"wtf!" PCI card

a few day ago I got this in a bag full of computer parts and I have no idea what this is and havent tried it yet





Since I have no idea I'll call it a "wtf!" pci card for now! :110:
it has vga out,LAN, SCSI bus.onboard battery

anyone have any idea what this is? (sorry for the crappy pics)

 

going by the labels on the chip, its an ATI Rage XL

most likely an all in one card with lan, graphics and what not released bt ATI in the late 90s?



Ryan

 

There's also a Compaq chip there and a Compaq Computer Corp. label on the back.

 

Yeah I forgot to mention it was made by Compaq, it also has that big Intel chip and that loose flat cable...

 

Not sure, but it looks like a RIB to me. Remote Insight Board. You get them in Compaq servers and they allow you to remotely connect to the machine even when its off! So you can use the bios, see post screen etc remotely.

 

I'd say its an OEM board that combine the modem\LAN, graphics and (in some cards) sound in 1. A lot of lower-end systems used to have them, before mobo intergration was big. Those black ports on the top might be IDE\ATA. Are they?

 

The older 'compaq' model RIB boards usually have external power supplies and I don't see that on this one, the new (HP) RIBs are named iLO's (insight lights out) and are onboard instead of PCI.
Also RIB boards dont have IDE/SCSI controllers as far as I remember, while this one has Ultra Wide SCSI ports if I recognize them correctly.
So looks more like one of the previous comments about some lower end compaq server models all in one card.

 

Get the FCC ID number and look up for FCC identifier. Google those two words. Type in the code and it should give you the name of the manufacturer and when it was made and possibly a link to the website of the manufacturer.

 

Huge... even bigger than those gigantic last gen 3dfx cards. I wouldn't throw it away, it's extraordinary. Probably just an all-in-one thing for compaq PCs though.

 

a graphics card with dip switches??not likely.

 

I've seen (higher end) RAID controllers which have an onboard NIC for OS-independent configuration (even when the host OS crashed).

I'd vote as "server related", definitely not low-end combo (SCSI and the board size rules that out). But i miss RAM for a high-end RAID controller (the SDRAM seems for the graphic chip).

Don't worry about the ATI Rage being a "low end" chip. It's what server boards still uses (at least a while ago they did). My Dual-Opteron Tyan board for example has one.

 

If you confirm it is a RiB/ILO I'm interested in buying it.

 

Yeah the biggest PCI card I have is the SCSI RAID controller that came with an old Unisys Aquantia server.
Fascinating thing, has some old socketed INTEL risc cpu,its own pc speaker and ever a plastic-handle to balance it on the front side of the pc case dut to its size xD

 

Ill try to find out the exact model, but like Dr_Slump said its probably for Compaq's only :crying:

 

I've got cards like this all through my Sun and SGI machines. Back before they could cram everything on a single motherboard, they crammed everything on a few custom cards.