Hi, all.

I've recently got my hands on an Ark Logic ARK1000VL videocard:

I've tested this card in three different VLB motherboards: a PC Chips with a 486-DX2, an Opti895 Green with AMD 5x86 and an AOpen VI15G with an Intel DX4. All three boards have different chipsets, but all of them use "Win style" AMIBIOS.

In all three cases I get two beeps, followed by 8 beeps, then a "whirring" sound followed by two beeps. As far as I can understand, that roughly translates to "can't initialize video, POST failed". There was nothing on the screen. I've tried changing jumpers on the ARK1000VL card (there is one for 0/1 wait state and another for IRQ9). I've tried changing wait states on the motherboards.

Finally, I got the strange idea of testing the Ark Logic card while having another videocard installed (Acumos AVGA-2, an ISA card). It worked!

So, with AVGA installed, the Ark Logic card works and shows image without any issues. It seems to me like AVGA is only used for its BIOS. So the logical conclusion seems to be that Ark Logic's BIOS somehow got corrupted.

I tried re-seating the BIOS chip, but that did nothing. I've also checked whether any other second card (e.g., a NIC, a disk controller or a soundcard) would allow Ark Logic to work — nothing.

As far as I understand, I need to reflash the BIOS and/or get a new BIOS chip. The card is working, I just can't initialize it. Am I missing anything?

Can anyone please share a working BIOS file for this card? AFAIK, all Ark Logic VLB cards use the same reference design, so it doesn't matter whether it's made by Western Digital, Octec or any other brand.