Can someone find a manual for me ... Intel PIII board

Hey everyone. I recently acquired (for free) an old Pentium IIIE Compaq Presario. I'm messing around with this thing, and I was hoping to get some of the documentation for the mainboard. I want to put it into a different (less ugly) case I have lying around and I am unsure how to connect the power connectors and PC speaker. The connections are different between the 2 cases.

I'm not sure of the actual model name of this motherboard, but here's what I have.
CPU: Intel Pentium IIIE 650 MHz (6.5 x 100)
Motherboard: Compaq PC
Chipset: Intel Whitney i810E
BIOS: Compaq 02/11/00

So yeah, I was hoping to get the manual for this old dinosaur. I also want to see if I can bump up the FSB speed a little (change to 133 with jumpers, or maybe get a different BIOS to let me set it in increments?)

Thanks in advance for your help.

Is it perchance this board?

Even if not, chances are the front panel pinout they show on the link there is similar to yours. Also note that most older Compaq boards don't support case speakers, since they usually have onboard buzzers and redirect other sounds through the onboard audio.

Generally speaking, you can't put an alternative BIOS on a Compaq board... even if you can find the OEM BIOS file, Compaq usually uses different BIOS chips that won't work with standard BIOSes. Back then, though, Compaq usually used completely custom boards, for which no alternative BIOS even exists.

The FSB is probably auto-sensed, but there is a pinmod that'll switch a 100FSB processor to 133fsb... IIRC you had to insulate pin BSEL1. You're on your own to find a diagram that shows which pin that is, though... I'm too lazy to hunt for it. This is assuming the board actually supports 133fsb... if it doesn't, the pinmod won't hurt anything, it'll just still just show up as a 100fsb processor.

Edit: also, I gotta ask: Why bother with it? It's an 8-year-outdated crap board from a crap OEM using a crap chipset. I can certainly appreciate wanting to make the most out of free hardware, but nowadays it's pretty easy to get considerably *better* free hardware than that thing.

It's very similar to that board, but the layout of the pins is actually different. It's a grid of 10 x 2 instead of 9 x 2, and the connections are completely different. I've figured out how to hook up the power switch, at least, using my multimeter. That should be enough for now.

I'm pretty sure the board does support 133 MHz FSB, but come to think of it, they are probably autosensed, because I think the option is listed as "100/133 MHz Pentium." I was curious about OC'ing it just for kicks, pretty much- just to see what I could do with it. This computer is not doing any serious duty of any kind, it's just a little experiment of mine. Thanks for the reply.

There's a model number somewhere on the motherboard put there by whoever manufactured it (it wasn't Compaq/HP!). Google that for a start.

Get SetFSB ClockGen, CPUCool, CPUFSB, etc. and PowerStrip will OC a lot of older video cards.

Good luck!

did you look up the model number on HP / compaq? of the system

There's a model number somewhere on the motherboard put there by whoever manufactured it

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Right, but the problem is, even though Compaq didn't manufacture it, it was probably custom manufactured for Compaq. You might be able to determine the original manufacturer, but it likely won't do you much good knowing that, since documentation is most likely going to be all but nonexistant. FWIW, though, it was probably made by FIC or Mitac.

But... hold on a minute... if you still have the original case, why can't you just determine the front panel pinout by looking at the original connector block? You might not get the polarity right on the first try, but you should at least be able to trace the wires on the connector and determine which LED they go to, then work from there.

Old Thrashbarg said:

Right, but the problem is, even though Compaq didn't manufacture it, it was probably custom manufactured for Compaq. You might be able to determine the original manufacturer, but it likely won't do you much good knowing that, since documentation is most likely going to be all but nonexistant. FWIW, though, it was probably made by FIC or Mitac.

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I meant the original manufacturer's model number, not the Compaq's.

And yes. been there, done that...there's usually extremely limited info available, if any, for custom mobos. Finding Chipsets used and major component identification is lucky.

I meant the original manufacturer's model number, not the Compaq's.

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That's kinda what I was saying, it's just that we're talking about a time when Compaq was still proprietary all the way down to the part numbers. Like, for example, on an old Compaq PIII board I have, the only model code printed on the board is 'PWA-Hendrix.' That gave me enough info to find out that it was (probably) a Mitac board, but it's a Compaq-specific SKU... that is, no other board from that manufacturer even shared the same model code format, the only other remotely similar boards from that manufacturer used numbers like '6513wu' and such.

It's not like the newer Compaq boards, like the Socket A board I have which is model number AM37 (or something like that), and is just a revision of a standard FIC mATX board with a different BIOS chip.

i have one i tried to over clock but cpufsb didnt support the pll

Way back in the 20th century, we used a proggy called "softFSB" that would allow you to overclock within windows...and once you get it stable, you could tell SofFSB to o'c on startup....but be warned that you need stability b4 adding the o'c to your startup routine.
Somewhere on the board is a ID string, normaly printed on the board between a couple of slots...on some boards the id string is on a sticky tape on the side of the last/bottom slot on the board. It can be a little cryptic and sometimes you have to devide the id string..to explain what I mean say the string says BE62T55002634, you might need to use just the BE62 part, or the other half of the string.....which in this case you'd find that the mobo is an Abit BE6-2 version2 with onboard raid.
I don't know if it is still around, but a usefull site to find all that is mainboards is motherboards.org. In some cases,you can identify your board through a simple online script on that site...but I haven't been there in more than ten yrs.
Hope you have as much fun as I do messing with old junk.