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Booting Genoa 4880 EGA card on 440BX motherboard

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First post, by r00tb33r

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Asus P3B-F, two ISA slot version. Picked up a Genoa 4880 and Amdek Color 722 hi-res EGA monitor.

Gemini did it's best to troubleshoot the boot problem but it still hangs after printing the Genoa ROM BIOS message, with a long delay, maybe 10 seconds after I usually see video with VGA cards.

Can it be booted on this board? Ideas?

Do I need to put together an older machine?

At least I know the monitor works, EGA high-res text is white (or light gray?), so that also means the cable I made last night seems to be wired right, so that's something.

Reply 1 of 3, by keenmaster486

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Yeah, some kind of conflict between the EGA card's ROM and the BIOS.

I would suggest building an older machine for that card anyway. It's best suited to an XT or a slow 286.

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.

Reply 2 of 3, by r00tb33r

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keenmaster486 wrote on 2026-08-27, 21:24:

Yeah, some kind of conflict between the EGA card's ROM and the BIOS.

I would suggest building an older machine for that card anyway. It's best suited to an XT or a slow 286.

I don't have anything older than 486s 🤣... That old enough?

Realistically I probably only have a DX4 and a Socket 7 Pentium that I can dig up right now.

Reply 3 of 3, by keenmaster486

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A 486 would probably boot with it.

I mean, you might be able to get the 440BX to boot too, if you changed the right BIOS setting. It would be something to do with ROMs or shadowing or something like that.

But neither one is going to be anything more than an interesting experiment for a real EGA card. They're both way overpowered for what it is.

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.

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