VOGONS


First post, by DayDreamer

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Interesting eBay find

I'm currently perusing eBay for 386 motherboards.

Not seriously, I do not think I will be buying one in the next few months, but I will be either buying a 386 to restore or building a system from parts within the next year.

First thing I do is look by the keyboard port for the battery. If I eBay a used board, I want one with a button battery because that means someone replaced the barrel battery which means any damage from a leaked battery was likely minor. Most boards on eBay still have the barrel battery and visual damage is usually present.

But there's a board that doesn't seem to have a battery I can identify at all! Not even clipped leads where the barrel used to be.

The seller doesn't list a manufacturer and I can't find one on the board. It has an Intel "A80386DX-25 IV SX218" CPU on it that is stamped '85. Chipset is "CHIPS" which is fairly common. Looks to have 8 memory slots in two groups of four (but empty). No mouse port, AT style keyboard port. On the bottom of the board it says "Made In Taiwan R.O.C."

Does anyone know who might have made that board and more importantly, what type of battery they would have used for the clock/bios?

I know there are some clocks with a sealed internal battery, maybe it used to have a barrel battery and it was replaced with one of those or maybe an i386 board from before PS/2 connectors became the norm actually used one from the start? Anyone know?

Mods: Is it okay to post an eBay link? (I am NOT the seller and do not know the seller).

Reply 1 of 1, by CharlieFoxtrot

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

If there is no onboard battery on the mobo, then it uses external battery and these are not that uncommon. I have one such motherboard, also 386.

Edit: of course, most PC/XT motherboards and such don’t have RTC and they do not store any settings to CMOS battery backed memory. So there is no need for a battery. I’d expect pretty much all 386s having CMOS and RTC, though.