VOGONS


First post, by mutantworm

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I have a PCChips M919 Ver3.4B/F motherboard that I found for free along with an AT mini tower case and soundcard. I thought it would be great to build a nice 486 PC for some retro gaming, so I purchased a CPU, video card, and RAM on eBay to go with this motherboard.

But then I noticed something catastrophic. There is an empty slot where the BIOS chip should be. I never even noticed it until now 🤦‍♂️

Can I buy a BIOS chip and flash it with the correct BIOS rom? Can I salvage this motherboard??

Any info would be very appreciated!

Reply 1 of 3, by jakethompson1

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

That is a well-known motherboard so it should be possible. Something you have to look out for is whether the BIOS will try and reprogram part of the ROM for Plug and Play reasons (that's what the Award Updating ESCD...Success was about). If not, you can use any suitable chip like the AT27C010-70PU. If the BIOS needs to reprogram the chip on occasion, you may need a new-old-stock model that is on its known list. The picture of this board on TRW has a Winbond 27C010 which appears to be a one time programmable one, so hopefully you have nothing to worry about unless there are multiple BIOS versions out there.

Reply 2 of 3, by mutantworm

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Thanks for the info. I see those eproms are relatively cheap, so I'll probably order a few and give that a try using bios images from TRW. I didn't know what kind of eproms were required, so thanks for pointing me towards a proper part #.

Reply 3 of 3, by luRaichu

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

If you don't already have a ROM programmer, the "Relatively Universal ROM Programmer" can be used and it only costs around $10