What revision is your motherboard? And what is the datecode on the southbridge?

appiah4 wrote on 2022-08-04, 20:12:

I actually tried a disgustingly fithy IBM Netvista PS2 keyboard tonight and it worked. The board is just being picky somehow but I do now know how. Now I am teying to clean this terrible mess of dead insects and human filth.. 🙁

For what it's worth, I use a Unicomp PS/2 keyboard with mine.
I haven't had trouble with the keyboard port, but there's something about the PS/2 mouse port such that it doesn't get detected by Linux and you have to change the psaux detection code in the kernel to get it to work.

feipoa wrote on 2022-08-04, 21:43:

What revision is your motherboard? And what is the datecode on the southbridge?

It is a VER:2 with datecode of 9622 and 9623 on the chipset ICs. (I have since taking the photo replaced the DS12887A with a socket, and a new RTC. I really ought to mod a few of the dead ones I have with CR2232s..)

Still have a newer HP PS/2 keyboard and an Genius AT keyboard on the way that I will test when they arrive.

jakethompson1 wrote on 2022-08-04, 22:09:

appiah4 wrote on 2022-08-04, 20:12:

I actually tried a disgustingly fithy IBM Netvista PS2 keyboard tonight and it worked. The board is just being picky somehow but I do now know how. Now I am teying to clean this terrible mess of dead insects and human filth.. 🙁

For what it's worth, I use a Unicomp PS/2 keyboard with mine.
I haven't had trouble with the keyboard port, but there's something about the PS/2 mouse port such that it doesn't get detected by Linux and you have to change the psaux detection code in the kernel to get it to work.

The PS/2 mouse port just works for me, very reliably so. Depending on what kind of cards I have on the PCI bus the IDE CD-ROM detection can go really wonky, however.

The AT keyboard worked fine.

The HP keyboard, similar to the other modern keyboard I tried, POSTed but the keys did not register. HOWEVER, after twisting the adapter around a bit the keyboard started working. So my issue may have been, all along, not one but two broken PS2 to AT adapters...

Time to order a few new ones to stock on.

I've never had an issue with an AT DIN to mini-DIN. Which are you using? I prefer the 6" cable adapter rather than the stub.

feipoa wrote on 2022-08-06, 22:37:

I've never had an issue with an AT DIN to mini-DIN. Which are you using? I prefer the 6" cable adapter rather than the stub.

6" cable stuff here as well. The stup adapters never seemed safe to me.

Guys! Been digging through all the old manuals my Dad saved from back in the day. Apparently I had a Biostar UUD in my custom 486 build. That machine was lost long ago unfortunately, very cool to find this though.

Wow!, That's nice!! ! Would you be able to scan it and share? (If you want and have the time)

Dusko wrote on 2022-08-28, 17:50:

Wow!, That's nice!! ! Would you be able to scan it and share? (If you want and have the time)

For sure, give me a few days. Unless this is something already scanned somewhere.

No worries, take your time.
There is enough info floating around the net to figure out the jumpers (I'm not sure if all of them). I have my retro 486 PC up and running with this motherboard, but there's not an actual copy of the manual out there and it would be lovely to have.

If you scan it, best to do it in 1-bit mode.

Hi,
I'm in the process of building an AMD 486-100 machine using an 8433UUD motherboard, revision 3.1
It has Award BIOS version v4.50PG
The machine was purchased from ebay with a WIN95 installation on the hard drive, and I'm in the process of replacing that drive with a CF card.
I tried a 16G CF card that has known good bootable MSDOS installation on it - in one large partition.
When I tried it with this motherboard, it gave me a "Disk I/O error..."

From what I read in previous messages in this topic, my 16G drive is too large for this BIOS version - at least as a single bootable partition?
On bootup - the BIOS correctly identifies the size of the drive - and mentions it is using LBA.
Is there an Award BIOS I can upgrade to that will allow this 16G partition to boot - or do I need to go the XTIDE route - which I also just heard about in previous messages.

Also, I do have a PCI Promise "FAST Trak 66" IDE controller in my box of misc PC pieces, and it appears to have a BIOS of its own.
Would this thing allow booting from my 16G CF card?

thanks

Jim

I think there is an 8 GB BIOS limit for the bootable partitions, as you've already discovered. I understand very well the desire to keep your 16 GB partitioning in tact as it was a struggle I went through on this board. Either you use XTIDE on a Lo-Tech card, XTIDE on a ISA ethernet ROM, or you repartition the HDD to have any boot partition not exceed 8 GB. If upgrade your CF card size to something like 64 GB, you should, for example, be able to use 4 GB for your Win95 partition, another 4 GB for your NT4 partition, then setup 56 GB for your program files, games, and anything not related to the OSes' boot needs. NT4 and W95 should be able to see the full 56 GB of that 3rd partition. If it is FAT32 formatted, NT4 would need to have an updated FASTFAT to read and write to it.

In my case, I was using a Promise Ultra100 IDE card on my 8433UUD and had something like 120 GB for win95c and 8 GB for NT4. As I wanted to have two Voodoo2 cards in my system, I had to give up the Promise Ultra100 IDE and use the onboard IDE controller. I already had the system fully decked out with updates, programs, games, etc and did not want to reformat the HDD to use 4GB w95, 4GB NT4, and 120 GB PROGRAMS. So I went the path of XT-IDE on a 3Com network card and was able to use my existing HDD and leave it in tact.

For your case, if you have an extra PCI slot, that's probably what I'd use. Note that soft-reset won't work properly with a Promise Ultra100 IDE controller installed. If that is an issue for you, then you'd go with a SCSI controller like the AHA-1940U2W. You'd have to clone your CF card or use a SCSI-to-IDE adaptor to read it as is.

Your decision likely boils down to how badly you don't want to reformat your CF card.

This is why I split my disks in several partitions, while my Win9X FAT32 partition always starts on cylinder 1022.
Not at 1023, because on some BIOSes MS-DOS FDISK just shows 8025 instead of 8033 MB.
In the partitions before there are: PRI DOS (502 MB), EXT with LOG FAT16 (2008 MB), PRI NTFS (2000/XP with boot manager) and PRI FAT32 Win9X (Rest).

502 instead of 512 or 2M? 1) Cluster size 2) Compatiblity with Norton Utilities 4.5 adv. ed.
2008 instead of 2047? Compatiblity with Norton Utilities 4.50 Advanced Edition

Received a Biostar MB-8433UUD-A version 3.1 motherboard recently. But got a problem that every boot it displays "Updating ESCD" which takes a minute or so before continuing the boot process.

It's equipped with a AMD Am5x86-P75 processor and an EPROM bios chip. I erased the EPROM and flashed version UUD2014 on it and changed the memory from EDO to FDM. Also removed all ISA/PCI cards except the video card but the "Updating ESCD" problem is still there. As it's an EPROM JP13 is open btw.

Anybody knows what is going on and knows a way to prevent the "Updating ESCD" message every hot or warm boot?

If it is saying "Updating ESCD... " upon every boot, and it is not followed by "success", then the BIOS is trying to save ESCD to a section of the BIOS, but it cannot. This happens when:

a) you have installed a BIOS chip that is not electronically erasable, that is, its not an EEPROM
b) you do not have the correct ROM type jumper selected, so the BIOS knows it can write to the EEPROM and with which voltage.
c) some old motherboards, I think, have a bug with Updating ESCD, but not the 8433-UUD

Which EEPROM are you using? If it is 5 V (most of them), then JP13 should be set to 1-2. If it is 12 V (usually Intel), then JP13 should be set to 2-3. JP13 should only be left open if you are using a UV EPROM, presumably because it doesn't have an ESCD area to write to.

feipoa wrote on 2024-01-30, 11:43:

If it is saying "Updating ESCD... " upon every boot, and it is not followed by "success", then the BIOS is trying to save ESCD t […]
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If it is saying "Updating ESCD... " upon every boot, and it is not followed by "success", then the BIOS is trying to save ESCD to a section of the BIOS, but it cannot. This happens when:

a) you have installed a BIOS chip that is not electronically erasable, that is, its not an EEPROM
b) you do not have the correct ROM type jumper selected, so the BIOS knows it can write to the EEPROM and with which voltage.
c) some old motherboards, I think, have a bug with Updating ESCD, but not the 8433-UUD

Which EEPROM are you using? If it is 5 V (most of them), then JP13 should be set to 1-2. If it is 12 V (usually Intel), then JP13 should be set to 2-3. JP13 should only be left open if you are using a UV EPROM, presumably because it doesn't have an ESCD area to write to.

It's an UV EPROM as far I'm aware (tms27c010a). I erased it with an UV eraser and programmed it with a T48. JP13 is open atm because of the UV EPROM. That's correct I think?

I never see a "succes" message. It just continues booting after the 1 minute delay.

I ordered some flashable 5v EEPROMS but it will take a couple of weeks before they arrive.

A UV EPROM is not something the board can update you need an EEPROM?

appiah4 wrote on 2024-01-30, 15:39:

A UV EPROM is not something the board can update you need an EEPROM?

Probably true. But it's a little strange as it is the original BIOS EPROM. Seems funny to me that Biostar sold motherboards which couldn't save ESCD information. 😀