Ok...I have two VESA LOCAL BUS IDE Cache cards, exactly the same, except one is under the name BUSLOGIC and the other TEKRAM.

Tekram DC-680CD
Buslogic

This is the card, both look EXACTLY like each other, except the labeling on the bios chip. http://frazier.chez.com/matos/cc/dc680cde.htm

MANUAL (previous directories show a FIRMWARE file!)
ftp://ftp.dyu.edu.tw/pub/Hardware/vendor/Tekr … ual/dc6x0cd.pdf

OK. So I THOUGHT the Buslogic was dead, however, if I swapt the Tekram BIOS to the Buslogic card, it works up until boot. So both cards will work with the Tekram BIOS chip. The Buslogic BIOS chip is DEAD.

Now, here's a problem that is on BOTH cards. The card works just fine until I turn off the system (power off...power on). When the card starts to boot from a cold start, it'll go through the RAM cache check and then it'll do an error 14, EEPROM write failure (as in the manual). THIS HAPPENS ON BOTH CARDS when the working Tekram BIOS chip is installed. Again, the Buslogic CHIP does not boot EITHER card. Hard disk drive setup information is lost when powered off.

There is another chip, besides the BIOS chip, on the board that is labeled as B52AD 93C46N, which I'm presuming is the 8 pin EEPROM chip that probably holds the information for the drive setup...(not sure about that).

FIRST QUESTION:
So....could it be that BOTH cards have a bad EEPROM chip? Or could the Tekram BIOS chip have issues, and I need a new BIOS chip?

lead up to the second question......In the link above, in a previous directory there is a file DC680C.zip that contains a FRM file and readme, and this is the contents of the readme:

DC680C.FRM FIRMWARE FOR DC-680C/DC-680CD
LOCATION : U2
CHECKSUM :
VERSION : V2.10
DATE : 1997-10-07
ROM TYPE : 27512

SECOND QUESTION:
Is that FRM file able to be burned to a BIOS chip and tried? My firmware is dated 1995, this is 1997. Chip is a 28 pin chip, and under the DEAD Buslogic chip it is marked as M27C512-15F1 B88BE 95050, which looks to be a EPROM 512K (64Kx8) 150ns chip.

Any suggestions? 😎