VOGONS


First post, by iulianv

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Today I got the board in the attached photo, but I cannot seem to find anything related to that model (SR-M401-A). It looks pretty promising (four SIMMs, EDO support, 50MHz clock, up to 512KB of cache), but only cache, clock and CPU type jumpers are documented on the PCB...

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Reply 1 of 6, by feipoa

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It almost looks like cheap copy of the Biostar MB-8433UUD. The component layout is nearly identical, with the exception of the real-time clock, AMI BIOS, and lack of PS/2 port/header. The clock driver, bus tranciever, AND gate, voltage regulator, etc are in exactly the same spot as the MB-8433UUD.

For the lack of a PS/2 port, I'd personally like to see 1024 KB cache support, or at least 4 PCI slots. But then again, I've never played with a 4-slot PCI board that was reliable.

On the positive side, it has the UM8886BF - FX and UM8881F - EY chipsets, which, from my experience, are the more stable ones. Also it has the UM8663BF as opposed to the more problematic UM8663AF.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 2 of 6, by iulianv

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I think I found that board as the only one in TH99 which resembles mine. However, very few jumpers match the jumpers on my board - for example I have a totally different jumper configuration instead of JP45 and JP46 next to the CPU socket. Thanks a lot for the custom Biostar manual though - will keep it in case I run into one of those in the future 😀...

Reply 3 of 6, by iulianv

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More than one year later, while cleaning around my desk and having nothing better to do, I thought I'd play with this board a bit. It didn't start as it was, but I found another photo online, set the jumpers like in the photo, and it POSTed with a 486DX2 CPU.

BIOS ID string is 41-S203-428075-00101111-101094-UMC880-H. Searching the net for this exact string yields no results, however searching for parts if it led me to this page:

http://motherboards.mbarron.net/models/486pci/pt432b.htm

Pine PT-432b is almost identical to my board, except for a couple of jumpers, diodes and capacitors in the COM port area. The manual doesn't clarify everything for me, but it's a start. For now I seem to have trouble getting the CPU (SX807) recognized properly - I'm not sure whether to jumper it as a DX2 / P24D / P24C / P24T and so far I've got 66MHz with normal CPU score in Speedsys (but missing L2 cache), 66MHz with 386DX-like score, 2MHz, 198MHz and 132MHz (it would POST and display these, but wouldn't move on to loading the OS).

It's a work in progress, I guess... at least now I have a good reason to hang on to this board 😀.

Reply 4 of 6, by kanecvr

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I know this thread has been dead for a while, but I got a hold of the exact same mainboard (possibly the one you had iulianv?) Did you make any further progress with it?

This board came with a leaky 3/v60r 3.6v battery and blue crap all over the PCB - it cleaned up nicely, and I removed the leaking battery, but I haven't tried to start it up yet.

EDITED: Ok, it started up fine - it posts, but won't boot...

Reply 5 of 6, by kanecvr

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Ok, after doing some research, I found out that the board is an OEM version of the Pine PT-432b - a friend of mine found another one, with an external CMOS battery and no PS/2 mouse support in an old POS machine made by a romanian company called REL Computer. It came with an AMD DX4 Enhanced Processor. It even has stuff connected to the undocumented front panel jumpers!

Jumper and bios settings match those of the PT-423b, except that this version doesn't have a PS/2 mouse header, and has support for built-in 3V batteries via jumper 24. It's quite common in east europe it seems.

Reply 6 of 6, by christith

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Hello
I got recently a SR-M401-A board with a leaky battery which damaged some components around so bad that they felt of the board. I want to try to repair , but I need some help. That's why I would like to ask somebody who owns this board to support me with some high resolution pictures of the area around the the battery and the UMC8663A chip. I want to see the values of the resistors which vanished from my board.
I wrote the sentence above also in another thread ( Re: Pine PT-432b / SR-M401-A BIOS needed), but I would like, if possible, to get the support sooner, maybe from one of the members above, which some time ago were owning this board.
Thank you!