Help in motherboard identification

[chuckywang]

What is the easiest way to identify the make and model of a motherboard? I bought a Sony Vaio and I want to know what kind of motherboard it came with. I took the motherboard out and I can examine the markings on the board. What should I look for? I can provide pictures if it's necessary.

 

[tcsenter]

I bought a Sony Vaio and I want to know what kind of motherboard it came with.

Easiest way? Get the model and serial # from the PC and ask Sony.

Could very well be a custom OEM board and not just some company's standard production model with Sony markings.

 

[chuckywang]

I did. Their help system is useless. That's no way to get me to think highly of Sony.

 

[tcsenter]

Did you actually send a support request to Sony or just browse Sony's support pages?

What is the model and series of this Vaio?

 

[chuckywang]

I sent both a support request and browsed Sony's support pages. The Vaio is a PCV-130. It originally had a 200 Mhz Pentium Processor w/MMX technology. I want to replace it with a AMD-K6, 266 Mhz processor. I want to know the jumper settings for the motherboard in order for it to run the AMD-K6 processor, since I know the voltages are different.

 

[tcsenter]

The Vaio is a PCV-130.

The Vaio PCV-130 used an Intel AG430HX or AN430TX OEM mainboard. There are reports in newsgroups of these Intel boards failing to boot (by design) when a non-Intel processor is installed. You can try to find archived support pages at Intel's website.

 

[chuckywang]

Thanks! I looked at the form factors of those two boards and it matches what I see on my motherboard, from what I can tell. Where are the archived support pages? I searched for "PCV-130" on Intel's website, and nothing came up. Also, the specs on the Intel pages don't say anything about support for AMD-K6, but I don't know if this is because it can't support those processors or because AMD is it's competition.

 

[tcsenter]

Where are the archived support pages? I searched for "PCV-130" on Intel's website, and nothing came up.

That's because PCV-130 is Sony's model name, not Intel's.

The OEM Intel models are AG430HX or AN430TX.

 

[Peter]

Oh, it's simple then. Intel's own brand mainboards, retail or OEM, have their BIOS written without support for AMD or Cyrix CPUs, for somewhat obvious reasons. Unlike other vendors' mainboards, they don't even try to boot saying "unknown CPU" or somesuch. They just quietly halt at a very early stage of POST.

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: chuckywang
What is the easiest way to identify the make and model of a motherboard? I bought a Sony Vaio and I want to know what kind of motherboard it came with. I took the motherboard out and I can examine the markings on the board. What should I look for? I can provide pictures if it's necessary.

Download Everest home edition (free) and look under motherboard/Motherboard Name.

http://www.lavalys.com/products/download.php?pid=1&lang=en&pageid=3