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ARCHE RIVAL 286 computer. Motherboard identification please

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vintageklench

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Hello, I've come across a motherboard pulled from a ARCHE RIVAL 286 computer. I believe it's from around Summer 1998. I can't seem to find the mobo manufacturer so that I can look up jumper settings and bring this board back to life. Lots of CHIPS branded chipsets on mobo. Award bios. Pics are attached. There are two clues. PAT-7.2a in the corner by the ISA slots and Y-7.2 stamped between some ISA slots. And don't worry, I'm re-soldering a socket to put the keyboard IC back in place...lots of battery leakage! Any assist would be appreciated.
 

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Does the motherboard give you a display? You can jot down the BIOS string displayed at the bottom of the POST screen and determine the manufacturer from that.

Although 1998 may seem like a long time ago, I suspect that this board was manufactured closer to 1989.
 
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Really appreciate that suggestion. The motherboard doesn't post yet. I had to replace all the caps because the 12V+ rail wasn't working (didn't get a light on my diagnostic card) so I just replaced all the 10u 16V caps due to age. That caused the CPU on the other side of the board to start to get warm and the 12v+ rail light on my diagnostic card lit up...all good signs. Now, I have to solder in a socket to put the keyboard IC controller back in. When that happens, prob tomorrow, I'll cross my fingers and see if the motherboard posts and do as you suggest. Surprisingly, the battery acid wasn't that bad...just had to bathe in white vinegar, scrub and gently scratch traces and do a continuity check...then I applied nail polish varnish to seal in the exposed traces to the elements. Having motherboard specs now just helps in case I have a wrong jumper setting but I have no reason to believe the jumpers are wrong. I bet the computer just sat for years. I did pull and dump the award bios for any clues, but no clues. Just bios info, but good that I made copies of the .bin files.
 
Arche Technologies was a US subsidiary of Arche Technologies in Taiwan. Here's an ad that describes your Rival (8/12 MHz); this is not the same system as the Rival 286-16 which used a different motherboard. Arche Technologies US was located in Fremont, CA on Kato road (cue "Pink Panther"). That's about all I can find.
Oh yeah--Arche was sued by McDonalds (they of the Whopper) for infringement of the "golden arches" logo.
I see that Arche had 486 systems, but I don't see any mention of P1. So, about 1988-94.
 
Chuck(G) + others - if you are able to get the vendor out of the BIOS that would be awesome. I can't determine much reading with notepad. I've attached the hi and lo. I did find a Jul 1988 PC Magazine article about the ARCHE RIVAL computer. It didn't state the motherboard details but I agree it is a 8/12mhz machine.
 

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It's a little odd that the two (hi and lo) are of different sizes (16384 and 16383 bytes). When you upload binary images, it's best to combine them into a ZIP file first.
In any case, even before looking at the BIOS images, I'm sure that the vendor will be 1462--Arche Technologies.

The problem here is that Arche didn't sell separate motherboards, but sold their own integrated systems. It's unlikely that we're going to find a maintenance manual for this board, which appears to be one of the less-common offerings (the Rival 286-16 seems to be more common).

You might compare your board with similar 286 motherboards using the C&T chipset (over at stason.org) and perhaps get some clue from that.

Bottom line is that I think you're on your own unless you can locate someone with another system.
 
I do appreciate you looking at the bios. Perhaps there are clues looking at the RIVAL 286-16 and C&T chipset (other boards) for jumper settings. You prob had this info, but maybe it'll help others....there's a website that can help people decifer the POST screen to determine their motherboard manufacturer...https://www.wimsbios.com/aminumbers.jsp#gsc.tab=0

For now, I'm going to assume the jumper settings on the existing board are good and I'm going to resolder the keyboard IC socket and insert the keyboard IC and see if I can get the board to POST. Then, I can share what the POST screen has to say. If the board doesn't post, well, I'll be back and let you know where I'm at with trying. Here's a question you probably know the answer to.....when I go to try and POST, I'm going to want a clean config, so I will just have a video card in an ISA slot. Will the board post if I pull all the onboard memory that's in Banks 0-3? I have no idea and I don't want to pull ALL those RAM chips off if I don't need to, but I might if the board won't post. Thoughts?
 
I just got hold of the same motherboard and am currently fixing some minor corrosion damages. I don't have any additional information on the board yet but will perform some tracing on the jumpers to see where they lead.
I'm curious, did you get it to POST and did you figure out the jumper functions? Also, my board have all four banks filled with 4164s which gives just 256k. I can't see from your picture but I assume your Bank0 and Bank1 is filled with 41256s, right?
 
So, I did some testing and with current jumper settings I got this far using a CGA card. (See screenshot)
White cables on the left is speaker and that's as far as I went today with the jumpers. Also, as seen on the right the keyboard connector is still off along with two 1kohm which were a bit corroded. WIP on that.
1000006544.jpg1000006543.jpg
 
The BIOS hangs at 64k (with code 1F) so I decided to try the Supersoft DIAG. It seems fine so I guess the memory configuration jumpers are wrong. I've got 4x9x64kbit on board and if my calculations are correct it gives just 256kbyte and if the board is configured for 640k, well...?
I'll try to find 2x9 256kbit and swap them into bank0 and bank1.
I will also dump the ROMs and have a look at what 1F means.
(BTW the "FAILED" in the top row is normal and is caused by a bug in the protected mode tests)
1000006549.jpg
 
Success! I tested all ram chips (good) and figured out the memory configuration by looking at the datasheet for 82c202 and some beep tests. It's JP8 and JP9. I also found some other jumper functions but I will publish this later when it's more complete. I also dumped the roms including the KBC and will make these available at some point.
 

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Robin4 said:
Hello,

You seems to have to same board as i do


Is it possible to dump the bios roms? Those seems to be hard to find.
Click to expand...
Hi, yes, my board says "PAT-7.2A" in the corner. Please find the attached BIOS (including the KBC firmware).
From what I've found it seems to come from an Arche Rival 286-12 which seems less common than the 286-16 variant and has a different motherboard.
 

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