Don't ask me why but on all these cards made from surplus/reclaimed chips (yours, the rage xls, vt6421a, ecc...) the Chinese love to use 28F EEPROM instead of the right ones (this is particularly weird in the case of the VIA cards, that IC speaks LPC not parallel so it won't ever work)

28F EEPROMS use 5v for reading and 12v for programming (and a different command set if I recall correctly), whereas the 29 series parts that should have been used need only 5v for both reading and writing. Reading is the same for all.

When you put a 28F rom on a card such as yours, if it has been previously programmed out of circuit, it will work. But it will be impossible to reprogram.

The only solution is to replace with the proper EEPROM, or to solder a socket, flash the 28F externally and then reinstall it.

is it possible to solder a patch wire to pin 30 to give the chip 12v to flash it? I bought the same card and its got the same Amd chip. I tried flashing it using various utilities but came to the same conclusion of it needing 12v.

thanks guys, it looks like indeed this chip can not be flashed using software.

I would be curious to hear about the pin 30 12V mod and how that needs to be performed.

for now, I actually removed the BIOS chip right now and waiting for socket adapter for my T48 programmer, will flash teh chip and solder back and see if its working ok. Im happy to do that as it only takes 10 minutes to remove, flash and put back.

will report back.

Well, at least that chip is flashable. The Silicon Image card I had back in the day used a 27C series OTP ROM chip (a UV-erasable EPROM die in a plastic package without a window). The BIOS in it was incompatible with the Award BIOS on the Super Socket 7 board I used the card in. As I just needed the card to provide extra channels for a Linux soft RAID, I didn't even need a BIOS at all, and ended up cutting the /CE line of the BIOS chip and pulling it to VCC.

I manged to get one card working but my soldering skills are in their infancy and as such, its been an ordeal despite having all the right tools so I wont be attempting to do this with the rest of my cards.

changing the topic vs starting a new thread, what are the best recommended PCI cards I can use that are bootable ? This is for use in Pentium to Pentium 3 systems

Either IDE so I can use IDE to sata adapter or SATA

I can see few recomended like

PROMISE FASTTRAK TX2300
PROMISE TX2 ULTRA100 or ULTRA133

I cant see any here on ebay in Australia but definitely plenty in US. postage is a killer though, $20 card postage is $30 (USD) and I need quite few of them so would make it a very expensive exercise.

Any other cards I can find on Aliexpress that would work ? I know there are Sil3114 cards on Ali that have flashable chips but its like a lottery, I would need to buy from 4-5 sellers one card and wait for it to arrive and check. I think the ones listed with photos that have a sticker on the BIOS chip might be flashable. So might try to get those but thought I'll ask here first.

What about PCI cards with VIA chipsets? Any of them bootable with a single drive? eg VT6421A Chipset