I recently got this socket 4 motherboard with a broken bios chip.
It's a Microstar/MSI MS-5103 ver:2, PCI-Pentium MC1, Intel 430LX chipset.
It does not post.
On the bios chip is written "Award Software Inc. 1994. ISA/PCI 586, S/N 013780301".
It's of type NM27C010Q. I tried reading another chip of the exact same type with success, so I have reason to believe the bios chip is broken.
I can't find this bios on the Internet. Can anyone help? If you have this motherboard, I can assist with doing a bios backup to file.
Or, what other bios could I try? Intel 430LX batman?
No luck from my part. Looks like the BIOS was never available on the web. I hope someone who has the board will be able to help you out with a dump of their BIOS.
Same chipset (430LX), also uses Award "586 PCI/ISA" BIOS core for Mercury Chipset, and the board has a somewhat similar layout without any integrated I/O like serial, parallel or drive controllers. I'd say there is a good chance it may work, and you can also use MODBIN to tweak settings if necessary.
I don't think the BIOS from Intel's Batman is going to work because of several reasons (Intel being Intel, BIOS may be intended for a different ROM size, specific checks to prevent it from running on non-Intel boards, etc. etc.).
Yep the Intel BIOS probably will not work. MSI also made the MS-5106 with Mercury chipset... https://www.ultimateretro.net/en/motherboards/3646
will dig around and see what pops up...the BIOS for some MSI were same for diff early board numbers (5118 & 5122, 5119 & 5120, etc)
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
The earliest archive.org capture of MSI BIOSes is this one -> https://web.archive.org/web/19970329193839/ht … w/bios/bios.htm. Maybe these MS-510x boards are older than their latest MS-44xx boards and the BIOSes of the former didn't make it to the WWW back then. So it seems there is and was no official place to get these BIOS images.
BTW I know (from an unofficial MSI supporter) that MSI deleted all the older stuff (pre MS-7xxx something) from there internal FTP - so you obviously will have no success by asking MSI directly, but you can give it a try.
BTW2 I would not interchange BIOSes of semi-same boards - there's almost always something which doesn't fit.
Good idea, doubt it is there but could be and have this info on many older MSI bios names: if starts with an A is an AMI bios, if starts with a W is an Award bios. That is all I know ;p
And good luck reading inside the AMI bios's with their weird compressions. That has been an issue for a long time 😀
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
Progress! It started out scary with a capacitor fire on the motherboard, but after removing that capacitor and disabling the L2-cache, somehow the bios chip now reads, and it boots to MS-DOS where I can execute commands.
Now, the first thing I did was to backup that bios to a file.
The bios identifier is
I had another look at this after you were able to start up the board...
1WM68 072594 207/21/94-MERCURY-ZB-2A59BM41-00
is what your MS-5103 BIOS says, the MS-5106 BIOS says
1WM72 080594 207/21/94-MERCURY-ZB-2A59BM41-00
As you can see, both board's BIOSes have the same BIOS ID (2A59BM41), so it is very likely that they share the same BIOS. The version (WMxy) is increasing with the date code. Unlike that, there is version "WM63" with BIOS ID "2A597000". Nevertheless I would give the latest "WMxy" version (by now WM72 from MS-5106) a try.
Good idea, doubt it is there but could be and have this info on many older MSI bios names: if starts with an A is an AMI bios, if starts with a W is an Award bios. That is all I know ;p
This only fits with later MSI boards starting from the mid to late 90s when MSI introduced the following scheme, used a regexp to be clear:
(A|E|W)XXXX(A|I|N|S|V)(MS|...) VY.Z.(0|1-W)? date
(A=AMI | E=AMI EFI | W=Award)
XXXX = model number
(A=AMD/ATI | I=Intel | N=nVidia | S=SiS | V=VIA)
(MS=MSI retail | ...=other alpha numeric, particularly for OEMs [like F1=Fujitus Siemens, LN=MEDION])
Y = board version related BIOS version
Z = final BIOS version
eventually followed by BIOS status -> 0 = final, (1-W) = beta version
date = MMDDYY
But... Be careful! This is not always appropriate. There are MSI boards (Yes, retail boards! With OEM boards it's even worse.), where you have to look on special things (like PLLs), if you want to get the right BIOS -> the MSI P35 Neo (MS-7360 VER:1.0) is an example.
Nevertheless I would give the latest "WMxy" version (by now WM72 from MS-5106) a try.
Please let us know, if you were successful!
Thanks, I'd love to try that other bios, but the bios chip fully stopped working. I need to replace it. It's a NM27C010Q (DIP32 1Mbit). I have no DIP32 eproms, so I'll have to get that first before the story continues.
I've only got W27C256B@DIP28.
EDIT: found one, see later post.
Last edited by perhenden on 2021-12-05, 21:45. Edited 1 time in total.
Could be a typo, but MSI don't appear to know WTF they are doing, since some boards are only referred to by number, some have a name and they keep the number on the downlow (hard to find) and then also they have V1.1, V2, V3, V6 of one model number as different named boards... not 100% sure which it was but have a dim memory of seeing them name a board after the chipset they were going to put on it, then changing design to another chipset but keeping the name. Fun and games.
Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.
Yes MSI did some odd things... have an OEM MSI board in a HP Gateway that has a MS # on the board but no you cannot find it any where on MSI websites, but can find it on Ebay 🤣
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
I'm kind of a specialist when it comes to these MSI things, course I got deeper into this while searching for BIOSes for my MSI and MSI OEM boards. At first they named their boards just with a number (the so-called "model name", f.e. MS-7360 VER:1.0) until ~2000, afterwards they introduced an additional so-called "marketing name" (f.e. P35 Neo). But that's no problem for identifying, for more information I would refer to my article -> soggi.org - MSI N1996 motherboard / video card / ODD.
The problem is that they f.e. use the exact same "model name" and "marketing name" for two different boards which need a different BIOS - f.e. soggi.org - MSI P35 Neo (MS-7360 VER:1.0) (difference is explained there) - and MSI has the wrong BIOS for the most P35 Neo owners on there page (V2.x) and the right BIOS (V1.x) just can be downloaded from the G33 Neo page (they share the same BIOS).
This is just one example, but MSI is not the only manufacturer with such confused product description and support. Before I came into this I was kind of pampered by ABIT products where you nearly have no problems like that. But ABIT was a David and MSI is a Goliath.
Yes MSI did some odd things... have an OEM MSI board in a HP Gateway that has a MS # on the board but no you cannot find it any where on MSI websites, but can find it on Ebay 🤣
But this isn't odd, quite the contrary it's legit! If you have a MSI OEM board, you have to go to the OEM manufacturer as MSI didn't sell these boards, graphics cards and so on to end users. MSI OEM boards can't be found on MSI's websites as their is no support and anything like that.
In the English MSI forums all threads concerning OEM products will be closed instantly, in the German MSI forums you may get support (sure, unofficial support from end users).
kind regards
soggi
Last edited by soggi on 2021-12-05, 22:04. Edited 3 times in total.
My guess for why there aren't any bios updates on the official page is the fact that the bios chip on MS-5108 and MS-5103 was EPROM, requiring special hardware to write.
