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PC Chips (?) Socket7 Motherboard ID

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First post, by cj_reha

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Hi,

I just got a PC off of eBay with a generic Socket 7 motherboard in it. The chipset is apparently from PC Chips.

Can someone send me a manual and/or give me the model of the board? Thanks 😁

I also made a post about this PC in the bought retro hardware thread but I think this deserves its own thread 🤣

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Reply 1 of 5, by Deksor

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Often just typing the POST string on google helps to find which board you have 😀

For award bioses it's on the first screen (or second if you gpu displays something first during initialisation) at the bottom left. For AMI bioses (that seem to be common on PC chips board) I don't really know but I'm pretty sure it's written somewhere. Often there is the name of the northbridge in that string (it can be faked though)

Edit : nevermind for AMI bios, it's written a big "AWARD BIOS" on your rom chip so you don't need to care about how it works for AMI ^^

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 2 of 5, by Skyscraper

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I would guess its a Matsonic MS-5120 also called PC-Chips M547 and if so it uses a VIA Apollo VPX chipset which is decent.

Here is the manul

Filename
Matsonic ms5120.zip
File size
175.28 KiB
Downloads
123 downloads
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 3 of 5, by cj_reha

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Skyscraper wrote:

I would guess its a Matsonic MS-5120 also called PC-Chips M547 and if so it uses a VIA Apollo VPX chipset which is decent.

Here is the manul

Matsonic ms5120.zip

Close! The bios string reveals it's a M537DMA33.

Join the Retro PC Discord! - https://discord.gg/UKAFchB
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Reply 4 of 5, by man-x86

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Here's the archive I used when I rescued the same motherboard from the trash. There's a bit of documentation, some advices for upgrading to a K6-2 and a couple of BIOS dumps.
I hope that helps 😊.

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  • Filename
    m537dma.zip
    File size
    1.24 MiB
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    178 downloads
    File comment
    PCChips M537 bios + manual
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

Reply 5 of 5, by Skyscraper

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cj_reha wrote:
Skyscraper wrote:

I would guess its a Matsonic MS-5120 also called PC-Chips M547 and if so it uses a VIA Apollo VPX chipset which is decent.

Here is the manul

Matsonic ms5120.zip

Close! The bios string reveals it's a M537DMA33.

Looking at the picture at http://motherboards.mbarron.net/models/pcchips/m537dma.htm your board does not look like the M537DMA33 but it does look exactly like the picture of the Matsonic MS-5120 shown in the manual I posted. 😀

I guess the picture of the M537DMA33 on the mbarron site could be wrong but I do not think it really matters because the boards probably share BIOS as they are both PC Chips (Hsing Tech) made boards with the same chipset from the same time.

In any case use the M537DMA33 BIOS as it evidently works and have the same BIOS identification string as your current BIOS which will make the BIOS flash work without trickery. When it comes to jumper settings you need to follow the instructions for a board with the exact same layout as your board.

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

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