motherboard type

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eidesheimd

is there a soft showing the type of motherboard installed on my Pc ? (i know
the processor is an old PII)
ThanX
 
eidesheimd said:
is there a soft showing the type of motherboard installed on my Pc ? (i know
the processor is an old PII)
ThanX
Click to expand...

There are several programs that try to do so and will succeed if your
motherboard is a fairly regular one (and not a 'brand name' system
such as Dell or Compaq). Here are some of the better ones:

http://www.aida32.hu/ (don't get put off by the Hungarian site, this
is the best such prog and the interface is plain English)
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
http://www.esupport.com/biosagent/index.cfm

What to do if these programs either don't give any results or give
incorrect information?

If you have a Compaq, Dell, HP, Fujitsu-Siemens, IBM, or any other
such 'brand' box there frequently isn't enough info available in the
public domain to incorporate into 3rd party progs, but the
manufacturer's site can (with a bit of patience) give you the info you
need (particularly Compaq and IBM are good in this respect)

If however you have some or other anonymous box with ditto
motherboard, there's still one way left (in fact the best way in any
case IMHO if you can get the machine to boot):

- start the PC up
- press the Pause/Break key when the computer starts counting its
memory
- look at the bottom of the screen, you should see a line somewhat
like this:

07/21/1998-i440BX-SMC60X-2A69KF39C-00

This line tells you (almost) everything you need to know (albeit in
code):

- 07/21/1998: the date the BIOS on the board was written (note that
this changes when the BIOS gets updated)
- i440BX: the motherboard chipset
- SMC0X: the I/O controller
- 2A69K: a different code for the chipset (also referring to the
i440BX)
- F3: manufacturer's code- in this case Full Yes Inc. (FYI)
- 9C-00: model code- only rarely useful, in this case a Google search
of the whole 2A69KF39C string turned out the FYI BX-1

The chipset and manufacturer codes and in some cases the model code
can be found on the 'BIOS numbers' page on Wim's BIOS page:

www.wimsbios.com

If you can find a manufacturer's code but not a matching model code,
work using the information you have- google on the manufacturer name
and chipset. That will usually narrow it down to a few options that
can be visually identified.

A special note regarding motherboards manufactured by ECS, PC-Chips,
Amptron, Eurone, Hsing-Tech, Eagletek, Eaglemax and many other
synonyms: all motherboards with one of these names are made by the
same huge company, ECS/PC-Chips, in fact the worlds largest
motherboard manufacturer (although tied neck-and-neck with Asus) with
an obscure tendency for renaming everything it touches- motherboard
manufacturer, motherboard name, motherboard chipset, other chips on
the motherboard (sound, graphics, I/O, cache, memory...), even on
occasion processors...
If you suspect you're dealing with one of these many-faced wonders,
surf to the PC Chips lottery:

http://www.stud.fernuni-hagen.de/q3998142/pcchips/

....and enter as many details as you can find. Note that to do that you
will visually have to inspect the motherboard (the required details
are things like number and type of memory slots, expansion slots,
power connectors and so forth).

Good luck :)


Whoops- I think I've written a FAQ 8)7
 
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