like that )....

Thank you for your BIOS Upgrade inquiry and contacting eSupport.com, the
Exclusive Authorized Upgrade and Support Center for American Megatrends BIOS.
For 14 years, we have constantly upgraded thousands of motherboards and
developed new BIOS Upgrades for all the latest technology. Our BIOS Upgrades are
guaranteed to work on your system.

Based on the technical specifications you had
submitted, we have an excellent BIOS Upgrade
for your system. We have the brand new AMI BIOS
for your motherboard. The price is only $24.95 (U.S).

If you would like to view your system details that you had previously submitted,
please click here:
https://www.unicore.com/customers/flash ... 5EA2186791

The most notable features are:

- Hard Drive support up to 137 GB
- Faster Intel and AMD CPU Upgrade Kit Support
- Windows 2000 and Windows XP Compliance
- ACPI Specification for Advanced Power Management
- CD-ROM + LS-120 Boot Support
- Virtual technical support assistance

We can e-mail you the latest BIOS upgrade for your
specific system and attach it as a zip file (170 K)
with the necessary flash loaders. We provide a Read Me
file with easy installation instructions, hundreds of
BIOS FAQs online, and free e-mail based technical support.
Telephone technical support is not available.

[KachiWachi]

What are you using this thing for?

I got an upgrade for an old Packard Bell 486 from Micro Firmware some time ago. It has a non-flashable BIOS, so they send you a daughterboard that you plug your old BIOS chip into (to use it's video BIOS), and that plugs in where your BIOS chip used to go. You can flash the main BIOS after that (did it several times in fact). It has all the options you mention in your note from eSupport as well.

Thing is that the board is basically too old to do anything with nowadays. It is limited to PIO-0, is limited to 16MB cacheable RAM (64MB total that could be installed, FPM only, limited to 16 chip modules too), is ISA only, and can run a P-83 at maximum (5V CPU's only). At one time it had Win98SE on an 8GB HD and a 56k modem installed to surf the web, but it took like 5 mins to boot up (no kidding!!) and surfing took forever (to render a page on screen). It now just sits open in the pile of old computers I have here, but now has Win95B on it (much more managable), 16MB of RAM, and a 2.1GB HD more suited to it's limited PIO range. It won't take certain updates to the software, and that's probably why I keep it around (to find out why...if I remember it was a JAVA update...).

So what are you using this thing for?

[running_wild]

THis computer is going to be a server ( just for my local network ). I managed to find a Distrobution of linux that suits it perfectly. However, I don't want to have to keep enetering the HDD details every time i boot it up etc, also i have to give linux special paramters other wise the computer just reboots. I will look around for that battery by the way, but mine has only 3 pins, and the creent battery uses only too

[Hardware Junkie]

Actually now that I think about it, most likely that system would need a new hard drive controller card in order to read new drives.
The one supplied (if any) is most likely a MFM or something like that; Predating standard IDE...

From that email, it sounds like a standard year 2000 BIOS upgrade that most companies like UNICORE (MrBIOS) and Badflash came out with.
Basically they send you a new chip to replace your old one.