Wait, is it Hewlett Packard, or Packard Bell? That confusion is intentional. PB bought the rights to a 1930s radio company. They had about a 10 year run and, at least in the US, had a dramatic, quick downfall from the biggest retail PC maker to almost disappeared, right around the same time as the move to ATX motherboards. I think they technically lived on for a while under NEC.

If it's indeed PB, those boards actually do have a good amount of docs, although the PB450 which is later than this one and doesn't use a NiCd battery, seems to have more of a following.

That board has at least 2MB of RAM onboard, perhaps 4 but we can't see since it's cut off. Can you count the KM44C256BJ-8 chips. There may have never been any SIMMs in this system. If you do want to upgrade it, you need a matching set of four 30-pin SIMMs, either 4MB or 16MB each. This board may not support 16MB SIMMs. There may be a jumper needed to disable the onboard RAM, too. In any case, the onboard RAM means you can make sure it's working before buying more, so long as the jumper is set to keep it enabled.

That is indeed the battery and you can see that blue corrosion from it.

Do you have the riser card for expansion slots?
Upgrading the video card may not be worthwhile, if the onboard video is VLB and only ISA slots are available.

Did you see this? http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/pb/mb/400.htm

jakethompson1 wrote on 2021-09-03, 21:04:

Did you see this? http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/pb/mb/400.htm

This is immensely helpful and answers a ton of questions I had about this computer. Looks like I will be able to run everything shy DOOM with 6mb of RAM.

jakethompson1 wrote on 2021-09-03, 21:01:

Wait, is it Hewlett Packard, or Packard Bell? That confusion is intentional. PB bought the rights to a 1930s radio company. They […]
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Wait, is it Hewlett Packard, or Packard Bell? That confusion is intentional. PB bought the rights to a 1930s radio company. They had about a 10 year run and, at least in the US, had a dramatic, quick downfall from the biggest retail PC maker to almost disappeared, right around the same time as the move to ATX motherboards. I think they technically lived on for a while under NEC.

If it's indeed PB, those boards actually do have a good amount of docs, although the PB450 which is later than this one and doesn't use a NiCd battery, seems to have more of a following.

That board has at least 2MB of RAM onboard, perhaps 4 but we can't see since it's cut off. Can you count the KM44C256BJ-8 chips. There may have never been any SIMMs in this system. If you do want to upgrade it, you need a matching set of four 30-pin SIMMs, either 4MB or 16MB each. This board may not support 16MB SIMMs. There may be a jumper needed to disable the onboard RAM, too. In any case, the onboard RAM means you can make sure it's working before buying more, so long as the jumper is set to keep it enabled.

That is indeed the battery and you can see that blue corrosion from it.

Do you have the riser card for expansion slots?
Upgrading the video card may not be worthwhile, if the onboard video is VLB and only ISA slots are available.

It is a Packard Bell. It indeed has the riser card for expansion. It looks like it will support up to 6mb with the OPTi 82C495 System Controller. I already have a SoundBlaster Pro card I bought awhile ago, and from what I've read the Tseng ET4000 W32 VGA card I just bought should work well with an early 486. The Question now is if I want to upgrade the CPU.

Lord Cervos wrote on 2021-09-03, 21:35:

It is a Packard Bell. It indeed has the riser card for expansion. It looks like it will support up to 6mb with the OPTi 82C495 System Controller. I already have a SoundBlaster Pro card I bought awhile ago, and from what I've read the Tseng ET4000 W32 VGA card I just bought should work well with an early 486. The Question now is if I want to upgrade the CPU.

Oh, that makes sense. There was conflicting information about whether this only came with the Oak VGA (slow) or a CL-GD5424 (a decent ISA card I think).
Indeed I never had a 20 MHz 486, slowest was 25 MHz. That should be able to take a 486DX-33 or 486DX2-66 easily. For anything faster you will deal with voltage converter shenanigans and the board not being able to take advantage of the newer chip's features like write-back L1 cache.

Yep, Varta the motherboard killer - looks like its started, neutralize the gunk with white vinegar