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Goldstar 286

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First post, by Wile E. Coyote

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Hi,

I need some help identifying this board I got about a year ago. It's been my on-and-off project to find a case for it, but so far no luck. It has a somewhat strange form factor; it obviously is supposed to fit into some kind of desktop case, instead of the normal ISA slots it came with a riser card that has three slots, but when I plug in cards they don't line up with the edge of the mainboard.

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2020-01-24_09-41-31_Goldstar286-IsaCardsDontLineUp.jpg
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At first I thought it might fit into something like a PS/2 case, but the connectors on the back are arranged differently. Maybe it's supposed to go into some kind of industrial application thingy, I don't know; that would explain the high degree of integration for a 286 mainboard: Floppy and IDE controller as well as serial, parallel, PS2 keyboard and PS2 "aux" (mouse) connnector are on board, as is a VGA chip (WD90C10-LR). The chipset is a Chips and Technologies 82C235. It came with a 12 Mhz 80286.

The only kind of identification I could find on the board is "Goldstar GSEP-2302" printed above the four RAM slots. Searching for that only brings up non PC parts.

The thing works quite well but has some strange quirks: To get the floppy drives to work I had to plug in the cable with the middle connector and the drives at either end of the cable. I've never seen something like that before... And sometimes the keyboard input randomly freezes, like someone pulled the plug. Maybe some old capacitors need to be replaced or it doesn't like the fact that without a case the whole thing isn't grounded correctly, who knows.

TL;DR: Does anyone have a clue as to where this thing might have come from and what kind of case would fit?

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Reply 2 of 4, by CharlieFoxtrot

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Many ”brand” computers have non standard MBs, which won’t fit in regular AT case, but only the case it was designed for. For example, I have several such desktops from HP, Compaq, IBM and Tulip. There is nothing surprising in this and there is a high level of integration because it is relatively late computer for 286 and high level of integration was common with big clone manufacturers at least by the early 90s. Although my brand computers are 386, 486 and pentium flavour, graphics, IDE and floppy controllers are all built in those and every available expansion slot is free from the factory. And every single one of those computers have riser boards, because smaller cases were apparently a hot thing in desktops by that time. All also have PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports (not that surprising for IBM, of course). And none of the boards will fit to a standard AT case, at least without some creative dremeling and installing custom MB stands. Some boards may have custom PSU connectors too, so using standard AT PSU out of the box may not work without modifications.

Previous poster seems to have identified the computer this board is from.

Reply 4 of 4, by CharlieFoxtrot

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Predator99 wrote on 2023-03-17, 09:45:

Probably can be called that. AFAIK LPX never was that tight specification and dimensions, port locations and such could vary between different MBs, size and shape of the board aswell. LPX were most commonly used by large clone manufacturers and MBs may only fit correctly to the specific case they were designed for.