Thank you very much for the information.
I have checked wayback and I see that the NETCOM CO. was founded in 1987, so it must be that.
Think the puzzle is solved - the full name of this motherboard is NETCOM NC-386ET V2.0.
Thank you all once again.
You're welcome! I'm always happy whenever another 386 lives to fight another day!
Life isn't long enough to re-enable every hidden option in every BIOS on every board... 🙁
dominiqe wrote on 2021-08-27, 18:31:Hello guys. I have flashed attached MRBIOS file (V018B301.zip) to the new ROM CHIP and ... it works!!! The board is alive and I […]
Hello guys. I have flashed attached MRBIOS file (V018B301.zip) to the new ROM CHIP and ... it works!!!
The board is alive and I am very happy - I feel like exactly the same when I had my first 386DX PC in 1993.I have also read original bios from the chip that was installed in motherboard.
I wonder who manufactured this mobo - could you tell me?
Those old AMIBIOSes are supposed to sum to zero, if you add up (discarding the carry) every 16-bit word over the whole ROM.
Yours sums to exactly one. So assuming the simplest explanation of a single-bit error, the low order bit of one of the even bytes is one when it should be zero. There is no way to know where without finding another copy of this BIOS ROM.
For the hardware people, if an EPROM ages and fails is it typical for just a single bit to flip like that? Or does usually a larger region fail all at once?
weedeewee wrote on 2021-08-27, 19:30:edit: tried bios image in pcem, and gives same 9 beeps, then repeats.
If you modify it as I described here you can play with it in PCem. AMI Color BIOS (1993 and earlier) modification in hex editor
IIRC it gets quite likely that a cosmic ray or other stray particle will flip a single bit over a 20 year period.
Edit: the thing is though, whether you even notice most of them, a pixel out of place on the splash screen, one drive type out of 47 that doesn't work right, doesn't set address right for 3rd LPT... there could be hundreds of ways for a bit to be wrong and not mess up the majority of simple use cases.
Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.
GUYS!!!!! I'M RESTORING THE SAME MOTHERBOARD!!!!! This is a miracle....thank you all!!!! I'll see if I can get the Jumper settings so I can switch from INTERNAL BATTERY to EXTERNAL BATTERY (need to solder an external battery socket).
I also need to remove and change quartz oscillator 32.768k, jump some bad circuits (the mobo was partially eaten by cadmium battery explosion).
I bought this motherboard + micro 386 + 4MB RAM to a really creepie lady in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Buenos Aires Argentina ("La Matanza").
This was a long dream to me and here in Argentina is really hard to find retro components, even harder to find working ones. I'm really in love with this piece of circuit and I've already envisioned a 386 + 4MB ram + VGA Monochrome + 4 GB HDD + Sound Blaster CT2940 machine working for this one.
I'll keep you posted.
Cyrix 80486DX 80Mhz, 32mb RAM, 1024kb Trident VGA, Sound Blaster 16, 4GB HDD, 3 1/2 floppy disk drive + Creative CD-ROM drive unit.
Intel 80386 DX 40Mhz, 8MB RAM, Trident VGA 256kb, Sound Blaster 16 CT 2950, 525MB HDD, 3 1/2 floppy, 52x CD-ROM .
solraeck wrote on 2021-09-23, 17:19:GUYS!!!!! I'M RESTORING THE SAME MOTHERBOARD!!!!! This is a miracle....thank you all!!!! I'll see if I can get the Jumper settings so I can switch from INTERNAL BATTERY to EXTERNAL BATTERY (need to solder an external battery socket).
It might just involve removing the internal battery jumper, and connecting to the external battery connector below it. Maybe you can use a 3xAA battery holder and not have to solder anything.
Would you image and upload your BIOS ROM? It would be interesting to see if the OP's one is indeed flipped by one bit and where it is if so.
