alexanrs wrote:

NEVER plug a connector in a header in a Socket 7 (or older) board without triple-checking the pinout. There were no standards for those, and odds are you shorted the ground or VCC with something. Hopefully you didn't fry anything important.

Do AT keyboards still work or are you trying to use an USB keyboard? Most Socket 7 boards did not feature legacy support for USB keyboards, so they won't work before Windows loads (and even then, only after the drivers are installed).

I couldn't find the pin outs for it. Either I overlooked it or it not there in the manual. BTW the motherboard (none of the vitals seems to malfunction) seems to be working fine after the smoking incident. I did get a at to ps/2 converter and the at keyboard port is working fine. also did update bios 2.5 to 2.9 and got the mobo to (along with the right switch setup of course) recognized the mmx 233. my belkin 5 port card seems to work with it just fine but my via usb card won't for some reason. Hopfully the bios update will fix that. I just down to a few parts now.

I have both windows 95 osr 2.5 and 98se (both are legit). I aware that 95's usb capability isn't very robust but is it good enough at least to run keyboard and mouse and to install a usb 1.1 card on it? If not I'll just use 98.

Windows 95 has no built in HID drivers for mice AFAIK, so you are better off with Windows 98.

Also, I've never had luck with VIA cards and older motherboards. My NEC card, on the other hand, works in anything I've ever plugged it in.