I have a PC Chips M571 motherboard and it works fine with my CF to IDE adapter. If you have the same motherboard, try updating the BIOS. You can find the relevant files on the website that I linked.

That said, there are reports of SD to IDE adapters being less compatible with certain chipsets than their CF to IDE counterparts, so that might play a role as well.

Thanks for that link, have to check the bios version but my motherboard is the same one.

Fun thing is that it acted the same with hard drive as with 2 different sd_card adapters and multiple sdcards but seems to work fine otherwise except that video problem. Though i had similar problems with the 486, lba settings and all. Tried even that ide sector, head finder dos tool to see what the sdcard looks like and copied them to bios but nothing. Ill check the bios. Thanks!

kohellus@gmail.com wrote on 2021-05-31, 20:56:

Thanks for that link, have to check the bios version but my motherboard is the same one.

Note that there are multiple revisions of the M571 and they don't use the same BIOS.

Be sure to correctly identify your board before flashing it.

Thanks, yep i noticed that 😀 That also became a problem.

There should be a white sticker near the keyboard connector and i have but its blank. Also theres no QC sticker near the ISA slots that tells the version. Also there should be another sticker near the cpu voltage jumpers if it supports 2.2V but my mobo doesnt have a sticker and the silkscreen has jumpers all open for 2.5V. So it should be rev 3.2, 3.2A supports 2.2V if the sticker hasnt fallen off.

But Ver 7.x has different I/O chip than the 3.2 and the only pic i could found was from ver 3.2 that had 8669 chip and the same should be on the A version too? But mine has chip UM8670F. So with this info, it cant be ver3.2 nor ver7.x 😀

kohellus@gmail.com wrote on 2021-06-01, 12:13:

But Ver 7.x has different I/O chip than the 3.2 and the only pic i could found was from ver 3.2 that had 8669 chip and the same should be on the A version too? But mine has chip UM8670F. So with this info, it cant be ver3.2 nor ver7.x 😀

I have the 3.2A revision and it is marked as such.

In the top left corner, right above the keyboard port and the PS2 mouse header, there should be a version number. It's not on a sticker, it's simply printed on the motherboard.

I did rip the sticker off and under it was V3.2 and i checked the voltages and yes its 2.5V at minimum so the 8670 chip wasnt a good identifier 😀 Now to get the bios part done. If i get the ide working, iam going to play with the voltages a little. I have a k6-2@450 and 500 to test if it works with 75 or 83 fsb speeds and multipliers but i noticed that some of my pci cards might be too long, so many problems with this one 😀

Hello again,

Bios update didnt fix the problem, it works a little differently though. Before it would boot normally if you had some sdcard or hardrive connected but the hd wasnt the first to try and you had a bootable floppy as first option or you removed the hd side and only had a floppy, now it gets stuck after memory check if you dont have ide device attached even if its not the first boot device nor configured in the bios. weird mobo 😀

kohellus@gmail.com wrote on 2021-06-02, 08:35:

now it gets stuck after memory check if you dont have ide device attached even if its not the first boot device nor configured in the bios. weird mobo 😀

If it doesn't boot without an IDE device attached, then it's possible the motherboard is damaged. Take a look at the capacitors and see if there's any leakage. Also, check if there are any scratches over the traces on the PCB. Might also be worth clearing the CMOS using the relevant motherboard jumper and trying again with the default settings.

For reference, I have booted my M571 with just the floppy drive connected while I was running Memtest86+ and it worked fine.

yeah propably have to go that route, atleast they are not surface mount ones 😀 They do look good but you never know. I did check the chips already for loose legs and a quick sweep on traces. The motherboard has been in 1 case from the factory and probably stored somewhere for 10 to 15 years after use but atleast it has been inside a case all this time.

One thing came to my mind, if you have the mobo in easy to check place, could you see if the mobos ide connectors have 2 pins shorted on the back side? My board has, for both channels, connected 2 pins with a jumper wire. I checked the pin outs and it might be just ground to ground pins are connected, ground to dmarq pin or ground to diow/dior pins. The jumpers do look factory but cant really remember if i have seen that before, also came to my mind if ultra dma/33 needed the better cables, my cable is from some 286?

You're in luck, my board is still sitting on my desk as I had just finished rewiring the audio and PS2 brackets. I checked and it seems like there's a solder connection between two IDE pins on the underside of the board. No jumpers though, just solder.

And yeah, that 286 cable might be suboptimal. I use a 40-wire ATA-33 cable for connecting the CD-ROM drive. And my CF to IDE adapter plugs straight into the motherboard.

that i call luck, thanks 😀 So your have solder blobs but no pins connecting them? Maybe my mobo has some kind of not so factory mod after all or something. Closer the jumper pins look like snipped off jumper pins, those square pieces of metal where you put jumpers on, just soldered so they short the pins.

Hope this pic is visible enough. My old cellphone wasnt very good at taking pics. But just in the middle, in both channels theres those 2 jumps in the pins. Dont know if adding pics work. It didnt, propably dont have rights yet or something but a link to imgBB for the pic. Edit 2000, figured it out.

https://ibb.co/hdrtB6c

kohellus@gmail.com wrote on 2021-06-03, 18:16:

Hope this pic is visible enough. My old cellphone wasnt very good at taking pics. But just in the middle, in both channels theres those 2 jumps in the pins.

Ahh, I thought you meant actual jumpers in a plastic shell, like the ones used for setting the CPU multiplier and such.

I double checked, and my board is the same as yours. It's not just solder blobs, there's a piece of metal bridging the pins, just like in your pic.

Those look like capacitors. Probably to kill some noise or ripple.

Thanks for the info and yes could be surface mount caps too, they look more brass in real life but they are so small for my eyes 😀 Ill try to check everything this weekend, maybe ill find something or get lucky and it was just user error after all.

Hello again,

This got a new turn. I couldnt find any wrong with that mobo so got a new one actually 2 but first one was a 486. Good mobo in terms of condition but i cant find a working cache for it. had 128 wanted atleast 256. though i bought another 486 pc chips, well the same problem. dont know yet if those fake chip ones.

But i also got an asus motherboard for this mmx setup i was planning and now it "works" It went a little side ways, no mmx but a 500mhz k6-2 and everything works fine with my 16gb sd card and et6000 and 64mb ram. Win95 installs just fine but first boot crashes into an IOS device error loading drivers. Same with safe mode. Is it because of the processor? There are newer processors that can run win95 osr 2.5 than that 😀

kohellus@gmail.com wrote on 2021-07-10, 06:43:

Hello again,

This got a new turn. I couldnt find any wrong with that mobo so got a new one actually 2 but first one was a 486. Good mobo in terms of condition but i cant find a working cache for it. had 128 wanted atleast 256. though i bought another 486 pc chips, well the same problem. dont know yet if those fake chip ones.

But i also got an asus motherboard for this mmx setup i was planning and now it "works" It went a little side ways, no mmx but a 500mhz k6-2 and everything works fine with my 16gb sd card and et6000 and 64mb ram. Win95 installs just fine but first boot crashes into an IOS device error loading drivers. Same with safe mode. Is it because of the processor? There are newer processors that can run win95 osr 2.5 than that 😀

It's a known issue (https://www.zdnet.com/article/amd-discloses-k6-win95-glitch/) and there's a fix for it called AMDK6UPD.exe . https://www.ardent-tool.com/CPU/amdk6upd.html

Thanks and yes it was that bug 😀 after fiddling with jumpers, i got the amd below 300 and working with the settings and got that update installed and all is good. Somehow i do remember this bug, when it was today's problem but totally forgot about it 😀