VOGONS


First post, by appiah4

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I'm currently working on repairing this 286 motherboard and having some documentation would be nice. Unfortunately there are absolutely zero markings on it. Does anyone know what this motherboard is?

I've tried the regular sites and found nothing..

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Reply 1 of 11, by BitWrangler

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It's got a bit of a Bek smell about it (who mark their motherboards on the underside btw) bit closest on UH19 was this one http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboards/1029 close but not quite, a sibling maybe, but Bek did plenty more boards than they've got on there.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 2 of 11, by appiah4

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It is similar, but the big difference is the integrated Multi-I/O. Going by that board, the (JP12) Turbo, (JP11) NPU clock and (JP4) Mono/VGA jumpers are similar.

However there is a big jumper block (JP5-10) that I think controls the I/O functions, and it's impossible to know which is which for now.

There is also JP2/JP3 in the I/O area that are mysteris (but likely resource allocation jumpers of some kind?).

JP13 is next to the BIOS chips and I guess it's for BIOS type and/or write protection?

Finally there is CN7 which I think is IDE Activity LED.

Maybe I should forward this thread to the people who maintain Ultimate Hardware 19. Seems to be up their alley 😁

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 4 of 11, by appiah4

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evasive wrote on 2021-09-07, 08:19:

People of UH19 are also scratching their heads on this one for now. Photo of the backside + bios dump would be nice 😁

Photo of back attached.

I can try to dump the ODD/EVEN HIGH/LOW BIOS chips on my TL866II-Plus I guess but I don't know how to combine them?

EDIT: Scratch that, the HIGH/LOW EPROM chips don't seem to be supported by TL866II-Plus..

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Reply 5 of 11, by appiah4

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OK so on a hunch I tried to read the EPROMS as AM28C17A and it worked.. Here you go, BIOS files High and Low. Working on merging them.

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Reply 6 of 11, by appiah4

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Merged BIOS attached (Unless I totally fucked it up somehow, but I doubt it.)

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Reply 7 of 11, by appiah4

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Final piece of the puzzle (that I can provide) is the BIOS String from POST:

DH12-1164-083090-K0

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Reply 8 of 11, by computerguy08

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appiah4 wrote on 2021-09-07, 10:22:

Final piece of the puzzle (that I can provide) is the BIOS String from POST:

DH12-1164-083090-K0

1164, the exact same manufacturer code my 286 board has: http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboards/5148
Which is of course unknown!

Your best bet is to start reverse engineering the jumpers around the board, shouldn't be too hard, HT12 boards are relatively simple.
I'm pretty sure this bank of jumpers configures the onboard stuff (serial, IDE, floppy, etc.)

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Reply 9 of 11, by appiah4

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So it all amounted to nothing? 🤣. You can at least add this to the site I guess. The only jumpers that I have no idea about are JP2/JP3.. Any ideas are appreciated.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 10 of 11, by evasive

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another sibling with similar bios and the same mfg code 1164, again without any onboard I/O:
https://www.ultimateretro.net/en/motherboards/7851

So that makes your board a bit more special I guess:
https://www.ultimateretro.net/en/motherboards/9536

Last edited by evasive on 2021-11-24, 22:09. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 11 of 11, by appiah4

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evasive wrote on 2021-09-28, 12:43:
another sibling with similar bios and the same mfg code 1164, again without any onboard I/O: http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboa […]
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another sibling with similar bios and the same mfg code 1164, again without any onboard I/O:
http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboards/7851

So that makes your board a bit more special I guess:
http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboards/9536

Ok, so I guess I was lucky to get it fixed and working! Now, do I want to replace my 386SX25 with this, or not..

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.