Relatively Unknown Motherboard. \ VOGONS

Relatively Unknown Motherboard.

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First post, by Gatewayuser200

Posted on 2017-02-04, 16:53

Gatewayuser200 Offline

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Joined: 2017-01-28, 00:24
Location: Dallas, North Carolina, USA

Hello all. I came across two vintage PCs from a local office.

One of them had a Biostar MB-8500UUR-A socket 5 motherboard with a 90MHz Pentium and 8mb of ram. It works but the battery in the RTC chip has died and it is the dreaded soldered in type. I was able to boot the original install of DOS and Win 3.11.

The problem is I can barely find any information about this board. From the silk screens it has 1mb of cache and supports up to a Pentium 100 (Which I do have). I would like to replace the RTC chip and use it but all the tantalum capacitors worry me and I'm not sure if this board is worth the hassle of replacing the chip.

What's you alls opinion on this board? Does it seem like a solid base for a Pentium class DOS box with a S3 virge and voodoo 1? Does it seem like a super budget type board?

"network down, IP packets delivered via UPS" - BOFH
“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten” – Benjamin Franklin

Reply 1 of 5, by lazibayer

Posted on 2017-02-04, 17:44

lazibayer Offline

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Joined: 2014-10-21, 21:16

Nice pictures!
Here is the page for jumper settings.
The board in your photo has only 256KB cache installed.

Reply 2 of 5, by Gatewayuser200

Posted on 2017-02-05, 15:31

Gatewayuser200 Offline

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Rank: Newbie
Posts: 69
Joined: 2017-01-28, 00:24
Location: Dallas, North Carolina, USA

So is this a decent board for Win95/DOS? Is the chipset a good one?

"network down, IP packets delivered via UPS" - BOFH
“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten” – Benjamin Franklin

Reply 3 of 5, by lazibayer

Posted on 2017-02-05, 19:03

lazibayer Offline

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Posts: 1065
Joined: 2014-10-21, 21:16

I don't know its stability and compatibility. Performance-wise it's sufficient for DOS and 95, and should be able to scale down by disabling the caches. It's just not good for anything demands p6 class performance. There are two jumpers for FSB so the last combination might give you either 40 or 75 FSB.

Reply 4 of 5, by Munx

Posted on 2017-02-05, 20:07

Munx Offline

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Joined: 2015-03-21, 19:36
Location: Kaunas, Lithuania

Gatewayuser200 wrote:
So is this a decent board for Win95/DOS? Is the chipset a good one?

Not sure about the chipset, but a voodoo/s3/Pentium combo is really great - good overall compatibility and games from w95/late DOS era will run smooth and you shouldn't run into many speed problems (and should this happen, you can always disable L2 cache and underclock). 3D games like Quake and older will run perfectly on this.

My builds!
The FireStarter 2.0 - The wooden K5
The Underdog - The budget K6
The Voodoo powerhouse - The power-hungry K7
The troll PC - The Socket 423 Pentium 4

Reply 5 of 5, by Gatewayuser200

Posted on 2017-02-06, 02:47

Gatewayuser200 Offline

Rank Newbie

Rank: Newbie
Posts: 69
Joined: 2017-01-28, 00:24
Location: Dallas, North Carolina, USA

Thanks guys! I didn't get all the information I wanted but at least I know I can make a nice DOS/95 box with it.

"network down, IP packets delivered via UPS" - BOFH
“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten” – Benjamin Franklin

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