But considering the fact that the Wyse Vx0 sports a CN700, but has working graphics under Win9x

I have a couple of "desktop" CN700 boards (one is a reference VIA sold under OEM) and both had no issues with GUI acceleration/3D graphics under Wyse Vx0 Win9x installation. So it seems that Clientron just introduced some bugs into BIOS image.
Now EPIA is another beast, because it's all-in-one solution and not a standard NB+SB combo, although have the same specs. Potentially not compatible or have bugs that are not fixable, because it's not technically CN700.

systremor wrote on 2025-05-07, 16:55:

Considering that thin clients are still kinda cheap and I can't seem to get enough of them, I wanted to pick up something compac […]
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Considering that thin clients are still kinda cheap and I can't seem to get enough of them, I wanted to pick up something compact as a Win9x spare machine, in case my Tually build dies. Unfortunately PIII-era parts are getting scarce and expensive here...
The one I picked up is a rebadge of a Clientron U700, which sports a 500MHz VIA Eden processor and the dreaded VIA CN700 chipset. Its graphics have issues on some configurations where you'd either get a garbled screen, a black screen, a non-standard refresh rate or a combination of any of these after installing the Win9x driver from the VIA website, as described here on Vogons.

But considering the fact that the Wyse Vx0 sports a CN700, but has working graphics under Win9x (and is not a VIA EPIA board, like other people have recommended), this can't be something wrong with the chipsets themselves, right?

Exactly. It turns out the culprit in these non-working configs is actually the VBIOS, and at least in the case of thin clients, if you have a PhoenixAward v6.00PG based BIOS, you can easily replace it with the help of CBROM.

I've dumped the Clientron and Wyse BIOS images with the help of Uniflash, extracted the VGA ROM with CBROM from the Wyse BIOS and transplated it into the Clientron dump. Threw the newly modified BIOS to a DOS USB, flashed it with Uniflash and...

...voila! Working graphics on a previously black-screen thin client!

The attachment photo_2025-05-07_18-43-46.jpg is no longer available

Of course, YMMV, I have tested this only on the Clientron. This may possibly also work on the Igel D200, another thin client which I tried to use as a Win9x spare machine, but failed miserably and ended up bricking its BIOS.

The "working" VGA ROM can be obtained here:
http://systremor.com/E14W6048.rom

A simple CBROM command like this one should do the trick:

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1CBROM.EXE backup.bin /vga E14W6048.rom

If you feel brave enough to try this hack, remember to backup your BIOS. An external programmer would be a nice companion in case something goes wrong 😀

My thanks! Patched BIOS of my Gigabyte 7CN700ID - and voila instead of black screen I see Windows 98 desktop! Thanks again! Now I have quiet Dos\Windows98 machine.