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What board is this?

Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2005 1:12 pm
by Ritchie
PLEASE NOTE the photos in this post are large files - they will take a while to display, especially on a dial-up connection.

Hi

Just aquired the following two boards (two photos shown for the first) and trying to determine what the first is.

Also wondering whether PII/PIII boards auto-detect CPU voltage or whether this needs to be done manually.

And what jumper settings I would need to change on the first board for the CPU (currently it looks like it is all auto-detect but if I could identify the board and download a manual for it I could confirm this.

Please find photos below.

First board
Photo #1
Photo #2

Second board (already identified)
Photo #1


Thanking in advance.

Mod Edit: Previous post edited. Each 1.5MB photo took too long to load, even on ADSL

Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2005 1:58 pm
by ajzchips
The first board is a PCCHIPS M741LMRT
Image
http://mobokive.dyndns.org/PcChips/686_M7xx/M728_M744/

Voltage requirements are determined by the processor's VID pins in "AUTO" mode.

Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2005 3:54 pm
by sulbert
Are there different PCB revisions of this board (the boards on the photos have slightly different layout)?

Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2005 2:02 am
by Ritchie
Sorry about the large pictures - Next time I will try and reduce them in size first.

The pictures are slightly different - what I noticed is that the floppy drive connector in my picture was behind the Slot 1 rather than next to it.

I was worried this board would turn out to be a PCCHIPS. Any chance of locating a manual for this board?

Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2005 2:04 am
by Ritchie
Actually the CMOS battery is also in a different position.

Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2005 9:02 am
by Ritchie
Does anybody know the jumper settings for this board, in particular with relation to CPU voltage and other CPU settings?

Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2005 3:18 pm
by Denniss
Pcchips often modified their boards slightly to be even cheaper to produce but retaining their old model number.
Please re-read AJZ's post and follow the link

Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2005 7:25 pm
by ajzchips
If nothing is hinted in the manual which can be downloaded from the link above, then there's nothing that can be done, unless you resort to tampering with the VID pins.

Regarding the slightly different layouts, don't forget that there were two known revisions of this mobo: V1.x and V3.x. The absence of a different BIOS for a different revision simply suggests what DennisS already mentioned regarding the improvements of the board's simplicity with regards to its manufacturing process.

Note: don't you have a processor that'll boot the board so we can try to verify its identity?

Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 2:09 am
by Ritchie
I will follow the link AJZ posted and see what I find.

I am trying to check what any jumper settings do first so I do not damage a CPU with incorrect voltages, etc. Once I confirm that the settings are correct for the CPU, (if there are any CPU settings) I will then install a CPU and try booting.

Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 8:00 am
by Ritchie
Well I have now installed the board into a case, installed 256MB RAM and attached drives, and the board seemed to run Win98 nicely that was already installed on the hard disk.

I wanted to try Windows XP on it, but after going through custom network settings during installation Windows kept asking for the CD, while it had been reading the CD OK all along. Attempting to browse to the CD found that there was no CD drive in the drives listing. I made several attempts to resolve this.

I then tried updating the BIOS using the link AJZ posted. Uniflash was unable to write the last block so I flashed back the backup BIOS. I then attempted to flash the new BIOS without the bootblock. After rebooting I realised that after flashing the backup BIOS I had first attempted to flash the new BIOS with the bootblock, which failed on the last block, and then flashed the new BIOS without the bootblock, where all blocks shown went through.

However, this was a bad idea because the board does now not POST. I knew this was risky and had thought that the board would at least attempt to boot off the floppy for bootblock but it does not appear to do that either.

I'm not sure how to recover from here, except that I have got a floppy disk with a backup BIOS image. Or whether it is worth trying to recover, assuming that the board may be bad. I was hoping for a sucessful BIOS flash in the interest that the BIOS version installed may generate problems in XP.

Are there any keyboard keys I can use to force a bootblock flash?

Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 10:00 am
by sulbert
Ritchie wrote:Are there any keyboard keys I can use to force a bootblock flash?
Ctrl+Home for AMI BIOS.

Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 1:02 pm
by Ritchie
I think I tried CTRL + HOME.

Any particular technique. Like when pressing case power button or after power on, etc.?

I think I will have to try and switch BIOS chips in another board while the system is running, and try and recover. Alternatively, I have another board which is no good but which still powers up. If this PCCHIPS board will accept that chip I can try and program it's BIOS onto that chip.

Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:18 am
by Ritchie
OK I did some more work on the PCCHIPS mainboard and now got it to the stage where if there is no floppy (disk) it beeps 8 times on power on, repeating the cycle infinitely.

If I do put a floppy boot disk in the number of beeps vary, so I am sure that the system is trying to boot or do something with the floppy disk.

AMI BIOS.

How do I setup the boot disk so I can attempt to reflash with bootblock (assuming the BIOS is attempting bootblock now)?

I tried a couple of different boot disks with Uniflash but they do not seem to be running through properly.

I still have no display to work with - probably none until a sucessful recovery.

Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 6:16 am
by Toby B
Sounds like it might be time for a chip programmer to come into play. www.badflash.com if you don't have access to a programmer.

Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 9:00 am
by sulbert
Hotflashing will also do the job I guess.