Concerning the battery holder I think it's stock. This socket is often used in Packard Bell mobos. It also says "+ side up" on the silkscreen implying a user replacable battery.

Packard Bell systems in EU and US had very different part numbers and sometimes different parts too.

Good news is that the sticker has the F/N Format Number: QWBXD.

Checking that here shows that is is either a Multimedia Executive 902, 905 or 923d.

Unfortunately that relates primarily to software preload and still means it's three different motherboards and two different sound cards. It does narrow down the search a bit.

The sound card is easy: you can make out the FCC-ID I38-MMSN837 on it and the "SRS" is clearly visible, so this is a "Sound 16 SRS". If you don't want the original PB software (back in the day everyone wanted to get rid of it, these days people are actually nostalgic for it...) the chip under the sticker is an Aztech AZT2316A, which is a 3rd gen Aztech - just about the ideal SBPRo2 compatible chip, with good hardware compatibility, no significant bugs, a real OPL3 (visible on pic) and bug-free MIDI, plus WSS for 16b sound.

As for the motherboard, the third pic offers the needed clue: that fourth SIMM with reversed orientation. That's pretty unusual and of the three motherboards with QWBXD only the PB650 'Hillary' matches. That's an Intel OEM So5 board with i430NX chipset and Cirrus Logic GD543x onboard. And yes, the coin cell holder is original.

That positively identifies the system as a Multimedia Executive 905/2 system.

Wow! Thank you very much, it all sounds great to me.

As for the battery: is it therefore a common CR2032?

The price (50 euros) was all in all right I think.

Scandy wrote on 2021-06-03, 12:05:

Wow! Thank you very much, it all sounds great to me.

As for the battery: is it therefore a common CR2032?

The price (50 euros) was all in all right I think.

Not bad alright for a working system and the prices of the era system are still just going up at the moment.

Scandy wrote on 2021-06-03, 12:05:

Wow! Thank you very much, it all sounds great to me.

As for the battery: is it therefore a common CR2032?

The price (50 euros) was all in all right I think.

Definitely some kind of CR20xx 3V Lithium cell, probably plain CR2032.

EUR 50 is great for one of these in working condition.Those old 'frog' systems are getting pretty rare and this looks good internally and externally. Just those sound cards can go for EUR 20 locally and twice that on famous auction sites.

This is a very nice late DOS system. It was shipped with Win95, but IMHO it's too slow to properly pull that off, and there's not much upgrade potential in there (without modifications P133 (2x multiplier) is max, but you can jumper BF1 to get up to P200 non-MMX, or if you are lucky/rich you can add an MMX overdrive for a little extra boost)

Thank you so much.

I have yet another retro-pc, a Pentium II MMX 400 mhz with a 3DFx Banshee and a Sound Blaster AWE64, so I'll probably leave this Packard Bell with the P75 processor for older DOS games.
But I have a "spare" ESS1868F sound card and a S3 Trio 64V+ GPU , maybe it's worth to add these cards to the system? (It's shipped with MS-DOS 6.22 BTW.)
May I ask if a PDF manual is available somewhere?

Thanks!

Scandy wrote on 2021-06-05, 15:31:

Thank you so much.

I have yet another retro-pc, a Pentium II MMX 400 mhz with a 3DFx Banshee and a Sound Blaster AWE64, so I'll probably leave this Packard Bell with the P75 processor for older DOS games.
But I have a "spare" ESS1868F sound card and a S3 Trio 64V+ GPU , maybe it's worth to add these cards to the system? (It's shipped with MS-DOS 6.22 BTW.)

Hardly. The ESS1868F has similar basic specs to the MMSN837, but it's PnP (always a headache under DOS), doesn't have a real OPL3 (even if ESFM isn't bad), and iirc there were issues with WSS support. So unless you're hitting any specific compatibility issue, I'd suggest the MMSN837 with AZT2316A is the better choice.

As for the S3 Trio64 - under DOS all that really matters for performance is how fast you can fill the frame buffer, so unless a chip/card is awful, all chips on same bus will perform very similarly. CL-GD543x isn't awful, so performance will not be significantly better for the S3 Trio64. What might matter is DOS SVGA performance. S3's later chips are pretty much considered the benchmark when it comes to good VESA support, but CL is very close behind. Unless you have a PowerVR PCX accelerator, you won't notice any difference between the two, and with the latter the difference is only visible in Tomb Raider, and S3 Trio also misbehaves, just not as badly. I'd save the Trio64 for another system, it doesn't have any added value here.

Note that cheap S3 cards are notorious for bad image quality, so it's entirely possible whatever performance you get would look worse.

Edit:
Looked for benchmarks and of course a Vogon compared CL-5430 with Trio64V+. Guess what: they're the slowest two chips in his roundup when paired with a 100MHz CPU (although there are definitely slower chips out there!) but the difference is hardly shocking.
Re: 10-Way PCI Graphics Roundup - DOS

If your system has a GD5434 instead of a GD5430, it will probably be faster. Either way, if you want to replace it, a Trio64V+ is not the way to go.

May I ask if a PDF manual is available somewhere?

Of the motherboard?

Is HTML good enough?
http://uktsupport.co.uk/pb/mb/570.htm

This is clearly an Intel OEM board, but I've not been able to positively identify its Intel name yet.

Hi! The Packard Bell is here!
It definitely suffered on the journey...

Initially it didn't POST, but after I gradually disassembled and reassembled everything, I was able to get everything working correctly, even the CMOS battery with a new CR2032.

I still have a couple of questions:
- I'd like to expand RAM (it actually has 4Mb) what kind it's suitable and what's the "best" size for DOS and Windows 3.1?

- I'd like to get an easy way to transfer "big"folders and files, but I'd like to keep also the original HDD with OS, drivers etc. I have got yet a SD card to IDE adapter, may I connect it as a "slave" on the same HDD channel?

- It is worth to expand the Cirrus Logic GPU onboard memory?

Thanks!!!

Scandy wrote on 2021-06-12, 11:30:

Hi! The Packard Bell is here! It definitely suffered on the journey... […]
Show full quote

Hi! The Packard Bell is here!
It definitely suffered on the journey...

Argh... did the seller package it decently? If not, I'd have a bone to pick with him...

Initially it didn't POST, but after I gradually disassembled and reassembled everything, I was able to get everything working correctly, even the CMOS battery with a new CR2032.

Phew 😀

I still have a couple of questions:
- I'd like to expand RAM (it actually has 4Mb) what kind it's suitable and what's the "best" size for DOS and Windows 3.1?

Are you sure it only has 4MB? 1MB 72p SIMMs are almost unheard of, and these systems were originally shipped with at least 8MB. I'm not totally sure, but the seller's pic with closeup of the SIMMs seems to show 16Mb chips, which with 8 chips on a SIMM would work out at 16MB per SIMM. So two of those would make at least 32MB. Assuming the other two are the original 8MB, I'd think this would have 40MB, not 4 😮

If it really does detect 4MB, something's very wrong with your RAM. I'd suggest removing all four SIMMs, cleaning the contacts with a rubber, and then testing them two-by-two in the first two slots. If they don't work, read the chip code from the SIMMs and post them here.

As for how much you need for DOS and Win3.1: 16MB should be fine, as would 32MB. Anything over that and you risk DOS programs not detecting it correctly and giving errors.

Incidentally, this board has the ancient and glacially slow i430NX chipset, which means two things:
1) it doesn't like EDO memory. You need FP SIMMs for it. Possibly that's the problem (EDO not FP)
2) unlike all but one later chipsets, i430NX supports lots of RAM (256MB) and can cache it all. Not that that makes any sense at all with DOS or Win3.1, but it can 😉

- I'd like to get an easy way to transfer "big"folders and files, but I'd like to keep also the original HDD with OS, drivers etc. I have got yet a SD card to IDE adapter, may I connect it as a "slave" on the same HDD channel?

SD? Consider that the BIOS of this old beast can probably only manage 2GB HDDs. How big are those SD cards? Using CF cards makes a lot more sense with a system this old. But it's still messy. Much better idea: hook it up to your LAN with a network card. Using mTCP you can get connectivity in DOS, including FTP, which is perfect for moving big stuff around. PCI cards offer theoretically better performance, but can be a pain in DOS. For compatibility and ease-of-use I can thoroughly recommend the ubiquitous 3Com 3C509B or C cards.

- It is worth to expand the Cirrus Logic GPU onboard memory?

For DOS: nope. There's basically no sw out there that uses modes unattainable with 1MB.
For Win3.1: yes. 1MB gives you 800x600@16bit colour or (ugly) 1024x768@8bit colour. 2MB gives you 800x600@24b colour or 1024x768@16b (which would be my suggestion with Win3.1).

Hi and thanks again for your help!!!

You were absolutely right: RAM is 40 MB, shame on me! 😁 😁
Should I set 32 MB for better compatibility?

Meanwhile I was able to setup the SD to IDE conveter on the second IDE channel as Master, and the CD-ROM as slave. After playing with FDISK now I have:
- A: floppy
- C: original HD (1.2 Gb)
- D, E, F, G: 2GB (each) partitions of my SD card
- H: CD-ROM

But I will install also the network card as you suggested.

Now it's time to clean! And here there are new questions... 😁

- how can I remove the front panel?

- about the top cover: may I detach the internal metal plate? I removed yet one of the wavy gray bands by simply sliding it, but the one on the other side seems requiring a different move. It is so?

Thank you so much!

I can't answer your questions about the case but you can leave the 40MB of ram there's no difference in comparability between 32 and 40.

Scandy wrote on 2021-06-13, 19:36:

Hi and thanks again for your help!!!

You were absolutely right: RAM is 40 MB, shame on me! 😁 😁
Should I set 32 MB for better compatibility?

Only if you encounter issues with games detecting insufficient XMS memory.

Meanwhile I was able to setup the SD to IDE conveter on the second IDE channel as Master, and the CD-ROM as slave. After playing […]
Show full quote

Meanwhile I was able to setup the SD to IDE conveter on the second IDE channel as Master, and the CD-ROM as slave. After playing with FDISK now I have:
- A: floppy
- C: original HD (1.2 Gb)
- D, E, F, G: 2GB (each) partitions of my SD card
- H: CD-ROM

How big is the SD card in total? 8GB? If more than that, be aware that you can sometimes make partitions that look good, but you can still lose data when HDDs store stuff somewhere the OS/BIOS can't reach.

But I will install also the network card as you suggested. […]
Show full quote

But I will install also the network card as you suggested.

Now it's time to clean! And here there are new questions... 😁

- how can I remove the front panel?

- about the top cover: may I detach the internal metal plate? I removed yet one of the wavy gray bands by simply sliding it, but the one on the other side seems requiring a different move. It is so?

Thank you so much!

I'm not the best person to ask that, I have two left hands and almost always manage to break this old plastic. Be particularly careful with the dark grey bits, they can get extremely brittle.

A (final?) update.
I disassembled and thoroughly cleaned the whole system, refined the MS-DOS configuration and replaced the faulty CD player with a working one from the same period. Everything is working perfectly now, thanks again for all your support.

On the one hand I am very satisfied, considering the initial conditions in which this system was, on the other I am a bit "sad" because I was able to ascertain how much, despite cleaning, the case is yellowed and full of cracks and deep scratches. So my dream of having a "pizza box" vintage pc that is easy to manage and in excellent condition is therefore shattered. 🙁

One last question: even if it sounds heretic, would it be possible to install the internal parts to a different case, or does the mainboard (connectors, etc.) have a proprietary form factor?
Or maybe is there a place where I can only buy the front and rear plastic panels, or an empty Packard Bell case in good conditions?

Thank you

LPX is semi-standard, with the motherboard size being common, but the riser bit being less clearly defined. I once encountered a retail LPX case. It did not fit my IBM LPX motherboard, or rather, it fit the board, but the slots at the back were about 6mm out vs where the riser needed them to be. PB used Intel OEM boards, so were as close to standard as you could get in LPX world, but that doesn't help you if you have a Compaq or IBM case that put the riser in a different spot.

Also the cheap ABS plastic its was made from had turned utterly brittle and basically disintegrated with use.

You're facing the same issue: that yellowing plastic is ABS, and chances are so is the grey stuff that might also be disintegrating. This is a fact of life with old computers (not just PCs: I have the same issues with my Sun SparcStation 20); you can retrobright the yellow, but that won't stop the rest going brittle or getting scratched. Of course the latter isn't inevitable, but you need to find an almost unused computer not to have scratches on it. And it will (even if it has never been used and always kept in the dark) suffer the same yellowing and brittleness regardless.