VOGONS


First post, by jesolo

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Does anyone perhaps recognise this motherboard?
It has UM82C481BF, UM82C482AF & UM82C206F chipsets and has FA386 Rev 1.0 printed on the board.
Looking to find some specifications and/or jumper settings for this motherboard.

Reply 1 of 10, by Ailicec

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What is printed on the BIOS chips (the two left of the SIMMS, one with a sticker on it with some writing)?

I see an oscillator at the bottom-left of the board - the shiny tin can. What number is printed on that? There's a good chance that it is twice the CPU's speed (ie if it says 66 mhz, then it needs a 33 mhz CPU).

You are lucky the infernal battery was removed or never installed (next to the keyboard connector). They ALWAYS leak and damage the board. It will lose its CMOS settings without some type of battery, but not a big deal unless you are going to use it often.

Reply 2 of 10, by BastlerMike

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A better photo would help. But I saw that type of bios label on different ECS boards.

Reply 3 of 10, by jesolo

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Here's a slightly better picture of the motherboard.

I noticed a sticker on the side of the first ISA slot which reads: FA386-33-128K

On the BIOS chip, it reads as follows:

(C) 1988 AMI-1131
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
S/NO.E-92218368
code.
FA 386-011

Reply 4 of 10, by jesolo

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Anyone have an idea?

Reply 5 of 10, by dogchainx

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I did a quick look through on Stason.org....the main identifier is six ISA slots with keyboard controller and BIOS chip between ISA slots and RAM.....

I didn't see a match, but doesn't mean its not there. Someone here back in 2004 was looking for the same motherboard: http://www.motherboards.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=39265

but he didn't found out on that thread, and he's only done 2 posts...and it was back on 2004.

Good luck!

386DX-40MHz-8MB-540MB+428MB+Speedstar64@2MB+SoundBlaster Pro+MT-32/MKII
486DX2-66Mhz-16MB-4.3GB+SpeedStar64 VLB DRAM 2MB+AWE32/SB16+SCB-55
MY BLOG RETRO PC BLOG: https://bitbyted.wordpress.com/

Reply 6 of 10, by jesolo

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Thanks.
Also saw that post and did a search on stason.org.
Thought I might get lucky on here 🤣 .

Reply 7 of 10, by dogchainx

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the only thing i found was this....

http://www.hp64000.net/scansioni/Pc_Engineers … eers_Vol2dl.pdf

Page 202 lists the jumpers for it.

386DX-40MHz-8MB-540MB+428MB+Speedstar64@2MB+SoundBlaster Pro+MT-32/MKII
486DX2-66Mhz-16MB-4.3GB+SpeedStar64 VLB DRAM 2MB+AWE32/SB16+SCB-55
MY BLOG RETRO PC BLOG: https://bitbyted.wordpress.com/

Reply 8 of 10, by jesolo

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Thank you for that. Will be helpful.

Reply 9 of 10, by Ailicec

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Good find in that PDF. So, its an ECS.
If you are lucky it will boot without any cache.
Its amazing how many boards that were made 25 or 30 years ago when the market was much smaller.

Reply 10 of 10, by jesolo

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Yes, I guess the PC clone market was at its peak back then.
It should be able to boot without the cache.
However, I have some cache.

How does one determine in which direction the cache RAM should be installed into the sockets?
Appears the tag RAM fits into the socket into the edge of the motherboard (next to the two jumpers).