Can anyone identify this 286 board?

[EMDarrow]

What I know of it:

• 286/16 (AMD processor)

• Was in a SIIG case

• CHIPS chipset (datasheet here)

• Copyright 1988 by LRI

• P/N: S286-16N

• RAM chips are 256k x 1-Bit, so with four banks of it I'm guessing it has 1MB RAM

I can't find anything about it at all.

​

 

[Druid6900]

Does it boot?

If so, see if it has a BIOS string at the bottom of the boot screen and then run it through the appropriate BIOS string look-up database.

It might be one of the PC-Chips motherboards.

 

[mR_Slug]

I doubt it's a PC-CHIPS board, as it looks like it has the C&T NEAT chipset, though I cant see the part no's very well. It looks like quite a good board.

 

[Stone]

That means with QRAM it can manage high memory nearly as well as a 386 can with QEMM.

 

[Caluser2000]

I doubt it's a PC-CHIPS board, as it looks like it has the C&T NEAT chipset, though I cant see the part no's very well. It looks like quite a good board.

Definately a PC-CHIPS board.

 

[EMDarrow]

Does it boot?

Havent tried yet, Ill be doing that soon. Its in really nice physical shape though: was very dusty but even the case had little to no rust. Case itself was pretty beat up though, sadly.

it looks like it has the C&T NEAT chipset, though I cant see the part no's very well.

On the chipset chips? Here.

 

[mR_Slug]

Yep the CS8221 NEW Enhanced AT (NEAT) consisting of:

82C211 CPU/Bus controller,
82C212 Page/Interleave and EMS Memory controller,
82C215 Data/Address buffer
82C206 Integrated Peripherals Controller (IPC).

Features:
• 100% IBM PC/AT Compatible New Enhanced CHIPSet for 12MHz to 16MHz
systems
• Supports 16MHz 80286 operation with only 0.5-0.7 wait states for
100ns DRAMs and 12MHz operation with 150ns DRAMs, 0 wait state
12MHz operation with 80ns DRAMs
• Separate CPU and AT Bus clocks
• Page Interleaved Memory supports single bank page mode, 2 way and
4 way page interleaved mode
• Integrated Lotus-Intel-Microsoft Expanded Memory Specification
(LIM EMS) Memory Controller. Supports EMS 4.0.
• Software Configurable Command Delays, Wait states and Memory
Organization
• Optimized for OS/2 operation
• Shadow RAM for BIOS and video ROM to improve system performance
• Complete AT/286 system board requires only 28 logic components
plus memory and processor
• Targeted at Desktop PC/ATs, Laptops and CMOS industrial Control
Applications
• Available as four CMOS 84-pin PLCC or 100-pin PFP components.

Definately a PC-CHIPS board.

I didn't know PC-CHIPS built boards with normal chipsets.


I looked thru TH99 but it wasn't in there.

 

[EMDarrow]

Was clear we weren't learning anything more until I tried booting this thing up, so I hooked it up, re-connected its filthy 5.25 floppy drive and...

​

It booted fine! Looks like the floppy drive might need some TLC though. Sadly it didnt really tell me anything new, it reports as a S286-16N, which is written on the board and I cant find anything about. Maybe setup will help.

it looks like it has the C&T NEAT chipset

And it turns out... you are correct sir.

​

Just swapped out the floppy drive for a known working one, and it boots off my DOS 5.0 floppy disk just fine.

Now if I could just find a data sheet on this thing. All the cables had been disconnected from the board when I bought it, so I don't even know where exactly to plug in the speaker.

 

[1ST1]

I doubt it's a PC-CHIPS board, as it looks like it has the C&T NEAT chipset, though I cant see the part no's very well. It looks like quite a good board.

That's it, Chips&Technology NEAT chipset. There used to be many NEAT boards from many manufacturer. SO it might be difficult to find the exact model name but that doesn't care much as they all were allmost the same. NEAT was for it's time a very good chipset with a lot of timing settings in the BIOS, setting up this one beyond default setting is a bit like rocket sience but when you know what you do you can increase performance quite a lot. There used to be some MS-DOS based tools for NEAT chipset boards for tuning, which came with predefined settings/sugestions to load. Maybe, I have such tool in my collection (I saw a ct_neat folder), but at the moment I am far away from home and can't provide it. There was also a 386 version of the NEAT chipset, even more interesting than the 286 version, but quite rare as other chipsets with much easier setup came out.