VOGONS


First post, by renejr902

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( it's not the same than yesterday ) So, on this 486 motherboard, there's an Amikey-2 chip. One chip in socket award software giga-byte L4487111 1994-95. Two SIS chips. The larger one 85C471 9516 st sis 94' PFA0032, the smaller one 85C407 9442 pw edd142. 3 ISA 16-bit. 3 VLB. 4 SIMM memory. It's strange the bios chip has 28 pins and the bios socket has 32 pins. I cant find this motherboard and google ai too.
Thanks for help about the model

( i have problem with it too but for now i ask mostly help for the model, but you can read below the strange behavior, help with be appreciated, but i'm searching the modell to find the jumpers position )

( the motherboard has strange problem. look at this as a resume of my talking to google ai , a lot of copy paste... i tried all the day to get it working with a hdd and i have several hdd, with or without ontrack disk manager and without pc freeze: It's going badly. I even tried changing the GPU. Ontrack is installed, but it freezes at the end; the screen is black. But the hdd is still working with Ontrack. but I select and press the spacebar to insert a boot disk to transfer the system to C: because it doesn't have an OS but Either it freezes at startup of the pc after the memory ram count, or it freezes during the Ontrack instructions, or it reads the disk and a large green line appears on the screen with unreadable green characters at the top, graphical glitchs. I changed two other GPUs, and it still freezes. I changed my 4MB RAM stick for another one, and it still freezes. I even cleaned the same slot and cleaned everything.. I unplugged it for 30 minutes so it's going back to a new boot process and work better until next glitch or freeze.. It could be a misplaced jumper. We'll try to find the motherboard. The CPU jumpers are in the right place written on the board. i tried a lot of different simm 4mb, 8mb, 32mb, all works and dont change anything )

Reply 1 of 10, by renejr902

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it does not like to read 1.44mb that works perfect in my others pc .
they are boot disk dos 6.22 that i insert when ontrack ask to push spacebar and insert a boot disk.the pictures are the reads of the disks

Reply 2 of 10, by BitWrangler

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Typical causes are cache problems, in this instance maybe enabled on the board while chips absent, memory problems, since it is not changed by modules, something above 64kb (or POST should catch it) and below 4MB. (Otherwise 4MB might work fine) so one of the address lines either dirty in the simm sockets or a line scratched under the board or something.... ORRRRR the 14.318 reference oscillator has drifted off by a lot and floppy timing is screwed.... or timing to ISA bus FDC is disrupted.

Gonna see if I can dig out the board...

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 3 of 10, by renejr902

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BitWrangler wrote on Today, 03:17:

Typical causes are cache problems, in this instance maybe enabled on the board while chips absent, memory problems, since it is not changed by modules, something above 64kb (or POST should catch it) and below 4MB. (Otherwise 4MB might work fine) so one of the address lines either dirty in the simm sockets or a line scratched under the board or something.... ORRRRR the 14.318 reference oscillator has drifted off by a lot and floppy timing is screwed.... or timing to ISA bus FDC is disrupted.

Gonna see if I can dig out the board...

ok thanks a lot for this answer. I will try to put compatible cache if i have some over or from my other 486.

But most of time, the pc freeze after memory count.

i cleaned the simm 1 a lot

Reply 4 of 10, by BitWrangler

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I think we are looking at one of these...
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-v4s471-472p

Now is there still a cache RAM in the tag socket that's hiding under the drive cage/cables in your pics? Between VLB socket and CPU.

If there is, it might be bad or misconfigured. Some boards can work with a tag only.

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 5 of 10, by renejr902

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BitWrangler wrote on Today, 03:17:

Typical causes are cache problems, in this instance maybe enabled on the board while chips absent, memory problems, since it is not changed by modules, something above 64kb (or POST should catch it) and below 4MB. (Otherwise 4MB might work fine) so one of the address lines either dirty in the simm sockets or a line scratched under the board or something.... ORRRRR the 14.318 reference oscillator has drifted off by a lot and floppy timing is screwed.... or timing to ISA bus FDC is disrupted.

Gonna see if I can dig out the board...

it seems to be thos one exactly except the bios chip. maybe someone change the bios chip:

QDI
V4S471/472P

Reply 6 of 10, by BitWrangler

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Oh yeah, yours says Gigabyte on it, which kinda suggests it didn't come in a QDI. That might explain failures. So probably want to ensure it has the right BIOS in it before anything else. Before the system configuration screen comes up on boot, the prior POST screen, there's a string describing the BIOS at the bottom of the screen, should be same or similar to one of the ones under the BIOS tab on the retroweb page.

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 7 of 10, by renejr902

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BitWrangler wrote on Today, 03:37:

Oh yeah, yours says Gigabyte on it, which kinda suggests it didn't come in a QDI. That might explain failures. So probably want to ensure it has the right BIOS in it before anything else. Before the system configuration screen comes up on boot, the prior POST screen, there's a string describing the BIOS at the bottom of the screen, should be same or similar to one of the ones under the BIOS tab on the retroweb page.

see the string

edit: just froze after a: dir

Reply 8 of 10, by renejr902

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it doesnt seem similar enough. i have nothing to write the bios to a chip. hmm.

I will check the cpu type jumpers. A lot of jumpers make the cpu type. The board has no cpu in it when i received it

i check the manual and the bios option are pretty much the same. it's looks like 95%+ similar.

But i think the fact that i have no cache chip is a problem.

Reply 9 of 10, by renejr902

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I past the night on it. i removed the tag cache chip that was there. i removed all cache jumper. disabled every cache in bios. it loads faster. but same problem. i tried another multi i/o card, another floppy and ide cable, different floppy, same problem. i even prepare hdd with another computer , nothing still boot. and no possibility to read any files or them from floppy. boot disk never boot and maked strange caracters. 1 time on 20 it boots but froze and cant copy anything. i tried a 527mb hdd with 1023 16 63 and still does not work. and thid hdd was booting on another computer. I think I'm going to give up. i dont have cache for him. i dont have other bios rom. if you think the bios award chip is flashable with a program let me know. i dont want to buy stuff to flash it. Thanks if you have any idea

Reply 10 of 10, by renejr902

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BitWrangler wrote on Today, 03:28:
I think we are looking at one of these... https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-v4s471-472p […]
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I think we are looking at one of these...
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-v4s471-472p

Now is there still a cache RAM in the tag socket that's hiding under the drive cage/cables in your pics? Between VLB socket and CPU.

If there is, it might be bad or misconfigured. Some boards can work with a tag only.

it was done. read my last post. thanks