486 with both EISA and VLB... Now that's interesting! If you could get a clear shot of the whole motherboard people here will tell you more 😀

Please resize pictures

RacoonRider wrote:

486 with both EISA and VLB... Now that's interesting! If you could get a clear shot of the whole motherboard people here will tell you more 😀

I'm afraid to take anything apart. The ISA Cards haven't been pulled out in over 2 decades.

^ don't be afraid, just remove the cards and take a nice photo of the mobo... and the cards 😉

Of course you have to take it apart! It needs a good inspection, a clean, verify all the jumpers, check and fix battery or RTCn, check the cache, document it all, test it on a bench and then put it back together.

The HDD has a Win 3x install but it is corrupted. I was going to install DOS but I have no working floppies. I see I could transfer the DOS disks to the HDD itself but wouldn't a format wipe that? Small 2nd partition maybe?

Before you do anything else, remove that battery. Check if it's leaking (you can take close images of the area). If there are leaks use vinegar around that area.

Look for a battery header, that will be the easiest solution for a new battery.

Where is the battery? The cylinder object above the Keyboard port?

rodimus80 wrote:

Where is the battery? The cylinder object above the Keyboard port?

Yes. They have destroyed many many motherboards. Deadly little buggers.

It's leaking... you need to remove it ASAP
if you don't have any tools just wiggle it left/right and the battery pins will break... then throw the battery to recycling 😀
You will either need to solder a replacement battery or use an external battery connected to the EXT BAT conenctor on the mobo (look at the 4 pins next to the battery, most likely it's them) or you need to do a CR2032 mod or input BIOS settings everytime you boot the machine 🤣

you also need to clean the area to neutralize any acid on work, vinegar or lemon juice are good easy to find battery-cleaning fluids 🤣

Ugh nasty...

Keropi said it all 😀 Nothing to add.

Anyone have ideas on what the Mobo is? Would love to get my hands on a manual.

luckily nothing too serious... toothbrush+vinegar/lemon and just clean the green stuff, they have no business on the solder joints 😁
the 4pins are indeed the external battery connector, so it's an easy fix

Thank you guys for the quick thinking on the Battery. Would've killed me to see this die over something so small. Any suggestions on going forward other then replacing the Battery?

you can still use the computer but it will nag you each power-on about the CMOS data being invalid , so you need to enter the BIOS, make any needed changes , save+quit and then use the computer... that will happen everytime you hit the power switch .

Identify the board. Google for documentation on jumper settings. Verify jumper settings. Hook up a floppy with boot disk and see if it works.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Identify the board. Google for documentation on jumper settings. Verify jumper settings. Hook up a floppy with boot disk and see if it works.

Looks like I found something: http://museum.ttrk.ee/th99/m/I-L/31129.htm

Prior to removing the battery I was able to boot up with a Startup disk and take a look at the HDD. It has a Win3x install but either the HDD is bad or needs to be fixed because it was shooting me errors while trying to just display the \WINDOWS directory. Ran FDISK and it stopped about half way through and told me the computer had too many files and needed to be deleted first.