Tough One - BoardRunner 6MZX2-SV

CodeOptimist · Mon Feb 23, 2004 2:08 am

A friend asked me to install an 80GB hard drive in his computer. It's a few years old (Socket370) so I figured it needed a BIOS update, no big deal.

Oops, think again... the manufacturer (BoardRunner) is gone, and repeated Googlings and other various searches have not turned up much info, let alone a BIOS update.
Motherboards.org's ID tools reported that it is possibly made by Shuttle, and parts of the strings below closely resemble Gigabyte motherboard strings, but no boards I can find at those manufacturer's websites are this exact board.

BoardRunner 6MZX2-SV Socket 370 Motherboard
Here are the various lines shown at POST:

Award BIOS v4.51PG
(MZ11S011) Intel i440ZX PCIset(TM)
05/18/1999-i440ZX-W977-2A69KH2EC-00

Anyone have some insight?

Mon Feb 23, 2004 2:35 am

According to this Holco site, only 4 boards were made with the 440ZX chipset.
http://de.shuttle.com/chipset3.htm

This should make your research a bit easier.

CodeOptimist · Mon Feb 23, 2004 2:41 am

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, the 4 Shuttle boards listed all have AGP slots; this board doesn't

Toby B · Mon Feb 23, 2004 5:38 am

CodeOptimist wrote:Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, the 4 Shuttle boards listed all have AGP slots; this board doesn't

hmm, does the board have solder pads in the area where an AGP slot would be? This could be an OEM Shuttle/Holtec board, which means some components may not be found on the board.

Is there a serial number on the board?

CodeOptimist · Mon Feb 23, 2004 6:48 am

Not exactly sure what you mean by "solder pads" (:oops:), but there doesn't seem to be any indication of an AGP slot being able to be placed in the traditional location. The PCI slots come right up against some RAM(?) chips, with about 3/4 of an inch between the slots and chips.

No serial numbers that I can see on the board, although I am not able to see the back side without attempting to unscrew it from the case (which I am reluctant to do).

There are some random numbers on the board, but they don't appear to be serial numbers:

MB11V14
MZ11V14
MV11V14
(these three are near the top-right corner)

U24
W83781
(these are in the bottom-left corner, most likely some chip #'s)

Extra notes: the board has integrated video (Rage Pro Turbo AGP chip) and a Creative on-board audio interface.

I just realized by browsing on Western Digital's website that I don't really need a BIOS update here, since WD has a proprietary "Data Life Saver" setup program that can let you use the full capacity of a WD hard drive even if it is set to <32GB in the BIOS. Apparently this board had a 32GB limit (very common AFAIK).

Don't hesitate to chime in any more ideas though, I'm still curious what this board is exactly

Thanks for the help!

Mon Feb 23, 2004 11:03 am

It's Shuttle MZ11

Mon Feb 23, 2004 1:38 pm

(Shuttle MZ11).zip
from http://wims.rainbow-software.org/edwin/

please report results (success/failure and brand/model/size of harddisk used).

CodeOptimist · Mon Feb 23, 2004 7:08 pm

Wow, thanks for the identification help! I'll test out the BIOS update and let you know how it goes...

CodeOptimist · Tue Feb 24, 2004 1:48 am

Ok, update:

The patched BIOS worked and let me detect the hard drive without freezing up the CMOS setup program. It detected with some funky parameters, but I'm sure that's normal since it's an EIDE/LBA drive.

One note - AWD741.EXE froze up on my after it flashed the new BIOS. It had a prompt ("F1 - Reset, F10 - Exit") but pressing F10 didn't do anything (neither did Ctrl-Alt-Del if I remember right). The new BIOS had already been flashed though, so it wasn't a problem - I hit the reset button and it came back up just fine.

FDISK only saw 8GB, but I think that may be because I had previously installed WD's DDO (overlay) software. I'm going to use their tool to remove the overlay and see if it works.

CodeOptimist · Tue Feb 24, 2004 10:01 pm

Yes, it was the WD overlay software that was messing up FDISK. I removed it and the Windows XP setup disk detected Pri Master as 80GB

Thanks so much!! Here's some info for you to put on your patched BIOS page:

Shuttle MZ11 patched BIOS: tested with Western Digital 80GB WD800JB - successfully detected hard drive

BTW, I saved the old BIOS BIN file (the Award flasher utility asked me if I wanted to), in case you need it for some reason - it's dated 5-18-99.

CodeOptimist · Tue Mar 02, 2004 8:51 pm

Sorry to bring back this semi-old thread, but I've posted a little "journal" of sorts on what I did to get this hard drive installed: http://forums.wildfiregames.com/wfg/ind ... topic=1485 (yes, ya'll are mentioned

)

Thanks again for all your help!