I have an older Pentium 75 computer that I would like to connect to my
home network.    After installing a NIC, it appears the older bios
does not support this interface (address extension ?).    I have
surfed many bios sites and everyone seems to indicate that you MUST
get an updated BIN file from your original PC manufacturer.

My experience is that most of these PC clone manufacturers have long
since closed shop or just no longer deal with outdated product.    In
my case, I have had no luck getting a manufacturer to respond to me or
give me the time of day.

The main bios manufacturers (AMD, Phoenix) each claim that for a $75
or so, they will send a kit to do this upgrade.   My old PC isn’t even
worth that much!   This was a response when I made an enquiry quite
awhile ago.   I wonder how they are able to do that based on just the
mother board.

“We have an excellent BIOS Upgrade for your system. We have the brand
new January 2001 Award BIOS for that motherboard. This BIOS will give
you support for the latest  AMD, Intel , and Cyrix chips. AWARD BIOS
will also give you millenium compliance for the Y2K. The new AWARD
BIOS will also allow you  to boot from an LS-120 and CD-ROM and
provide support for Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT. The new
BIOS also gives you the latest ACPI and APM specifications for Windows
 2000.The new Award BIOS will support hard drives up to 137 gigabytes.
The price is $69.95.”

My Bios information is as follows from CTBios and Mr. Bios

Computer : Genuine Intel Pentium 75Mhz
Bios Date : 01/23/95
Phoenix Bios : ver 4.04 R1.0
Other : no board/OEM info
Bios Signon : unknown
Bios ID : unknown
Super I/O : SMC 665GT rev2 found at port 3F0h
Chipset : AliM1451 rev 189

I would appreciate it if you can you direct me to a bios file and
flash program that I can use to upgrade my bios with a high chance of
success ?

---

Request for Question Clarification by wengland-ga on 18 Jun 2002 19:05 PDT

Do you know who the motherboard was made by?

---

Clarification of Question by xandrea-ga on 18 Jun 2002 19:20 PDT

Wenglan,

A previous search seemed to point to Acer Labs.  The bios id utility
did not provide this information directly.

---

Clarification of Question by xandrea-ga on 18 Jun 2002 19:38 PDT

Mother-911,

The motherboard image you provided does not match.   I ran your bios
utility and was unable to get a Bios ID.   It essentially provided the
information that I have already posted :-(.   It was worth a try.

---

Clarification of Question by xandrea-ga on 19 Jun 2002 06:27 PDT

Mother-911,

Unfortunately I don't see a bios string during boot up on this
machine, at least by the time the monitor starts to display
information, which seems to take awhile.   Maybe there is another way
to get this information ?

Fons_be,

If the ISA card works, that would certainly be an option.

---

Request for Question Clarification by wengland-ga on 19 Jun 2002 07:27 PDT

Acutally, what I was hoping you'd be able to do is open the case and
find the manufacturer and model number printed on the motherboard. 
I've had to do that several times after buying an old computer.

---

Clarification of Question by xandrea-ga on 19 Jun 2002 08:26 PDT

blastradys,

I don't know if it can be flashed.   Not sure how you find this out.

fons_be,

I had an ISA NIC handy and was able to install it successfully.  The
share directories options is not available and I am unable to browse
the network :-(

---

Clarification of Question by xandrea-ga on 19 Jun 2002 08:41 PDT

Wengland,

I opened the case and checked for the manufacturer information but was
uable to locate it.   Is there a standard location to search on the
mobo ?

---

Clarification of Question by xandrea-ga on 19 Jun 2002 10:03 PDT

Thankyou for all the comments.   I really appreciate the effort.

I got out my flashlight and searched all over the motherboard for
information.  Nothing along the edges.   Only this near the middle.

94138-1
V16
48.43801.001
Made in Taiwan

The board has 4 ISA slots, 4 PCI slots and 6 memory slots (3 banks)

---

Clarification of Question by xandrea-ga on 21 Jun 2002 06:51 PDT

Thanks to all for all the effort.

This seems quite elusive as I still unable to get a Bios ID and any
information regarding my motherboard so that I can flash upgrade my
Bios.

Antimatter -- I'll give your suggestion a try today :-)

Perhaps this will shed some light for those of you searching for mobo
info for this question. Is this your motherboard in this image?
http://web.tiscali.it/acorp/mobo_spec/mynix/pci54st/mynix_pci54st.jpg

If it is, it is (as the address indicates) a mynix_pci54st. If the
machine will boot, try writing down the series of numbers at the
bottom of the screen as it runs the memory check.
Hopefully it will look something like this:
http://web.tiscali.it/acorp/mobo_spec/mynix/pci54st/mynix_pci54st.jpg
If not, we can always use the bios ID to search for the mobo identity
.

Hope it helps,
Mother911-ga

See what you get for posting while trying to answer the phone, I
accidentally posted the url in place of the bios ID. It should have
read:

Hopefully it will look something like this: 
11/03/95-SiS-5511-5513-2A510 M2AC-00
If not, we can always use the bios ID to search for the mobo identity.

This tool will also extract some good information provided you can
boot the machine.
http://www.motherboards.org/files/programs/bwz-rel.exe

sorry about the mixup,
Mother911-ga

ok...we're not done just yet...

Have you tried to write down the bios id string at the bottom of the
screen during boot up?

if you can type it out here...I know its hard...

But this acer chart shows the way to decipher those codes:
(I hope the text formats properly)
ACRxxxxx-xxx-xxxxxx-xxx-xx

   | |   |   |      |

   | |   |   |      BIOS Revision

   | |   |   BIOS date

   | |   ??

   | ??

   Mainboard identification

Mainboard Identification

05   X1B             Altos 19000
07   M7              Altos 900/M, Altos 9000/M
19   V55-2           Acros, Power
1A   M3A             Altos 300
1B   V35             Power
22   V50LA-N         Acros, Power
24   M9B             Altos 9000/Pro
25   V55LA           Acros, Power, Aspire
29   V60N            AcerPower
2F   M11A            Altos 900/Pro
30   V56LA           Acros, Power, Aspire
33   V58LA           Acros, Power, Aspire
35   V35N            Acros, Power
46   M9N             Altos 920, Altos 9100
4B   V55LA-2M        Acros, Power, Aspire
5A   X3              Altos 19000 Pro 4
62   V65X            AcerPower PII
63   V58             Entra
67   V65LA           Acros, Power
6B   A1G4            Acros
6D   V20             AcerPower
89   M5              Altos 7000P
8F   M3-EIDE         AcerPower, AcerPower 590
99   A1GX, A1GX-2    Acros, Power
9A   V30, V30-2      Acros, Power
9C   V12LC, V12LC-2X Acros, Power, Aspire

Mother911-ga

I've had this same problem a few times before. Because bios upgrades
are a lot of work I just went out and bought a cheap second hand ISA
10baseT network card.

The ISA card worked fine with the older BIOS.

I think you should check the bios maker web site. Maybe there have the
update for your bios and backup you information before updating,
because some way the bios maybe cannot detect your hardware or not
compatible.

A Pentium 1 586 mobo? Are you sure your mobo can even be flashed?  I
noticed no one asked that..

I fried my BIOS and eventually found this guy.  I haven't used him yet
but he answered my initial e-mail very fast.
http://www.leandercomputing.com/bios.html He states on his webpage
that he will help you find the right bios and his cost to flash it is
$16.

There is a website which lists a lot of known BIOS upgrades: (
http://www.driverguide.com/ )  You have to register, but registration
is free.

Maybe I'm confused, but it sounds like your bios is a BIOS by Phoenix
Technologies, Inc.  After tooling around Phoenix's site for a while, I
was led to a BIOS upgrade site, which has yet another BIOS identifier
tool, "BIOS Agent."  ( http://www.esupport.com/biosagent/ )  This tool
might give you more insight into what you can upgrade your bios to,
and where you can get this upgrade from.

The way a "BIOS Upgrade" kit works is by REMOVING your old bios chip
and replacing it with a current chip (containing an AWARD bios or
such).  I've never used such a system, but certainly $75 is too much
money to spend.  You may be able to purchase an old (used?)
motherboard with a newer bios, or an easily-upgradable bios type (such
as AWARD).  It would at least be cheaper than $75.

Hope this helps a little.

I really don't think it is flashable.  If it is a 586/P75
motherboard/processor, it was probably made around 1995, and very few
motherboards were flashable at that time.  I know mine wasn't.

If the ISA network card has jumper selectable I/O address and IRQ it
should be easier setting that up than upgrading the BIOS.

One way to set it up is as follows:
Set the jumpers on the network card to IRQ 10 and I/O address C800.  
Plug in the network card.
In BIOS setup, reserve IRQ 10 if possible(usually under PCI/PNP
option).
Reserve address C800.
Boot into windows.
In Windows 9x control panel, add new hardware and autodetect.  The
card should be detected, prompt for drivers and require reboot(Usually
the NE2000 compatible driver will work if you don't have the correct
one).
In device manager under "Network adapters", check the IRQ and I/O
address and make sure they match the settings of the jumpers.
Check the settings again under the network options in control panel.
Once everything matches, the network should be functional as long as
the network protocols are set up correctly.

I suspect that you have an AOpen motherboard.  Look under the Socket7
heading at  http://club.aopen.com.tw/Museum/#Motherboards.  The link
for each motherboard will include a photo, along with details about
chipsets, etc.  perhaps you can use this info to identify what
motherboard you have.

Your BIOS is probably fine. Your experience with the ISA card -- much
older
than your computer -- is the tip-off. You need to look at *software*
problems.

Do you have the driver for your card installed in your operating
system? Have
you installed the networking options from the Windows 95 (if that's
what you have)
CD-ROM? Networking doesn't turn on automatically. Look in the network
setion of the Windows settings Control Panel. Pursue the software
angle; your hardware is probably fine, at least with the ISA card. I
think the entire discussion so far has missed the point.