VOGONS


First post, by franss62

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Hi !
First time I write here but I've been reading topics here from a very long time now, and before I ask help, let me congratulate and thank you for your hardworking and your passion.
I found in a big package of PC and parts a couple of motherboards, one of them looks in a very good condition, no inflated capacitor, no "scar" on the PCB, no moist or oxydation, but, sadly, the CMOS chip is missing, as you'll see on the photo.
Sadly, as old and rare this motherboard is, I found nowhere I can buy any replacement chip, but I trust there may be a way to make one by myself with an equivalent chip I would program by myself.
I grabbed from a damaged motherboard the BIOS chip, It's a standard DIP32 chip, Winbond W29C020C, so here are my questions :
- Are CMOS chips standards ? That would mean even though this is not exactly the same chip as the original one, as long as it hase the right BIOS, the motherboard could start.
- Can anyone advise me a simple way to program it ? Any reference you can recommend to write on it the BIOS ? I found on theretroweb a .rom file with the original AMI BIOS
- Or, eventually, can anyone prepare a BIOS chip for me ? Of course, I'll buy it with the shipping costs etc.
- Anywhere I can order a programmed BIOS chip ?
Also I thought about going to universities, I live in Northern France and where I studied, there were a lot of equipements for electronics, such as XILINX Spartan boards, MICROCHIP, machines to prepare PCBs designed with Altium, they may hare EPROM programmers but for so old hardware, I'm doubtful...
Please if someone has a lantern to light my way đŸ„čđŸ„č

Reply 1 of 5, by CrustyCeleron

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Ideally you would find a compatible BIOS chip you know for sure. The most important part is knowing its voltage. If you can find the chip used on the original board or even generally for that model then we can tell for sure whether your replacement winbond is ok. Key thing is making sure at the very least whether the mobo is expecting a 5v or 3v chip. Chances are it is fine.

As for flashing. You can do this inexpensively if you have a network card handy with a dip32 socket and again, expecting same voltage for the chip. Trouble is finding one wired for the right size. 256KB romchip support is rare in network cards. Then again, you might get away with only being able to see 128KB of it given the ROMs for your board seem to be 128KB. Hopefully it maps to the right half (there is no harm in trying).

Failing this it is left to buying a programmer. If wanting to avoid that, I'm happy to send you a flashed chip from the UK for only costs, if you can't find someone with cheaper EU postage to send you one!

Reply 2 of 5, by CrustyCeleron

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Oh and another method is hotflashing using a donor working motherboard that works with similar chips, instead, should you have one!

Reply 3 of 5, by BitWrangler

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For correct BIOS info, we need to know the version number by the top left, as in your pic, screw hole near the keyboard connector.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 4 of 5, by Hoof

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The website The Retro Web has info and bioses for your series of motherboard, including pictures of the bios chip itself. However, you need the version number as Bitwrangler says. One you have that, you can look up the right page on that site and see if the bios chip matches what you have, as well as dumps of the bios.

Reply 5 of 5, by CrustyCeleron

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Putting bets on a v5 given the date on the SiS5595. With a small hedge on a v3.

Which would mean definately needing a 256K network card as a flasher (with 5v and not 12!), or hot flash donor mobo. But the good news is the winbond chip should be fine 😀.

Also while zooming frans - there is a capacitor above the memory which looks sus. Probably just a bit of rust. And some sort of fuzz on the left of the memory - maybe dust, maybe scratches.

We eagerly await confirmation of the version haha!