Greg Easthom wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

GE> Sounds just like the PC-Chips M571 I have sitting on my lap.

 GE> From a downloaded manual:

 GE> The advanced features of this mainboard include:

 GE> - 66MHz Advanced Graphic Port

No AGP on this unless it's that built-in video,  possible I suppose.

 GE> - Supports either P54C/P55C Pentium (MMX) CPUs with 321-pin ZIF  
 GE> socket and Cyrix/IBM 6x86L/6x86MX (M2), AMD K6, IDT C6 Processors  
 GE> with External Clock Speed at 50/55/60/66/75/83 MHz

I don't think the speeds go that high.  It says on the label on package
that it was in (bag) that it'll support a CPU up to a 233.

 GE> - Supports 3 banks of FP/EDO SIMM/DIMM and SDRAM DIMM expandable  
 GE> memory up to 384MB

 GE> - Four 72-pin SIMM sockets and two 168-pin DIMM sockets

There are four SIMM sockets and two DIMM sockets on there.  I don't see how
that goes up that high,  though.

 GE> - Supports 64M-bit (16Mx4, 8Mx8, 4Mx16) technology DRAM/SDRAM 

 GE> - Supports onboard 64-bit 512KB L2 cache

Seems to be.

 GE> - Provides dual 20-pin ATX power connector and AT 12-pin power  
 GE> connector, and ATX power support Modem Ring On & Suspend Switch

It's got the two power connectors all right,  dunno about that other stuff
as I don't use it and wasn't looking for it.  There seem to be a number of
connectors on there I'm not sure about...

 GE> - Supports both ACPI and Legacy PMU

 GE> - 4 PCI Local Bus slots and 3 16-bits ISA Bus slots, all 4 PCI  
 GE> slots support master mode

Sounds right.

 GE> - Supports Ultra DMA/33, PCI Bus Master IDE interface onboard  
 GE> with 2 connectors which support 4 IDE devices in 2 channels;   the
 GE> PCI IDE controller supports PIO Mode 0 to Mode 4 and Ultra DMA/33
 GE> at maximum transfer rate of 33MB/s and Bus Master IDE DMA Mode 2

This board is laid out different than others,  which all seem to cluster
the parallel,  floppy,  and IDE connectors together near the RAM.  The two
IDE connectors are down at the bottom edge of the board,  near the CPU
regulators.

 GE> - System BIOS supports 4 IDE hard disk drives which do not need  
 GE> device driver for S/W application and the capacity of each hard  
 GE> disk can be larger than 528MB and up to 8.4 GB

I have nothing here that's big enough to test this.  (Yet.)  And if I did,
I probably wouldn't be relying on BIOS support to use it anyway.

 GE> - Onboard super Multi-I/O chip supports 2 serial ports with 16550  
 GE> fast UART compatible, 1 parallel port with EPP and ECP
 GE> capabilities,  and one floppy disk drive interface

Seems typical.

 GE> - System BIOS supports Green feature function and Plug & Play  
 GE> Flash ROM

Not sure about that.  There's a thing on screen when it boots that says
"checking nvram" that I haven't seen before.

 GE> - Supports PS/2 Mouse connector, the Universal Serial Bus interface
 GE>   (U.S.B.), and Infrared connectors

I haven't looked for the IR connector,  but assume that it's probably there.

 GE> - Supports embedded 64-bit VGA chip:
 GE>   - high performance 64-bit GUI accelerator with excellent video   
 GE> playback capability,

Hmm.

 GE>   - system memory shares up to 4MB with video buffer,

It seemed to be set to 2M in CMOS,  but since I have it disabled I couldn't
fiddle with it to see where it'd go to.

 GE>   - high resolution graphic modes 640x480/800x600/1024x768

They're calling 1024x768 "high" resolution?  Not these days, 
apparently,  though many of my monitors here won't cope with even that, 
much less higher.

 GE> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RJT> First off,  what I took to be the typical "intel inside" thingy on
RJT> one of the chips -- on a heatsink,  which should've tipped me off
RJT> was "Video Inside"!  The rest of what's on there is
"TX PRO-II".

RJT> There also seems to be a 2x8 pin header on the board near the power
RJT> connectors

 GE> VGA - On-board VGA connector (shares system memory).
 GE> JP3 (vertical jumper to right of SIMMs) 1-2 to disable.

I do see that jumper (though I can't be sure it's marked JP3 at this point)
and that does seem to be where the setting is.  Though if that's the case,
why have an option to enable/disable it in CMOS too?

RJT> There's a PS/2 pin header up by the keyboard connector

 GE> PS2 - Mouse

Yep,  using it.

RJT> what must be the two serial ports,  and the parallel and floppy
RJT> interface connectors are about where I'd expect them, between the
RJT> ram and the first PCI connector.  But the two IDE connectors aren't
RJT> there -- they're all the way down at the bottom end of the board,
RJT> below the CPU chip.

GE> Only a pain if your HDs mount in the top of the case.

Not a problem at present,  and I'm not even using a taller case here at the moment.

RJT> In between the first and second PCI connectors is another pin
RJT> header,  2 rows by 9 pins long,  missing one pin.

 GE> That would be for an "ATX FORM CARD" containing 1xPS2, 2xUSB and
 GE> 2xIR connectors.

Oh really?  I don't think I've bumped into one of those yet.  Not much here
in the way of ATX hardware,  though,  not yet.

RJT> Then down near the bottom edge of the board,  I get another
RJT> surprise -- there's a chip next to the BIOS part that says "Sound
RJT> Pro" on it -- I apparently have onboard sound too?

 GE> Yep.

RJT> There's a 2-pin header near that chip,  only marked as "JP10",

 GE> JP10 - Digital audio (Depends on CD-ROM type)

Ah.  No cable,  though.

RJT> and another 2-pin header,

 GE> JP9 - Microphone type (open=normal closed=special)

I wonder what that refers to?

RJT> a 4-pin header,

 GE> J4 - Analog audio (Sony style)

RJT> and a 4-pin connector with white plastic shell of the type commonly
RJT> found on sound cards,  which I'm assuming is for cdrom input.

 GE> J5 - Analog audio (Panasonic style)

Ok,  so I need an audio cable for *one* of these three,  then.  Maybe two, 
if it allows for use of both digital and analog inputs,  since I have both
a cdrom drive and the burner in the box (and both could be used to play
audio).

RJT> Also a 10-pin header.

 GE> J6 - Connects via ribbon cable to line-in, MIC, line-out header.

That's the other part I'd *really* need to get a hold of in order to use
this.  No point in trying to do anything at all with the onboard sound if I
can't plug in the speakers!

RJT> There's another pin header labeled for the game port, as well.

 GE> GAME - Joystick, whatever.

What I figured,  I've no present use for it.

RJT> Then there's a 3-pin header on the other side of the sound and BIOS
RJT> chips labled "12V JP1 5V" with a jumper across the last two.

 GE> JP1 - Flash EPROM voltage selector

Ah.  This would depend on what chip you had plugged in there?

RJT> And one following that,  5 positions with the middle one empty,
RJT> marked "1 2 J1 4 5".

 GE> J1 - 4&5 connect to the power button for ATX mode.

Ok.  Any indication for the rest of those pins?

RJT> Only ID I can find on this board is a sticker on the last ISA slot,
RJT> that says "MW84321402 Made In China",  which ain't telling me much.

 GE> Mine says MW84350035
 GE> Another sticker on the right edge says MB-M571-512K

Didn't see that anywhere.

RJT> I just realized that what they gave me for headers doesn't include
RJT> anything for the onboard stuff,  just the standard serial and
RJT> parallel connectors,  and that's it.  And I called them, and can
RJT> take it back tomorrow if necessary...

 GE> You don't HAVE to use the onboard stuff.  :)

No,  I'm not at present,  but I'd like to at least use the sound part,  if
I can get my hands on the right bits to do so.  I've a bit of a bias
against using system memory for video,  but if this is that much more
capable in terms of graphics,  or that much faster,  or something,  and if
I can jack the ram in this box way up there,  then I'd consider it.

I wasn't quite correct about what they gave me -- looking at them again I
have one 25-pin serial,  one parallel,  and one that's a DB9 _female_
connector with a 10-pin header on the other end,  dunno what that one's
for.

What can you tell me about possible ram configurations in this box?  Is it
a matter of using either SIMM or DIMM parts only,  or can you mix them at
all?

Do you know of any online data for this MB?  That'd be easiest.  Or maybe
email would work (rtellason{at}blazenet.com if so).

Oh yeah,  and there's one other thing -- I have three different LEDs from
the case plugged into what I guessed were the right points on those
connectors,  and _none_ of them are working.  The reset button does work, 
though,  so I'm not totally screwed up on that one.  I need to look at that
downloaded doc to get a better picture for those,  too...

Overall,  I'm favorably impressed with the board,  it seems quicker than
the other ones I was running,  and that with the same CPU and the same ram,
 and mostly the same peripherals.

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