VOGONS


First post, by d34dbOlt

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Hello, I'm curious if anyone can point me in a good direction here:

I recently purchased a motherboard on Ebay for a 486 project i'm putting together. In my haste I didn't notice it was being sold without a bios chip or the jumper caps. I realized the jumper caps were missing and ordered a box from amazon. About a month had gone by before I finally had all of my components together for building this project pc... I hooked everything up and tried to test the setup a few times before realizing (after comparing my board with pictures from Google) the Bios chip was missing completely. I was furious. I went back to the auction listing and looked it over. Sure enough, the jumper caps are not present in the photos and the bios is clearly not present as well...shit. I looked at the seller's current listings of motherboards and found that they are ALL like this...no bios chip, no jumper caps, except now he has noted the missing bios in the current descriptions. I'm attempting a refund even though it's been just over a month, and even though he states that it is 'sold as is".

I just can't believe anyone would pull the bios chip and the jumper caps in the first place...fu@#$%# scrappers.

Anyhoo...my question is this, what is the best way to replace the chip and bios? Sorry if this seems silly, I'm just not sure how to approach this without just starting again with another motherboard. The motherboard in question is an ASUS VL/1 486SV2G revision 1.8. I have found the bios files for a later revision (not sure about compatibility) on Philscomputerlab website, thanks Phil! However, i'm unsure what chip to order and I think I need a chip programmer to make this happen.

Here's a link to the original auction:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/VL-1-486SV2G-motherb … 872.m2749.l2649

(I wanted to put this up as a warning for potential buyers from this community. I already sent this person a message and let them know that they are doing the community, that would be interested in buying those motherboards, a huge disservice by pulling the bios chip. Not sure if they will change their practices or not...)

I appreciate any help that is given. Thanks in advance!

Reply 1 of 8, by retardware

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Edited:
ebays new trick to show similar offers instead of the original one fooled me, so my comment is moot.
But even the "similar offer" being shown is interesting. Note the different BIOS chips on the different photos.

Let this be a learning experience for you. You bought a board "as-is" lacking many essential parts. Not only the bios and cache rams are missing. Other components also have been scavenged for parts. In your place I'd discard the board and next time be more careful.

Reply 2 of 8, by Deunan

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Yeah, it seems the entire power regulator section is missing. I doubt it was originally sold as "5V CPU only" board if they've actually had the mobo ready for the regulator. It'd make no sense.
Anyway, I always assume that every "not tested" offer is actually "tested, found dead and too costly to repair, if at all possible, but we won't tell you that". And boy, that "similar offer" got me too.

Reply 3 of 8, by d34dbOlt

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Yeah, the other parts missing weren't a big deal to me. I fully expected to order the cache, ram, etc. I just hit that 'buy now' too quick before realizing this fool strips everything. Saw the 100% positive feedback and didn't think too hard about it. The power regulation portion of the mobo isn't present on the board because that version didn't come with it. The 486SV2GX4 is the model with the power regulation built-in as standard from what I've learned. It's definitely been a learning experience. I knew this seller was a hack when I opened the box to find the mobo surrounded by plastic grocery shopping bags....*sigh*.

Reply 4 of 8, by d34dbOlt

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Also, the cpu that I already had for is a 5v model. The dx4100 overdrive chip w/ built in 3.3v regulator. I figured the less 'feature-packed' model would work just fine.

Reply 5 of 8, by retardware

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d34dbOlt wrote:

I knew this seller was a hack when I opened the box to find the mobo surrounded by plastic grocery shopping bags....*sigh*.

This inappropriate packaging alone might be a reason to return the board for refund.
Did you ever rub plastic grocery bags in the dark and watch the resulting Elmsfeuer?
It is highly probable that the board is degraded or even dead because of this.

My retro AT build has been delayed for almost a month because I had to purchase the Intel network card I chose for it three times.
The first two sellers (one was even a commercial seller!) packaged it into highly static bubble air foil, resulting in the cards being DOA. Got refunded even without opening a case. The third seller was the first one to package it correctly (i.e. antistatic) and so the third card finally worked, while the first both hanged the computer already in the BIOS.

Reply 6 of 8, by d34dbOlt

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I encourage anyone reading this to have a look at this seller's listings. Pretty weird to pull all those bios chips, right??? Does anyone know if there is salvageable metals in them? I just can't get over the mentality that it takes to do that. The jumper caps too....wtf?!?! I can only imagine the 55 gallon drums of bios chips and jumper caps this guy has collected...

Reply 7 of 8, by rasz_pl

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wrong link?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/VL-1-486SV2G-motherb … &orig_cvip=true

"Used: An item that has been used previously. The item may have some signs of cosmetic wear, but is fully operational and functions as intended. This item may be a floor model or store return that has been used. See the seller’s listing for full details and description of any imperfections."

This is the important part, whatever is in description is null and void by seller specifying the above

https://github.com/raszpl/FIC-486-GAC-2-Cache-Module for AT&T Globalyst
https://github.com/raszpl/386RC-16 memory board
https://github.com/raszpl/440BX Reference Design adapted to Kicad
https://github.com/raszpl/Zenith_ZBIOS MFM-300 Monitor

Reply 8 of 8, by d34dbOlt

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Thanks, that is good to know.