Need to Identify a Socket 7 Motherboard

[Platypus]

You'd expect to find a BIOS EEPROM in the 32-pin DIL socket between the ISA and PCI slots. The fact that the supplier's illustration shows it this way suggests the chip has been removed from your board. Occasionally a BIOS can hide elsewhere, but I don't think basic stuff like PCChips was into this.

[TripleRLtd]

You can't upgrade a bios/cmos which isn't there. The Dallas battery would store the flashed data.
You will need a replacement cmos chip.
Check:
www.wimsbios.com.
You can not use the dimms and simms at the same time and it might be hard to find an EDO Dimm out there that works (a pc 100/133 won't work) whereas most shops have an abundance of leftover simms. I must have hundreds (Geez, remember when theY were over $50 per megabyte).
Also, it will be very hard to find at a decent price cache on a stick for that "brown slot", but that was only an upgrade since the board has onboard pipeline cache.
Hope this helps.

[TripleRLtd]

http://www.badflash.com/findbios.htm

[Orangeman]

Here is the picture of the bios. It says 'Bestkey' on it. It is located beneath the ISA blots. According to your link, TripleRLtd my board will be rendered useless if the board is square and non-removeable.

However mine is rectangular. However, it DOES look like its non-removeable. Does that mean that the board is useless?

Thanks,
Orangeman

[Garak]

that isn't your BIOS chip, thats the keyboard controller, if you look between the PCI / ISA slots you will notice a 32pin socket, this is where a BIOS chip would sit. I beleive the chip inside that socket is a non flashable BIOS Chip, but I also beleive you can obtain a flashed chip for that board and plug it in, as for coast, i come by it daily and if you look on the net I'm sure you can find a mod for the board allowing you to use SDRam. Good luck and let me know if you have any problems.

G.

[Stalemate]

Originally posted by Orangeman
Yoou're an Angel,
Thanks Very Much Adept,

Orangeman

You're quite welcome.

I love a good hunt, and this one was fun.

[Orangeman]

Hi Garak,

So what you're saying is THIS is the bios


This is a quote from this system specs page:

http://motherboards.mbarron.net/mode...s/m525.htm#top

"AWARD 95 Auto-Detect Flash Bios with Energy Mgmt."

There are also downloads on that page that are bios upgrades. I downloaded three last night. Haven't used them yet. One thing that troubles me is that it lists two bios strings:

AWARD BIOS ID string 06/21/96-i430VX-2A59Ht5BC-00 (the original illegal bios)
- AWARD BIOS ID string 09/15/97-i430VX-02271997C-00 (the latest flash upgrade)

I knew PC CHIPS was a cheap company. Also, I had NO choice of motherboards in which to put in this person's computer. But I wasn't aware that PCCHIPS was up to illegally placing bioses in their motherboards

[Garak]

yes I'm saying it's a possibility,

also, it isn't illegally placed, it was a common practice on late 486 / 586 boards as "flashable" BIOS's where still expensive. but at least they give you the option to upgrade to a flashable chip.

Send me the manual and I will go through it thourghly.

[TripleRLtd]

Illegal bios?
That makes no sense; could be a misprint.
Orangeman, what they are talking about is flashing the bios chip with updated code. You need the chip before you can do this. Do you understand that?
Go to www.badflash.com and find a phone number and call them with the bios strings and see if they match and have them for your board.


From Garak:
"as for coast, i come by it daily and if you look on the net I'm sure you can find a mod for the board allowing you to use SDRam."

The point is Garak, that he does not need to go searching for coast since he has it onboard and the slot is an upgrade option.
Plus, simms nowadays are a dime a dozen, not so with PC66 or EDO dimms. If he is going to go that route, he may as well buy a new super socket 7 board for around $50 US and have
AGP, USB, and not be limited to a Pentium 200,etc.

[TripleRLtd]

Just noticed the chip inside.
Orangeman, can you blow up the picture or tell us what it says on the chip.

[TripleRLtd]

...instead of all this, stick a video card in it with ram, connect a power supply and see if it boots up.
If it does the bios string will be at the bottom of the post screen.
Let us know, huh. All this guessing is draining

[Orangeman]

Originally posted by TripleRLtd
...instead of all this, stick a video card in it with ram, connect a power supply and see if it boots up.
If it does the bios string will be at the bottom of the post screen.
Let us know, huh. All this guessing is draining

Okay, I will. I'll do it in a few hours.

Orangeman

[Garak]

Originally posted by TripleRLtd


From Garak:
"as for coast, i come by it daily and if you look on the net I'm sure you can find a mod for the board allowing you to use SDRam."

The point is Garak, that he does not need to go searching for coast since he has it onboard and the slot is an upgrade option.
Plus, simms nowadays are a dime a dozen, not so with PC66 or EDO dimms. If he is going to go that route, he may as well buy a new super socket 7 board for around $50 US and have
AGP, USB, and not be limited to a Pentium 200,etc.

At this point I'm not saying he sould look for anything, i'm saying he could...
But as for powering up the board, yeah that probably should have been one of the first things done.

[TripleRLtd]

Here here.

Almost always, the first thing to do is like you said.
But, you can tell he is just learning.
We ALWAYS have to understand, older hardware is new to the late starters.
No condescention intended, but we have ALL started somewhere.
Talk about anything before DOS 5 and I have to look it up and check it out.
For example: "Doskey"!!!
Thank God for "Edit".

[TripleRLtd]

As a side note, I glad you didn't pull a YaKnow and get offended.
One thing (and I love it because of that) is that you never stop learning in this field.
Once you stagnate...think you know it all... all is lost.
As NooNoo says:
"Never, ever approach a computer saying or even thinking "I will just do this quickly"
Geez, that should be my mantra.
To this day, I continue to do that.
So how smart am I?
Not very!!!!