I would repair it; I enjoy fixing things.

Looks like there’s an unpopulated ISA slot. If there’s a variant of this board with ISA, I’d be tempted to add the slot and any required passive parts whilst doing the recap.

No AGP is a bit of a downer, but the onboard M64 will be good enough for a lot of games.

With an integrated TNT2 M62 and for example a Celeron 300A it can make a solid budget build. It also has an on-board Ensoniq AudioPCI, which has mixed reputation, but could be worse. If it can be modded to have an ISA slot that makes it better. Recapping is also a cheap repair and Slot-1 boards are starting to get pricy. I'd go for it.

No AGP is hardly an issue with a perfectly matched 3D chip onboard with its own RAM. This is a fine early Win98SE system on a board, it can do decent late DOS stuff too (better if you could populate the ISA slot for a good sound card). It reminds me of my beloved MS-6168; it has a V3-2000 onboard, but otherwise is very similar. One of my favorite old systems uses that 😀

ZX is a slightly crippled BX... it's got RAM limits that don't really matter for 98 era gaming. TNT2 onboard is pretty decent match. 300-366 mendocino or 566-700 cumine celly with the bus clocked to 100 will give you some cheap thrills.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-06-24, 21:20:

ZX is a slightly crippled BX... it's got RAM limits that don't really matter for 98 era gaming. TNT2 onboard is pretty decent match. 300-366 mendocino or 566-700 cumine celly with the bus clocked to 100 will give you some cheap thrills.

No guarantees this will run CuMine - but a P3-550 Katmai would be a great match for the rest.

I've been able to download last bios update, and the card seems to support coefs up to 8...
Ordered some Caps, will have some work soon 😀
I recently received some new-old Slot1/S370 adapters, maybe a good opportunity to test them 😆

Thanks for advices guys !

Edit : I also ordered an ISA port, less than 3$, I'll give a try but I doubt it will work. I searched but not been able to find any version of this motherboard with an ISA port.

This looks like a nice little board 😊
It's basically a 440BX but with a more limited memory expansion options, though as already been mentioned 256MB is still more than enough for 9x so this 'limitation' is really quite insignificant. The onboard graphics chip (which comes with its own memory) is a feature that was often seen on boards during the pre-i815 era (1997 1998) and the TNT2 M64 is a really useful one, especially if you mate this board with a CPU predating Coppermine.
I can't read what sound chip it has, except for the word "creative".

Looks like you already made your choice but if only for the record, another +1 for keeping this board!

Chances for a working ISA slot are quite good here, the southbridge has a PCI-ISA bridge integrated, there won´t be many components to add - if any.

If BIOS disables the PCI-ISA bridge (so it doesn´t show up in the device manager) it will be hard to find an alternative BIOS since you need onboard video and sound support.
You could install some OS like XP or run some live Linux distro from CD and run "lspci" first to check if the bridge is active before soldering the ISA socket.

majestyk wrote on 2022-06-25, 05:37:

Chances for a working ISA slot are quite good here, the southbridge has a PCI-ISA bridge integrated, there won´t be many components to add - if any.

If BIOS disables the PCI-ISA bridge (so it doesn´t show up in the device manager) it will be hard to find an alternative BIOS since you need onboard video and sound support.
You could install some OS like XP or run some live Linux distro from CD and run "lspci" first to check if the bridge is active before soldering the ISA socket.

I wasn't aware that we can check if the PCI-ISA Bridge is active with lspci 😆
Very good idea indeed ! I'm retrieving an old knoppix and I'll try this soon.

NyLan wrote on 2022-06-24, 19:40:

Got this mobo, some caps need replacement. But I'm not sure it's worth fixing it. No AGP, No ISA, ... […]
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Got this mobo, some caps need replacement.
But I'm not sure it's worth fixing it. No AGP, No ISA, ...

What do you think ?
MSI MS-6190 Ver1 Medion 9901 Mainboard, Intel 440ZX Chipset... with Integrated TNT2 M64

IMG_20220624_212723.jpg

with fastest supported ram ( if available) that'd make a good w98se build especially with pentium power and that gpu built in. I have a system board without gpu agp/pcie but it only has intel integrated still love running 98se on it with pentium 4. There are late PCI gpu's with 256 to 512mb ram I am after them for HDMI in PCI slot.

It's got onboard Creative sound card. I would verify if there is a DOS driver for it. TNT2 M64 has dedicated memory so it won't be that bad. Good enough for PIII 550 Katmai. Fix the caps, then sell it.

A nice little board - have one myself and definitely a fixer upper. My original caps are fine (for now!)

Seems closest to an OEM version of the MS-6166 (has ISA) - https://www.ultimateretro.net/en/motherboards/7904

Will happily boot and run stable with Coppermines to at least 1GHz and supports 512MB of PC100 / PC133.

@Tetrium, chip on mine is an Ensoniq ES1373

NyLan wrote on 2022-06-25, 07:44:

majestyk wrote on 2022-06-25, 05:37:

Chances for a working ISA slot are quite good here, the southbridge has a PCI-ISA bridge integrated, there won´t be many components to add - if any.

If BIOS disables the PCI-ISA bridge (so it doesn´t show up in the device manager) it will be hard to find an alternative BIOS since you need onboard video and sound support.
You could install some OS like XP or run some live Linux distro from CD and run "lspci" first to check if the bridge is active before soldering the ISA socket.

I wasn't aware that we can check if the PCI-ISA Bridge is active with lspci 😆
Very good idea indeed ! I'm retrieving an old knoppix and I'll try this soon.

I'd strongly expect it would be - take a look here:

Pretty much all the legacy I/O on the PIIXE4 (82371EB) runs off the ISA bus, including BIOS itself. No ISA = no boot anyway on a BX or ZX or similar.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2022-06-25, 08:33:

A nice little board - have one myself and definitely a fixer upper. My original caps are fine (for now!) […]
Show full quote

A nice little board - have one myself and definitely a fixer upper. My original caps are fine (for now!)

Seems closest to an OEM version of the MS-6166 (has ISA) - https://www.ultimateretro.net/en/motherboards/7904

Will happily boot and run stable with Coppermines to at least 1GHz and supports 512MB of PC100 / PC133.

@Tetrium, chip on mine is an Ensoniq ES1373

Yes it's a ES1373. Looks like the MS-6166 is the same + ISA. However, can't find any picture of the real product so far.

I’ve got an MS-6166 with ISA. The only difference looks to be ATI Rage 128 vs TNT2 M64.

Edit: A few quick photos here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/TjhRd7vJ5JyPicpSA

paradigital wrote on 2022-06-25, 15:02:

I’ve got an MS-6166 with ISA. The only difference looks to be ATI Rage 128 vs TNT2 M64.

Edit: A few quick photos here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/TjhRd7vJ5JyPicpSA

Thanks for the pictures ! ( looks like you need to do some recap as well 👀 😆 )

From your picture what is missing near ISA slot on mine

And near CPU :

soldering caps is ok, SMD can be tricky at some point

I don´t think the transistor in lhe last picture between CPU slot and RAM slot is related to the ISA slot. It´s probably "Q15" on your Medion board.

Most likely yes !