Hi
I have had fairly succesful Google searchs when trying to identify mystery motherboards in the past. However, all too often my searchs do not end up with a match. Is there a site that I should know about to help me get the info on these troublsome boards. In most cases, I only have the printed info from off the board itself to go by, and I usally don't even know the Manufacture.

thanks.

Search and find

Aida32

it will give you all the info you need including links the motherboard manufacturer site.

Free download

Hi Robbie
Thanks, I do have it already, and it does a great job in identifing everything.
But, what I am really after is a effective way to get the manuals to boards before their installation into a system.

Most of the motherboard manufacturer's have the manual's on their site to download.

Robbie is correct. I have found MB manuals for 10 year old boards on these sites. There would be copyright issues with others posting manuals for current boards.

http://www.motherboards.org/moboidtools.html

http://iceberg.pchomeworld.com/cgi-win/mobotGen/mobot.asp

Thank you jam.
...especially for understanding the question.

Note: the following mostly applies to retail motherboard. Information for OEM motherboards (DELL, HP, etc.) is hard to find.

There are two methods
1. Visual method. Look at the motherboard for identifying numbers for model, revision, and BIOS version.
Example:
Between PCI 1 and PCI 2 is: "PAG-2130"
On the BIOS chip is "SB411s".
With a little more research I now know the following:
Manufacturer: First International Computer, Inc. (FIC)
Model: PAG-2130
Revision: 1.3A

2. Boot screen. Use pause the boot screen when it comes up.
There are three bits of information that are useful: BIOS version, Model number, and BIOS string.
Example:
BIOS version: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Model number: K7SEM Ver. 1.1 05/31/2001
BIOS string: 05/31/2001-SiS-730-6A6ISE19C-00
The E1 in the BIOS string indicates ECS as the manufacturer.
The model number is K7SEM Ver. 1.1

Sometimes all you have is the BIOS string. Try the following in this order:
1. Google search on BIOS string
2. Online tools and web sites
3. Detective work (last resort) If you can narrow down to a few possible manufactueres write down information from the motherboard such as
a. Form factor: AT, ATX, etc.
b. Slots (number): AGP, PCI, ISA
c. Chipset (e.g. VIA, Intel, etc.
d. Other chips and ID numbers
Sometimes looking at online pictures and manuals you can find a motherboard that at least looks like the one you have.

Mobo ID Tools
http://www.motherboards.org/moboidtools.html

AMI Motherboard Identification Utility
http://www.ami.com/support/mbid.cfm

Motherboard Identification AMI BIOS AWARD BIOS
http://www.computercraft.com/docs/mbid.shtml

Motherboard Identification Forum
http://www.motherboards.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=2

I help find info for old mboards often.

While the above suggestions are of help for many mboards, sometimes they aren't enough.

For example
http://www.motherboards.org/

There are lots of posts there but many are "unsolved" and of no real use. It is poor for finding older PCChips mboard info.

http://www.motherboards.org/moboidtools.html

Good for many mboards, but poor for many others.

AMI Motherboard Identification Utility
http://www.ami.com/support/mbid.cfm

There are lots of bios strings it has no info for.
This has been true for many years.

Many mboard makers no longer are in business and there are no websites to go to, making a lot of links you find useless. There are sometimes alternate sources though.

A lot of "hits" using bios strings are on forums that are nothing but a whole string of people asking for the same information, the same request for a bios update, etc.

I mostly use Yahoo to search with - even though it uses Google, it uses it in a different way, and I get fewer useless "hits".

Like egkenny says, sometimes all the "for sure" info you have is the bios string. I can often dig up something starting with only that.

A lot of PCChips mboards can be hard to identify. They are even harder to identify if they are not in a working system. There are multiple sources for info about them, but often no one site has all the info in one place. I have already dug up info for a lot of these, and if there are multiple sources I try to give the complete picture.

The site I post at is Constructor's Corner, in Australia (I'm in Canada myself ) - 16 hours ahead of MST.
http://www.lanyoncomputers.com.au/corner/index.jsp
There are others who answer, but often it's just me. I try to answer everything I can.

For more info about this site see this post on computing.net:
http://www.computing.net/hardware/wwwboard/forum/22206.html

Thanks a million! This is very helpful info that I will save and use.