I bought a DFI PA61 slot1 motherboard and after testing for several days I noticed that the motherboard is missing AWARD BIOS chip. What would be the cheapest possible solution for this problem? Does anybody encounter a similar problems in the past? Thank you in advance for any suggestions.
Does the board boot?
Its probably just a matter of buying a new EEPROM and flashing in wth the correct BIOS.
Looks like that’s a F29C51002T eeprom.
You can find bios images here: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/dfi-pa61
Agree ! You need a compatible EEPROM chip and BIOS file, then either hot flash it or use a TL866 type programmer. Looking at the TRW picture it looks like a Syncmos 29C5100 series was used in that picture board and in the picture below from the web you can see a MXIC 29F00 which corresponds to the v7.31 flasher guts (from the latest bios's at TRW) of a MXIC 29F001T /5V. Which ever EEPROM you get it needs to match type of the original....
Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun
Honestly, my concern would be that dent in the chipset...
"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB
The motherboard is not booting, it turns on but nothing is happening (black screen), I guess it is normal if the motherboard is without a BIOS chip. Thank you for the chipset models, they are pretty cheap, but the programmers are much more expensive, so I have to decide if it is worth it. By the way, what is wrong with this VIA chip?
jomba wrote on 2024-01-28, 20:22:I bought a DFI PA61 slot1 motherboard and after testing for several days I noticed that the motherboard is missing AWARD BIOS chip. What would be the cheapest possible solution for this problem? Does anybody encounter a similar problems in the past? Thank you in advance for any suggestions.
I would like to answer to your original posting.
You tested a board several days and then recognized that the Bios chip is missing? Hmm.
As you already wrote in your last posting: Yes, without a Bios, a mainboard acts just as a big paperweight. It can consume electrical power, but that is all.
I never encountered such a problem, because I never purchased a mainboard without a Bios chip. The thing is that it is suspicious. Why did the owner remove the chip?
The missing Bios is not difficult to fix, but you need a Flash ROM chip and a programmer. So when you don't own a programmer and it is a type of mainboard which is not rare, it might be easier to just buy a working mainboard.
I am not sure about if this is the case for Slot1 mainboards.
jomba wrote on 2024-01-29, 18:54:.... By the way, what is wrong with this VIA chip?
User PcBytes was mislead by the picture. He was thinking this is an actual picture of your board. I assume it is not, because the picture shows the Bios chip.
Oouu, he meant that. The picture is indeed from the internet, but identical to the motherboard that I have, just without the BIOS chip. The seller was selling the motherboard as junk. He was not the original owner, so I am sure that he did not remove the BIOS chip. What it took me so long to see, such an obvious problem, I guess because I did not expect it 😀 I have no idea why the original owner removed the chip, maybe the motherboard is faulty, but even then why remove the BIOS chip? Anyway, now I have a better idea of what it costs and what I have to do. Most of the time is not worth repairing or restoring these retro PC, but still we do that because sometimes we just want to save them 😀
jomba wrote on 2024-01-29, 19:39:Oouu, he meant that. The picture is indeed from the internet, but identical to the motherboard that I have, just without the BIOS chip. The seller was selling the motherboard as junk. He was not the original owner, so I am sure that he did not remove the BIOS chip. What it took me so long to see, such an obvious problem, I guess because I did not expect it 😀 I have no idea why the original owner removed the chip, maybe the motherboard is faulty, but even then why remove the BIOS chip? Anyway, now I have a better idea of what it costs and what I have to do. Most of the time is not worth repairing or restoring these retro PC, but still we do that because sometimes we just want to save them 😀
Taking a high resolution picture of the actual board would have been a good idea.
The experienced Vogons users can carefully inspect it, maybe some other potential problem are visible.
EDIT:
HINT: The first picture you downloaded from the internet is not a high resolution picture.
