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e usual award 6 00 bios not really surprising for a mobile development platform phoenix bios were much more common in laptop the boot strings include for evaluation only not for resale and via twister vt8603 via686a 12669r01 101 with a build date on 2001 05 16 the configuration menu is quite nice i would have liked to find other system based on vt8603 twister or pn133 chipset but i couldn t find a single one if you have any information about a computer using this northbridge just let me know in the comments i ll add it here author doc tb posted on 2026 06 21 2026 08 09 categories mb analysis 3 comments on via s graveyard exhuming the vt5329e pn133 development board via s graveyard reviving the vt5910a early c7 m unknown cn900 chipset the vt5910a development board is one of the most interesting boards from the cemetery unfortunately i received it in fairly poor condition all the heatsinks had been brutally torn off there were scratches on both sides of the pcb several connectors were damaged pin headers were bent some traces were cut and thermal grease was spread everywhere after some initial cleaning this is what it looked like via vt5910a development board i repaired most of the damaged connectors and pcb traces but the board still had 12 v shorted to ground somewhere i eventually traced the short to one of the dead decoupling capacitors which was visibly bulging and leaking original caps bulging and leaking replaced capacitors and new heatsinks after replacing all the defective capacitors with brand new rubycon caps i had to find suitable replacement heatsinks the cpu cooler uses a 41 41 mm mounting hole spacing similar to the pentium m reference cooler i found a compatible one reassembled everything with fresh thermal paste powered the board on and it booted now let s take a closer look at what this board actually is the vt5910a is a full size atx development board assembled in mid 2005 with many features that were still in an early stage at the time the soldered engineering sample cpu is a via c7 m clocked at 1 80 ghz in a nanobga2 package with cpuid 0x6a9 this processor had only just been announced and mass availability would not come until the following year my original c7 review on x86 secret com was published in may 2006 via c7 m 1 80 ghz engineering sample the c7 m based on the esther c5j core is a low power x86 microprocessor family introduced by via in 2005 and designed by centaur technology fabricated on a 90 nm process it targets embedded mobile and compact desktop systems where power efficiency and small form factor are more important than high end performance the c7 implements a single core ia 32 architecture with support for common simd extensions up to sse3 and it includes via s padlock security engine for hardware assisted the esther core connects to the chipset through via s proprietary v4 front side bus with effective bus rates commonly specified at 400 533 or 800 mt s depending on the processor model although the package was mechanically related to intel s pentium m socket 479 ecosystem the v4 bus did not use intel s agtl quad pumped qdr electrical interface it was a via specific signaling implementation intended to provide similar platform integration without being electrically compatible with intel s bus to avoid legal issues on the vt5910a the cpu is linked to the unreleased and even unannounced cn900 chipset unreleased via cn900 northbridge while the cn400 cn700 and cn800 are well documented i have not found any public reference to a cn900 chipset this northbridge shares the same pci id and bios reference id as the p4m800 pro which was announced in september 2005 the p4m800 pro was originally designed for the pentium 4 bus then later adapted for via s c7 bus and eventually released as the cn700 internally both the p4m800 pro and cn700 are known as the vt3344 northbridge the later cn800 dropped agp in favor of pci express so it is clearly a newer chip my best guess is that cn900 was a preliminary development name that was later changed to cn700 the cn900 includes an integrated s3 unichrome pro igp internally connected through agp 8x it also supports an external agp 8x slot both ddr and ddr2 memory are supported the vt5910a development board has two ddr2 slots supporting up to ddr2 667 and one ddr slot supporting up to ddr 400 this is rather uncommon but it makes sense for a development board intended to test both memory generations the pll and dip switches show a supported fsb range from 100 mhz all the way up to 400 mhz which is quite extreme another very interesting aspect of the vt5910a is the southbridge it uses the vt8251 early vt8251 southbridge back in 2005 via like many other third party chipset suppliers was still tied to the aging vt8237 southbridge it lacked several modern technologies introduced by intel in 2003 and 2004 including hd audio sata ii and most importantly pci express the vt8251 southbridge present on this board was still at an early stage of development it is quite rare to find a board combining pci amr agp and pci express slots the bios bootup string is cc591015 evaluation rom not for sale and the bios id string is 09 13 2005 p4m800pro 823 6a7l6009c 00 menus have various debugging settings as expected the 6a7l6009c identifier was also used on some commercial boards featuring the p4m800 pro such as the msi ms 7104 and the top star tm p5m8pro however both of those boards use the older vt8237 southbridge the only known commercial board pairing the p4m800 pro with the vt8251 southbridge appears to be the asus p5vdc mx the vt5910a bios is available here for download vt5910a_bios author doc tb posted on 2026 06 08 categories mb analysis leave a comment on via s graveyard reviving the vt5910a early c7 m unknown cn900 chipset via s graveyard autopsy of the vt5426d first step to mini itx at first sight the vt5426d board is very similar to the previously analyzed vt5292a both are based on the apollo ple133 chipset with a vt8601a northbridge and large areas of the pcb especially around the cpu and vrms are almost identical on the newer board we can also notice the lack of a third sdram slot the missing isa slot and the last pci slot replaced with an acr slot physically a reversed pci slot slightly shifted toward the rear via vt5426d development board the acr advanced communication riser was a short lived pc expansion card standard introduced around 2000 as a successor or alternative to amr and cnr it was developed by the acr special interest group founded by companies including 3com amd ali conexant lucent motorola and via it provided a low cost riser slot for communication and multimedia functions such as software modems lan broadband wireless networking and ac 97 audio while relying on the motherboard chipset for much of the logic in practice acr was mainly used on a limited number of early 2000s motherboards and was quickly phased out by more integrated onboard functions acr slot but the main difference is obviously the southbridge as the vt5426d is based on the newer via vt8231 while the previous vt5292a used the older 686b the difference between the two is small basically the vt8231 is a 686b with an integrated 10 100 ethernet mac controller that s quite strange because the vt5426d does not have an onboard phy to make it usable my first guess was that this board may have been used specifically to debug an acr card which could carry a simple phy and provide a cheap network interface but the timeline does not quite match this vt5426d is a late 2001 board using an early 2002 chipset while the first acr 1 0 specification was announced in february 2000 almost two years earlier so why the hell did via produce a new development motherboard lacking the required phy and rj45 connector to test the only new feature of its new southbridge let s try to boot this board and continue the investigation fortunately as with the previous one it has very little damage and no bad capacitors i promise this won t be the case with all the other boards the board booted fine on the first try the award bios string identifier for the vt5426d is 01 15 2001 601 8231 6a6lo009c 00 the startup string is 601a0115 evaluation rom not for sale that s quite interesting the bios is dated january 2001 while the board appears to have been assembled more than a year later the chipset manufacturing date is late february 2002 this is very unusual as bioses from this era were usually updated quite frequently to support the latest cpus the only reason to use such an old bios would be for a fixed hardware configuration over a long term period for example with the same cpu indeed all mentions of settings dedicated to supporting various cpus which were present on the vt5292a have been removed from the pcb silkscreen but the most obvious hint about the true nature of this board is the bios identifier 6a6lo009c this exact id was used by via for the very first epia board announced in april 2002 epia for e mbedded p latform i nnovative a rchitecture was via s compact motherboard family for low power embedded and small form factor x86 systems introduced in the early 2000s as part of the company s push toward highly integrated platform designs built around via c3 eden processors and via chipsets epia boards combined the cpu graphics audio networking storage and legacy i o on very small mini itx boards a very compact 17 17 cm form factor introduced at the same time and still used today it looks like via gradually shrank a ple133 reference board from microatx to the initially proposed itx form factor and finally to the much more ambitious mini itx form factor with the following timeline january 2001 vt5426d development microatx form factor 24 4 x 24 4 cm socket 370 march 2001 vt6009 development board in the first proposed itx form factor 21 5 x 19 1 cm socket 370 note the acr port following the success of this board at cebit 2002 via probably decided to shrink the form factor even more november 2001 vt6010 reference board for the final mini itx form factor 17 x 17 cm soldered via eden esp low voltage via c3 april 2002 first commercial mini itx boards under the epia line soldered c3 epia 800 fan or eden esp 5000 fangless cpu via vt6009 itx ref board via vt6010 mini itx ref board epia mini itx commercial board all these boards are based on the apollo ple133 chipset with the vt8231 southbridge and use the same overall schematics with the same pll audio codec bios flash chip and a similar architecture these boards were so similar and the vt5426d shares so much with the final epia board including its bios identifier that i had a crazy idea what would happen if i flashed the commercial epia bios onto the vt5426d had via removed support for intel cpus from the final epia bios considering that commercial epia boards were only available with soldered via cpus or had they kept the code inherited from older development boards which supported any socket 370 cpu let s try it epia 800 commercial bios booting on vt5426d board bingo the board booted immediately with the epia logo and was fully functional except for the missing network part it s quite odd to see a via epia bios running with an intel celeron coppermine cpu so in the end the best guess is that the vt5426d was the missing link that ultimately led to the first epia mini itx board you can download the original vt5426d bios dated 01 15 2001 here vt5426d_bios author doc tb posted on 2026 05 27 categories mb analysis leave a comment on via s graveyard autopsy of the vt5426d first step to mini itx via s graveyard booting the vt5292a apollo ple133 reference board let s continue the series with another one of the least damaged boards the vt5292a built around the apollo ple133 chipset with a vt8601a northbridge and a via vt82c686b southbridge this chipset was the direct successor to the mvp4 in via s integrated chipset line with built in graphics this time we have socket 370 and three sdram slots supporting pc66 pc100 and pc133 modules up to 1 5 gb the igp is still from trident but upgraded to their blade3d line the 686b southbridge supports usb 1 1 via uhci ide ata 33 66 100 ac 97 audio pci 2 2 and an integrated super i o controller it also includes an integrated pci to isa bridge the board arrived quite clean without major damage and with capacitors that were visually in good condition many jumpers were unfortunately undocumented and it took quite a long time to figure out how to boot a celeron or pentium iii coppermine the vt5292a supports fsb settings from 66 to 133 mhz and requires jumper configuration to select between three cpu types cyrix old intel and new intel the latter is obviously for coppermine cpus while the cyrix setting was targeted at via c3s formerly cyrix iii the award bios string identifier for the vt5292a is 03 20 2002 601 686b 6a6li00ac 00 the startup string is 2798a72 evaluation rom not for sale the mainboard identifier 6a6li00ac is the same as on the soyo sy 7vem which looks almost identical except for the number of dimm slots the soyo only has two slots while the vt5292a has three the location of some headers is also slightly different but it looks like soyo simply rebranded the apollo ple133 reference board as its own model which was quite common back then the bios has a lot of debugging options especially related to the ide controller this may be related to the onboard vt82c686b the first via southbridge to support ata 100 the previous 686a was limited to ata 66 the rest of the bios is quite standard with a decent temperature voltage and fan speed monitoring page the cpu temperature sensor is still external on this board with a thermocouple positioned just behind the cpu this board may look like one of the least interesting ones at first but it will soon become more important as it represents an evolutionary step toward the next board we will check the vt5426d the vt5292a motherboard bios is available here vt5292a_bios author doc tb posted on 2026 05 26 categories mb analysis leave a comment on via s graveyard booting the vt5292a apollo ple133 reference board via s graveyard resurrecting the vt5182e apollo mvp4 reference board some years ago one of the last remaining via r d facilities closed its doors and i was lucky enough to save a bunch of motherboards from the salvage bin most of them were rare reference boards and development boards from the late 90s and early 2000s with sockets ranging from socket 7 to socket a 423 or with embedded via cpus unfortunately all these boards had already been prepared for e waste with some components such as heatsinks brutally ripped off before the boards were roughly tossed into a bin causing various damage to the components and pcbs in this series i will try to get them working one by one repairing the damage they suffered and documenting my findings let s start with one of the less damaged boards this via vt5182e microatx reference motherboard is built around the apollo mvp4 chipset with a vt8501 northbridge and a via vt...