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Jetway J-542B BIOS/POST screen weird corruption

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First post, by c0burn

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I have this board, Super Socket 7, Jetway J-542B, that behaves weirdly on the POST/BIOS screen.
The top half of the display is always corrupted. Other than that it seems to post. I've swapped out PSU, RAM and tried graphics cards in AGP, PCI and ISA but issue always remains. I've also tried using a CRT instead of a flat screen.
I've tried flashing multiple BIOS versions including using my programmer as well as using awdflash. I've even tried a new BIOS chip.
Wtf is going on? Dodgy caps (visibly they look great)? Any other suggestions?

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Reply 1 of 5, by Horun

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How does it look when you enter the BIOS? How does it look when booting from DOS floppy (I see a floppy disk error, why ? What CPU and are you overclocking ?

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

Reply 2 of 5, by PC Hoarder Patrol

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Could this be an early board with a BIOS that's not compatible with later updates (looks from your POST string that you may be on D06)

https://www.wimsbios.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=1178

this seems to be the warning referred to

https://web.archive.org/web/20010805223332fw_ … load/update.htm

I can find downloadable Jetway BIOSes from C021 & D01 thru D06, but there's also a (missing) B06 listed on the J-Mark site

https://web.archive.org/web/19990224063828/ht … com:80/bios.htm

Reply 3 of 5, by c0burn

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Horun wrote on 2021-02-02, 03:23:

How does it look when you enter the BIOS? How does it look when booting from DOS floppy (I see a floppy disk error, why ? What CPU and are you overclocking ?

Fine, as is the secondary BIOS summary screen. I can boot into DOS. It's a K6-2 500, no O/C, I've tried other CPU's too.

The floppy error was because I had cleared CMOS and unplugged everything apart from Video, CPU and RAM.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2021-02-02, 05:24:
Could this be an early board with a BIOS that's not compatible with later updates (looks from your POST string that you may be o […]
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Could this be an early board with a BIOS that's not compatible with later updates (looks from your POST string that you may be on D06)

https://www.wimsbios.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=1178

this seems to be the warning referred to

https://web.archive.org/web/20010805223332fw_ … load/update.htm

I can find downloadable Jetway BIOSes from C021 & D01 thru D06, but there's also a (missing) B06 listed on the J-Mark site

https://web.archive.org/web/19990224063828/ht … com:80/bios.htm

I've tried D05, D06 and also D06J (the modified one from http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/k6plus.htm

The chip in both the original board and my replacement is an ATMEL AT29C010A

Reply 4 of 5, by c0burn

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So I fixed it.. Turns out although the board is marked as a J-542B, when you examine the silkscreen further and the manuals for both the J-542A and J-542B it is clear this board is actually a J-542A! Flashing the A BIOS resolved the corrupted screen. bizzare but probably typical of boards of the era to be inconsistent and poorly documented.

The "A" BIOS can be found here when using wayback machine: http://www.j-mark.com/files/542ac021.bin

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