You've got no L2 cache on there. The performance must really suck.

What is the BIOS string that shows at the bottom of the screen at POST?

Yes need the BIOS string. Also a better "looking straight down" on the motherboard picture might help, angular pictures never help us much...

Looks like this one : https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/protech-pm486pa-vip

Allthough not all the jumpers seem to match, it may be a different revision.

haxpanel wrote on 2023-05-17, 22:44:

A photo is attached about the MB.

• Take MORE photos, not just one. Sometimes the make and model would be printed on the bottom side.
• For the photo with the entire PCB, take the photo from the perpendicular angle (like this).
• Please remove that VLB disk controller card before taking photos for the motherboard.
• The relative layouts of CPU socket, chipset, BIOS, super I/O, AT power socket, jumpers, cache sockets, etc., provide more info than just chip models alone.
• Use 24-bit (16,777,216 colors) JPEG instead of 8-bit (256 colors) PNG. Many details have been lost due to too few colors.

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-05-18, 00:25:

You've got no L2 cache on there. The performance must really suck.

What is the BIOS string that shows at the bottom of the screen at POST?

🙁

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-05-18, 00:25:

You've got no L2 cache on there. The performance must really suck.

What is the BIOS string that shows at the bottom of the screen at POST?

thanks for the reply !

I've taken more photos, please have a look.
The L2 cache was removed due to some instability, for some reason the system took too much time after checking the memory, complaining about drive A. Once those panels got removed the issue seemed to gone.

dormcat wrote on 2023-05-18, 09:33:

[…]
Show full quote

haxpanel wrote on 2023-05-17, 22:44:

A photo is attached about the MB.

• Take MORE photos, not just one. Sometimes the make and model would be printed on the bottom side.
• For the photo with the entire PCB, take the photo from the perpendicular angle (like this).
• Please remove that VLB disk controller card before taking photos for the motherboard.
• The relative layouts of CPU socket, chipset, BIOS, super I/O, AT power socket, jumpers, cache sockets, etc., provide more info than just chip models alone.
• Use 24-bit (16,777,216 colors) JPEG instead of 8-bit (256 colors) PNG. Many details have been lost due to too few colors.

Many thanks for the instructions!
I've converted the files and re-uploaded, hope the format is better now.
Checked the bottom of the board: nothing's there.

Horun wrote on 2023-05-18, 02:14:

Yes need the BIOS string. Also a better "looking straight down" on the motherboard picture might help, angular pictures never help us much...

Thank you for the answer!
Just posted some photos, one showing the boot screen - is that where the BIOS string is ?

weedeewee wrote on 2023-05-18, 05:30:

Looks like this one : https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/protech-pm486pa-vip

Allthough not all the jumpers seem to match, it may be a different revision.

Wow thanks, that may be the one ! Looks very similar except few differences I noticed:
- cache banks are different order: 0, 1 vs 1, 0
- CPU jumpers next to ISA bus on the motherboard are JG12 JG14 JG15 as opposed to the schematic JG6 JG7 JG8

Could be a different revision?

Also, how to configure the CPU to run at 133 MHz ? Why 75 at the moment ? I saw that these AMD processors need to be jumpered to 2x to reach max multiplier.

It is configured to 50M according to the FREQ matrix. Noticed, that the jumpers are the same for 25M and 50M.

Cache chips in bank 0 are inserted wrong, I think.

haxpanel wrote on 2023-05-18, 22:32:

Just posted some photos, one showing the boot screen - is that where the BIOS string is ?

Afraid not. The BIOS string usually can be found at the bottom of POST screen:

Asus TXP4 with Award BIOS. The BIOS date, chipset (430TX), and model can be found at the bottom.

Asus K8V-MX with AMI BIOS. The string at bottom has limited info other than "ATHLON64" and "Y2KC" (Year 2000 Certified) but "ASUS K8V-MX ACPI BIOS Revision 0211" as well as CPU model are clearly visible at the upper part.

The string might only appear a few seconds; if your smartphone / camera can't focus and capture that moment fast enough (especially if yours is an older model), use the video recording function.

Being a Phoenix BIOS you probably will not get a good ID string but a version and date might be listed, if it a Micro Firmware BIOS then possibly a motherboard model. It could be in the BIOS at top of the first page if not on the screen...
Phoenix bios are notorious for "lack of info" like MR BIOS.....

Horun wrote on 2023-05-19, 01:12:

Being a Phoenix BIOS you probably will not get a good ID string but a version and date might be listed, if it a Micro Firmware BIOS then possibly a motherboard model. It could be in the BIOS at top of the first page if not on the screen...
Phoenix bios are notorious for "lack of info" like MR BIOS.....

Just double checked it and no string shows up during boot neither in BIOS.

You have a weirdo ALi 1429 386/486 hybrid chipset which is natively ISA/VLB. The PCI has been tacked on with a bridge chip.
Where did you get those cache modules? Are those original?

BTW, your warranty has been voided.

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2023-05-19, 07:10:

BTW, your warranty has been voided.

For a motherboard ~30 years old, that's pretty much expected. 😉