VOGONS

help identifying motherboard

Topic actions

First post, by ideasman69

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Hi guys,

I've scored a slot 1 motherboard but I'm having trouble identifying it. I'm trying to upgrade the bios so it detects a celeron CPU properly (currently detecting it as a pentium 2) - but it's been harder than i thought it'd be.

  • The motherboard itself doesn't have any brands or model numbers anywhere.
  • The boot screen:
    W9IbxnIl.jpg
  • The BIOS setup screen:
    oRxmzS2l.jpg
  • I've attached the current BIOS file from the motherboard with hopes I could find something but so far no luck!

The closest I've come is this page by searching the string from the bottom of the boot screen. The board layout is identical, jumpers and front panel headers too! When trying to find a BIOS for this particular model, I stumbled upon this page which seems to be an archive of Solteks website. The boot screen mentions i440LX but the actual northbridge has i440EX written on it. So seeing SL-61C listed under i440EX looks good - i tried to flash 61C-G2.BIN with awdflash.exe but it says that the boards ID doesn't match the BIOS.

Going off the 2A69JSNF string in the BIOS setup leads me to a Soltek SL- 66B. However, looking up this model shows a board that looks nothing like the one I have.

Just wondering if anyone could lend some advice? Or am I working with a clone which has no legit BIOS upgrade path?

Thanks in advance!

Reply 1 of 2, by fitzpatr

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

The BIOS String is actually "2A69JSNFC" which comes up as a Soltek SL-61B or SL-61C.

ftp://ftp.cstula.ru/firmware/motherboard/soltek/esupport.htm contains Rev G2 BIOS (You have Rev E), which includes support for Mendocino Celeron.

EDIT: Well, skimmed over a portion that I shouldn't have. Looks like you'd already tried this string.

Last edited by fitzpatr on 2018-09-10, 02:56. Edited 2 times in total.

MT-32 Old, CM-32L, CM-500, SC-55mkII, SC-88Pro, SC-D70, FB-01, MU2000EX
K6-III+/450/GA-5AX/G400 Max/Voodoo2 SLI/CT1750/MPU-401AT/Audigy 2ZS
486 Build

Reply 2 of 2, by ideasman69

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Well i answered my own question. As AWDFLASH didn't let me flash the SL-61C REV G2 bios, i tried UNIFLASH. Bad move - it failed to verify after wiping/flashing.

CRAP!

So found an old P16PRO programmer in the garage. Crap - doesn't work with the type of eeprom chip this board uses.

Found an SMC NIC in the garage that has a 32pin eeprom socket. I chucked the bios chip on it, threw it into a linux machine and ran flashrom. It saw the eeprom chip, so i flashed the backup.bin file i took earlier and BAM! it worked.

So now I had a way to safely flash the chip without leaving me with a dead board, i used the same method (linux + flashrom + NIC) to flash the SL-61C REV G2 bios. Perfect! Boots fine and detects the celeron without any issues.

I love this stuff 🤣

Go to top of page Go to top of page
Back to General Old Hardware
Close window
Close window