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I've got an early 486 motherboard that doesn't seem to have a manufacturer name or FCC number on it and I'm having trouble identifying it.

I've placed some photos of the motherboard in this Imgur album.

The BIOS ID on the boot screen is:

(C) American Megatrends Inc.,

     DPAQ-6156-043090-KF
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    As far as I know there were a lot of "no-name" 486 motherboards... I've heard about a company in the "486 era" manufacturing graphics cards existing only for about a month.
    – Martin Rosenau
    Commented Aug 7, 2019 at 5:42
  • Generic board in a genericcase - not much chance to get any identification.
    – Raffzahn
    Commented Aug 7, 2019 at 6:48
  • The Zymos/Appian POACH (PC-on-a-chip) chipset was developed for PC-AT (286) compatibles, introduced in 1987. The fact that it's used on a 486 board in 1992 indicates this is a budget, low-end machine.
    – Kaz
    Commented Aug 7, 2019 at 8:06
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    I suspect that the logo of a flag with "HL" on it, on the reverse of the board, would indicate the manufacturer. The trouble is in finding any information on Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers of the early 1990s.
    – Kaz
    Commented Aug 7, 2019 at 8:10
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    This page on identifying by BIOS ID might help, especially if you can get the BIOS ID. If the "HL" is the manufacturer's logo, it's possible it could be "High Large Corporation" (BIOS ID 1957)... but they don't seem to show up on the web (other than in BIOS lists).
    – TripeHound
    Commented Aug 7, 2019 at 13:29

2 Answers 2

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http://www.idhw.com/textual/guide/inst_mobo_ami.html offers the following breakdown of the BIOS ID:

  • D: BIOS w/ diagnostics
  • PAQ: Compaq compatible 386 boards
  • 6156: this Manufacturer code is not listed, but Genoa is 6165 and American Predator Corp. is 6155, so possibly an alternative code for one of those. Wim's BIOS lists 6156 as Genoa.
  • 043090: MMDDYY BIOS release date
  • KF: AMI keyboard BIOS rev. level

GENOA SYSTEMS CORPORATION 486 BABY AT seems to be somewhat similar to your photos, although chipset is listed as UMC, so possibly you have an earlier version. The FAB marking on the back also suggests that this could be a development or test version of the board.

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  • Man with such a weird bord fixing it won't be easy, I was replacing the CMOS battery and pulled a pad :(
    – yanagibashi
    Commented Aug 8, 2019 at 19:50
  • Just throwing this out there, another possibility that exactly matches the photograph (memory, jumpers, connectors, BIOS Even/Odd position, CPU socket, co-processor socket, cache, and tag) with the exception that SW2 is labeled SW1 is the stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/K/…
    – Geo...
    Commented Aug 8, 2019 at 21:16
  • @Geo... great find! you should post it as an answer
    – Igor Skochinsky
    Commented Aug 8, 2019 at 22:17
  • @Igor, I've updated my answer with the new suggested motherboard.
    – Geo...
    Commented Aug 9, 2019 at 11:32
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I'm editing my answer (again).

Originally I thought this board might be a variation of:

BEC COMPUTER ENTERPRISE 80486AT (Ver. 1.0)

Everything except the position of the BIOS and the TAG seemed to match, but that could have been errors in the diagram.

However, I am now thinking this is a better match:

KOUWELL ELECTRONIC CORPORATION 486-33EZ

As near as I can tell, everything on this diagram matches the pictures from the OP, with two exceptions. First, there is a bank of dip switches labeled SW1 on the diagram but this switch is labeled SW2 and shaped differently in the OP's picture. Second, there is a (I think) battery displayed in the corner of the board on the diagram, but no such battery exists in the OP's picture (but the silkscreen in the OP's picture looks like there was space/connections for the battery) (if it is a battery).

I'm not ignoring the great detective work by Igor, but the Genoa board in his answer doesn't seem to match the physical layout of the OP's picture. However the BEC board is close, and the KOUWELL board is really close.

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  • The "TAG" sockets are also slightly misplaced. Also stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/m486_t.html lists two BEC Ver 1.0 motherboards at different links which seems odd.
    – snips-n-snails
    Commented Aug 7, 2019 at 18:15
  • That Kouwell board has a Dallas RTC in the corner that isn't there on the board in the photos. Yet another similar board, from Freetech, stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/F/… who also used 0x-xxxxx-xx model numbers, has SW1 where the one pictured in the question has SW1 and SW2. This kind of sleuthing is okay for coming up with an incomplete list of possible manufacturer guesses, but without a 100% match it's not anything more than that. There are so many similar board layouts.
    – rakslice
    Commented Aug 9, 2019 at 17:48
  • Ah, I thought that RTC was a battery. But either way, it looks to me like it was removed from the OP's board. - The Freetech is similar, but has greater variation than the Kouwell... I agree it's not an exact science.
    – Geo...
    Commented Aug 9, 2019 at 18:53
  • The Freetech board is called EISA. The board in the photo does not have EISA slots. If the pictures at TULARC are correct and I read them correctly, the Kouwell board also has all but two slots as EISA slots.
    – Michael Karcher
    Commented May 25, 2020 at 6:30

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