Need help identifying motherboard

[Rich H]

Yep, that old question again.

I've just inherited a crappy old baby AT motherboard with a Celeron 366 installed in it (the old type - slot 1?).

It has 2 x ISA slots and 3 x PCI slots (0 x AGP), and appears to have onboard video. It contains the SiS5595 chipset. It also has AMIBIOS.

The motherboard shows no manufacturer, and I can't get the BIOS number because I can't boot it up. Motherboards.org is also drawing a blank.

Any ideas people? Thanks in advance to anyone who offers help.

Rich H

[This message has been edited by Rich H (edited 11-08-2000).]

[Peter M]

Identify further.

The SiS 5595 is just the south bridge chip. There are some more large chips on the board. If that's a slot-1 board, then there's either an SiS 5600 or 600 north bridge chip w/o graphics along with some separate graphics chip - or an SiS 620 north bridge with an integrated graphics unit inside it.

Also look for other stuff - is there onboard sound, what super IO chip does it have - just write down what's written on the larger chips (or on the heatsinks if there are any), and come back here for more help.

The most common one that matches what you said so far is the PC-Chips M747.

Regards, Peter

[This message has been edited by Peter Missel (edited 11-08-2000).]

[OPPAINTER]

There might be something on the bottom of the last ISA slot. You would have to turn the board Horizontal and look.

[Rich H]

PC-Chips M747 it is. No wonder you're an ultimate member!

Thanks for all you help!.

Rich H

[Peter M]

In case you now wonder WTF all those chips on that board are ...

You have the SiS 600+5595 chipset there, an SiS 6326 AGP graphics unit, and a C-Media 8330 ISA sound chip.

Drivers from www.sis.com.tw (http://www.sis.com.tw) (IDE, AGP, VGA) and www.cmedia.com.tw (http://www.cmedia.com.tw) (sound).

BIOS from www.pcchips.com.tw/BIOS (http://www.pcchips.com.tw/BIOS) - mind you, the M747 has been around for a very long time, there have been major revisions, and they all need their own BIOS. Read the vX.X revision number of yours from near the keyboard connector before downloading a BIOS update.

Regards, Peter

[Peter M]

Oh, and the most common mistakes made when assembling these are:

- "CMOS Clear" jumper not in "Normal" position

- DIMM not seated properly. On those boards, you sometimes have to push ridiculously hard to seat the DIMMs into the sockets ... especially when the board is old.

Regards, Peter