Help identifying old PC104 board

[Per Hansson]

Hi, does anyone know what this board is? (See pictures)
It hangs at POST saying "PRESS F1 FOR SETUP"
But when you do nothing happens, it does not respond to any keypress at all.
Except CTRL+ALT+DELETE which reboots it, then the message is gone but it still hangs...

It has a 4MB memory module and I notice in the POST it lists 3072KB extended memory, could that be it or might the memory be hidden by something else?

I initially though that the Dallas DS12887A RTC module might be bad due to the date seen in the POST message.
It still might be bad, but after dumping the BIOS (attached) I realized it was simply the date of the BIOS release...

[ReverendJones]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

In the BIOS, I see the phrase "F2 for setup program" at 0x01D425
Having 640KB base memory and 3072KB extended with a 4MB module looks ok.

edit: Some of the older 286/386/486 computers required a floppy disc with the BIOS setup program.

[brethin]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

More info would help but from what I can read it looks like a older cirrus logic motherboard that requires a setup floppy to change the bios (common in these old boards).

If you can provide a more clear picture of the post screen or list it out line by line as it is displayed I can get you more detailed info on the board.

Unless you have or someone has a specific need for this its worth more as scrap for the gold content.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

Thanks for the tip about the floppy, did not know that!

The picture of the POST is as good as it gets, the CRT monitor is simply that much worn & has allot of burn-in!
System comes from a Weinbrenner press brake with a Cybelec DNC control and as such is worth allot to it's customer
Unfortunately I'm in Lithuania now for moving a machine for two weeks.
So we had to send this board away for troubleshooting to another company, have not had a chance to look at it more...

CL-GD62x5 VGA BIOS Version 1.22B
Copyright 1991-1994 Cirrus Logic, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 1987-1990 Quadtel Corp. All Rights Reserved.
62X5 05/17/94

SurePath BIOS - (c) Copyright IBM Corporation 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996
All Rights Reserved.

BIOS ID:  IMD CobaltV 1.4-0.10    Date: 06/25/96
								  ----------
								  | PRESS |
								  | F1 FOR |
								  | SETUP |
								  ----------
486 AMD WT, 100MHz

00640 Kb Base Memory
03072 Kb Extended Memory

[stj]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

why not try to adapt the software for a newer board?
it's probably dos based anyway.

[kc8adu]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

replace the rtc first.
it could also be waiting for some device to come ready but it should time out.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

^^ What he said. Or if you have a dremel handy you can just dig thru the plastic and replace the internal battery.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

Yea, I had already bought the RTC chip but unfortunately I did not have an AT power supply to test the board with.
Before I had to leave for Lithuania.
But thanks for your input nevertheless

[stj]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

you should have got the board & psu & harddrive as a set!

[Per Hansson]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

stj: I took the whole board as it is, but the PSU is integrated into the machine, not easy to take out.
It connects via proprietary connectors at the back.
As it is I thought I had an AT PSU at home, that would have been much easier, but alas I was wrong and that's why I did not get any further with the system
For the curiosity of others I'll post some images taken when I was at the customers site...

ReverendJones & brethin, I took all floppies the customer had with me.
I have looked at them now but there is nothing that would be a setup disk for the BIOS.
But you very well might be right, I did not look if the system searched for a floppy when I pressed F1/F2/DEL for entering BIOS.
Did not even know that was normal back then, I always thought the BIOS was always integrated into the EEPROM, live and learn!

kc8adu: Yea I would have expected some timeout message aswell.
We will see what the external company finds, maybe I will get the board back in the same condition in two weeks

[mfishman93]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

interesting read.. thanks

[Per Hansson]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

The board is alive, all it wanted was a new RTC chip as I originally suspected.
The external company we contacted sent a brand new much faster AMD Geode PC104 replacement computer, with newer software aswell.
A much better solution of course but as bad luck had it the CF card it came with was bad so many files on the filesystem where corrupted...

So I decided to test the old board again, first I plugged it in without having changed anything, nothing, no picture at all on the CRT and no response on the keyboard.

Took it out and put the new RTC in, and then it booted right up!
I got the first BIOS screen below directly when it booted.
I went in simply to set the boot order properly & the system time, and took another picture of the "system info" page in the BIOS.

The RTC I used was a DS12887+ bought from Elfa, part number: 73-768-90
The plus at the end simply means it is complying with RoHS specifications.
The missing "A" at the end compared with the original simply means it lacks "Clear CMOS" functionality.
It does not matter so long as a BIOS password is not set & forgotten, or settings making the system unable to POST are used, since the settings can't be cleared...

[kc8adu]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

just what i figured.
looks like the crt is low on green .
i fix a lot of those too.
likely has a bazillion hours on it.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

Yea, it also has some really bad burn-in as can be seen in the first picture I posted above.
I increased the brightness slightly, because it was really dim.
But in this case the CRT monitor is not so important, it can just be chucked and replaced with an LCD
There is room inside the cabinet & the PC104 board has a standard VGA connector...

[thangzero]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

Hi,Per Hansson

I have a very old industrial computer. It belongs Robofil 290P machine. My issue is the HDD doesn't work anymore. The Hdd specification:

Toshiba MK1924FCV - hard drive - 543 MB - IDE
The interface: ATA100

Now, i'm looking for the new replacement, but it's very old one, I can't find it in my contry (Vietnam).

I've fonnd this SSD:

http://www.innodisk.com/Product/Prod...bF9JRD0wMDE%3D

But i'm not sure my computer can detect it or not. Do you have any resolution for me? or if you have other one, may you sell it to me?

<contact to me via: nguyenthangcadcam@gmail.com>

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

lol another toshiba drive. no wonder it failed...

your replacement ssd appears to have a minimum size of 8gb for the smallest capacity model? beware! legacy bios from the 80s and early 90s use chs as the addressing method for hard drives and they are limited to 7.9gb (8064mb) max or sumthing. u may get the 8gb drive but u may just only have a tiny bit of the drive that is unuseable.

[stj]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

there is an option-rom that can fix that.
https://code.google.com/archive/p/xtideuniversalbios/

[Per Hansson]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

Hi, maybe the post below will help.
What I did on that machine is install a 32GB SSD
It was too big but I used the excellent program “HDAT2” to hide enough LBA’s so the size is the same as the original drive…

If you search the board for HDAT2 you might find some more threads where I describe it’s usage…

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=37091

[thangzero]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

Hi, does anyone know what this board is? (See pictures)
It hangs at POST saying "PRESS F1 FOR SETUP"
But when you do nothing happens, it does not respond to any keypress at all.
Except CTRL+ALT+DELETE which reboots it, then the message is gone but it still hangs...

It has a 4MB memory module and I notice in the POST it lists 3072KB extended memory, could that be it or might the memory be hidden by something else?

I initially though that the Dallas DS12887A RTC module might be bad due to the date seen in the POST message.
It still might be bad, but after dumping the BIOS (attached) I realized it was simply the date of the BIOS release...

Today, I review your thread, You're pictures that you attached, is exactly same my computer, the issue is too, Did you fix it? How to fix? last day, i had a short discussion on the email, so my SSD right now is OK.

When I turn on my computer, the screen appear exactly same yours. When I press F1. The setup table show, but then i couln't do anything else. you can see the picture below. Can I solve this issue if I clear cmos, how to clear? Other solution for this issue, please help me

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bin4l4tO2...102102_1_p.jpg

other question. I see you tried AMD Geode PC104 board? my question is: Can it replace for your old PC104 board, Did it word smoothly?

Thanks all for support, I'm vietnammese, my english is not so good, sorry for this messy

[Per Hansson]

Re: Help identifying old PC104 board

On my board the issue was the RTC chip, before replacing it I could not enter the BIOS at all, system was stuck on the POST screen...

You say that after hiding enough LBA's like I described in that other thread the SSD is recognized, so if you look in the BIOS setup now what size does it show at this page for "Fixed Disk 0"?

The AMD Geode PC104 board we ordered as a replacement for the original would have worked as a replacement (This was in a Weinbrenner press brake with a Cybelec DNC control).
But the CF card the company sent along was corrupted so to save time I replaced the RTC chip on the original board and then it worked fine...

P.S: I attached the picture of your system that you sent via mail for anyone else following this.
(It seems the same as mine, expect it has both memory slots populated, there is also a PC104 addon board installed on yours which confused me at first because it melted in so well with the rest of the system)