Nice haul!

The fist motherboard is a PCChips M919:

http://motherboards.mbarron.net/models/486pci/m919v3.htm

That model has fake cache (the two black "chips" in the top right are actually just plastic blocks). HOWEVER, it seems to have an actual PCChips custom cache module (in the brown slot). If the board works, consider yourself very lucky. It's quite fast, especially with the L2 cache. Those custom cache modules are rather uncommon and get very pricy.

If I remember correctly, just a few weeks ago another fellow Vogoner got one of those boards with the module.

As for the other two boards, I cannot tell from the pictures. Maybe if you remove the cards they can be identified.

By the way, the CT1600 sound card is actually a Sound Blaster Pro 2, not a 16, in my opinion the ideal sound card for a 486.

Good luck!

The second and third boards also have fake cache. "Writeback" is the give away. They're probably all PCChips.

BTW, the extra cache module shown in the first board is NOT the one designed for that board. It looks to be a regular pipelined burst module from a Pentium that will probably fry that board if you turn it on.

this is the cache, and pics of the other boards, i cant test it because of time and because of all the jumpers it has. 🙁 at least i know one is m919, the other ones i dont even know if they are properly jumpered.

The other two look like PCChips M912 v1.7.

Seems like the 'top' one there might be one with the fake cache (chips soldered to board, JP10-14 & JP36 hard-wired). The bottom one looks to have socketed cache and a proper jumper block. My eyes might be deceiving me though.

Now that I see it clearly, I agree with Anonymous Coward. That cache module is a COAST from a socket 7 motherboard (a 430VX or similar going by the name). So be sure to remove it before testing the board, or bad things may happen.

For jumper settings, check the motherboards.mbarron site from the link I posted. Those boards are pretty well documented. If you still have doubts about the jumpers you can also check TH99.

thanks all !

yea, i will remove the cache, i hope they didn´t use it , so is there any chance that they did not ruin the motherboard using that cache? or if you turn it on with it burns the board?, and looks they swaped the cpus too because on the m919 the jumpers are set for cirix and it actually has an amd dx2

ill have a lot of work and read for the weekend.

dr.sbaitso wrote:

The other two look like PCChips M912 v1.7.

Seems like the 'top' one there might be one with the fake cache (chips soldered to board, JP10-14 & JP36 hard-wired). The bottom one looks to have socketed cache and a proper jumper block. My eyes might be deceiving me though.

No on the second one you can clearly see "WRITE BACK" written on the top of the cache chips

But unlike the m919, the traces doesn't seem to go in circle. I'm pretty sure that just like my m915, replacing the fake cache chips by correct ones will work. Hopefully for you the second one has socketed fake cache. On my m915 they were soldered ... So that was a very long task.

You can check with a voltmeter and look if there is any current going to these. If it does, then it's almost certain it will work with the right cache chips 😀

OK so let me get this straight, i have 3 different motherboard models then? pcchip m919, m915 and m912 ?
and all 3 of them have fake cache chips?

FIRST MOTHERBOARD: has lots of jumpers below the cache. It has also traces on the back that go into the cpu area.

MARKINGS ARE IN WHITE:
Write Back
61C328AH-15
9525

(FOUND THIS CHIP FOR SALE also brand write Back, SO PCCHIPS INCLUDED FAKE OF THOSE AND INSERTED THE MARKINGS? http://www.digipart.com/part/61C328AH-15

-----------------

SECOND MOTHERBOARD: Does not have jumpers below the cache, in fact the board looks very equal but they replaced the jumpers with wire.
It has also traces on the back that go into the cpu area.

MARKINGS ARE IN BLACK ON THIS ONE:
Write Back
61C328AH-15
9525

(FOUND THIS CHIP FOR SALE also brand write back, SO PCCHIPS INCLUDED FAKE OF THOSE AND INSERTED THE MARKINGS? http://www.digipart.com/part/61C328AH-15

-----------------

THIRD MOTHERBOARD: is M919, fake cache, te traces on the back go nowhere.

FIRST MOTHERBOARD:

SECOND MOTHERBOARD:

THIRD MOTHERBOARD: m919, cache back shows what they did

TheMobRules wrote:

Nice haul! […]
Show full quote

Nice haul!

The fist motherboard is a PCChips M919:

http://motherboards.mbarron.net/models/486pci/m919v3.htm

That model has fake cache (the two black "chips" in the top right are actually just plastic blocks). HOWEVER, it seems to have an actual PCChips custom cache module (in the brown slot). If the board works, consider yourself very lucky. It's quite fast, especially with the L2 cache. Those custom cache modules are rather uncommon and get very pricy.

If I remember correctly, just a few weeks ago another fellow Vogoner got one of those boards with the module.

As for the other two boards, I cannot tell from the pictures. Maybe if you remove the cards they can be identified.

By the way, the CT1600 sound card is actually a Sound Blaster Pro 2, not a 16, in my opinion the ideal sound card for a 486.

Good luck!

The other vogoner I think your talking about might have been me. I just picked up 2 486 motherboards on ebay for 40 USD shipped. Both boards came fully populated with SIMMs, and the M919 came wiht a CPU which was not identified. i Here is the auction link http://www.ebay.com/itm/221981808499? The boards just came in a few days I go. I haven't had time to do anything with them yet except for identify the CPU and low and behold it's an AMD X5-133ADW!!!!

Once you determine if the boards work I have cache modules for the m919. Want them to go to a good home.

Also, very nice score huge load. I recent got a whole load of parts from someone I used to contract work for. He held contracts for doing warranty work in our area for folks who bought extended warranties back in the mid 90s till about 2004 or 2005 or so. I started working for him after I bought my first car and man it was a great job for a 19 year old. Got paid 40 USD per visit and all we did was swap out parts and install drivers if needed. If there were any software issues we basically told them to run their restore or call into the help line if they did not want to do that. I made a lot of side money backing up people's data and restoring their systems for them.

Fast forward to today and he is 70 has been a bachelor all his life and is now downsizing. I helped him clean out his office and all his closets and completely filled up my trunk and back seat with old parts from mid 90s to early 2000s. I spent a lot of time helping him out so he gave me the whole lot. Everything from 486 parts to Athlon XP/Pentium 4s. We could fill a garbage truck with all the modems he had alone. Included in the systems he gave me a fully built Water-cooled Athlon XP system with a Geforce 4 Ti4600 which I am working on rebuilding because it hasn't been powered up in years.

@BLockOUT

Regarding the cache chips, the rule is basically that if a chip is labeled with "Write-Back", then it's a fake. In fact, it doesn't even deserve to be called a chip. This kind of stuff was PCChips specialty in those years, and they did it with remarkable impunity. So keep that in mind if you look for cache chips.

Now, to the motherboards:

- As we discussed, the M919 needs the custom cache module if you want to have L2

- For the one with the TI DX4 (seems to be the M912 v1.7 model): it has socketed "cache", and as you mention it has the appropriate jumpers for configuring it as well as traces that actually connect to the rest of the motherboard. I'd say this one is very likely to work with L2 cache assuming you replace the fake chips with real ones. But check if the board actually works before buying anything else!

- The last one (with the DX2 inserted in the wrong orientation) also seems to be a M912 v.17. However, I think this one's a lost cause when it comes to L2 cache. You'd have to desolder the fake chips, solder new sockets, add actual cache, add the appropriate jumpers, and pray that PCChips didn't do anything else to prevent L2 cache from being used. And all this, assuming the board didn't blow up due to the wrong CPU orientation.

@Rhuwyn

Yes, that's the one! The auction pictures clearly show the cache module with the "M919" markings...

thank you guys for all the clarification, i really appreciate it because im learning about these motherboards. I got some questions regarding the setup of the pc chip motherboards and maybe some of you can help me out because i kind of dont understand some parts of the jumper settings.

Questions are if using the m912 motherboard, Keep in mind i got 3 cpus, from the photos:
Intel dx2
AMD DX2 66
Texas instruments DX4 100mhz

Question 1) There is a jumper setting to set the voltage of the CPU, 5v, 4v, and 3.3v. How do i know the voltage of each CPU i got?

Question 2) the cpu jumper setting has "NON-SL enhaced" and "SL-Enhaced". what is that? how do i find out if the cpus are SL or NON SL?

Question 3) for non-sl it says "intel/amd" DX DX2 : 5v, but then next to it says AMD DX2 : 3.3v, why 2 settings for amd dx2 ?

Question 4) there is no texas instruments dx4 100mhz on the manual, so i wont be able to use it on m912 ?

Yeah you only have 1 M919 and 2 M912. The M915 is different (it has PCI slots and VLB slots and it uses cache like the M912)

Question 1 : Usually, just go to "CPU world" and search for the CPU that you have. But you need to be precise some CPUs that are equivalent on the performance side might not be equivalent on the electric side. Also, CPUs running over 66MHz are often 3.3V CPUs
Question 3 : Some AM486 DX2 were designed for 5V whereas other were designed for 3.3V (it confirms what I said before)

For your other two questions, I really don't know, I hope somebody has the answer ^^

I could be wrong but I believe SL-Enhanced just means it's a 3.3 volt CPU rather then a 5 volt CPU. Your TI CPU I believe has a voltage of 3.45 listed on it so I'd try 3.3 and see if it posts.

Thanks! i will do that this weekend.

Regarding the PCChips boards with fake chips. Has any of you bought new chips and desoldered/soldered the new chips?

-Where did you buy replacement chips online that are not fake? (there is even a brand named write back)

-Besides changing the chips you need to flash a patched modified bios also?

would this work as a replacement?

ISSI
IS61C256AH-15N

P518671H6 9551