A family member said a Windows 10 system she is using for gaming is running slowly and inquired about adding additional memory to the system. I didn't know the model of the motherboard in the system nor the maximum amount of memory it could accomodate. Rather than opening up the desktop system, I checked on the manufacturer and model of the motherboard from a command-line interface (CLI) with a Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) command and found it was a Hewlett-Packard (HP) 3047h motherboard.

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19043.1766]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Colleen>wmic baseboard get product,manufacturer,model,serialnumber,version
Manufacturer     Model  Product  SerialNumber  Version
Hewlett-Packard         3047h    MXL11925F3


C:\Users\Colleen>

I also saw 3047h listed as the "baseboard product" ("baseboard" is another name used for "motherboard") when I typed System Information in the Windows "Type here to search" field and selcted that application.

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Note: you can download the MemScope Memory Tester software here. At the moment there is a missing image on the page that has a link associated with it for downloading the software. The link appears immediately below the "Test 7 Random Data Sequence Test" paragraph or you can click here to access the form you need to fill out to download the software.

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Since the system displayed the BIOS string at the bottom of the screen, I thought I should be able to identify the motherboard model from that string. The information displayed on the screen is shown below.

The BIOS string is in the last line. I know Award is the BIOS manufacturer, since I see "Award Plug and Play BIOS". The second to last group of dash separated characters, "2A5LDH09C" should hopefully identify the motherboard model. The interpretation of the BIOS string is as follows:

04/30/98-537+UMC8670F-2A5LDH09C-00

mm/dd/yy - the BIOS date in the form of month/date/year
For newer BIOS releases, you may see mm/dd/yyyy. In this case, the BIOS date is April 30, 1998.

The next group of characters after the first dash is usually used by the manufacturer for chipset and I/O name. In this case, I see "537+UMC8670F"

2A5LDH09C - the next group of dash separated characters can be interpreted as follows.

1    This character may not be present. If you don't see an "i" or "s" in the 6^th position, then the next two characters represent the manufacturer code.
2    PC Chips is just an OEM distributor for Hsing Tech.

The last group of digits, which in the case of the string "04/30/98-537+UMC8670F-2A5LDH09C-00" is "00", specify the BIOS version with "00" representing the initial release.

If I look up the chipset code 2A5LD, I see it corresponds to the VIA Apollo VPX (VXPro+) chipset. And I do see a Via chip next to the Award BIOS chip on the motherboard. The H0 after 2A5LD identifies the motherboard manufacturer as PC Chips, a distributor for Hsing Tech. At the Plasma Online website, I see that the Matsonic MS-5120 motherboard uses a VXPro+ chipset and is identical to the PC Chips M537DMA33 motherboard, so now I may be able to find a manual at the website for one of those companies which will tell me the maximum amount of memory the motherboard will support.

I went to the Matsonic website first. This company does a poor job of technical support. Not only didn't they put the model number on the motherboard, they don't provide any on-line manuals and I couldn't find any information at all on the site for the MS-5120 motherboard.

So I then went to the USA website for PC Chips at http://www.pcchipsusa.com. Fortunately, this company provides a manual for the M537D motherboard at http://www.pcchipsusa.com/support-discontinued-manuals.asp. However, that manual doesn't match my motherboard, since the USB connector on my motherboard isn't between the ISA and PCI slots as depicted in the manual, nor do the Via chip numbers shown in the manual match the numbers on the ones on my motherboard.

Fortunately, a Google search did provide a link to a site with Matsonic manuals. The manual for the MS-5120 motherboard indicates it can handle a maximum of 384 MB of memory. The manual states SIMM 3,4 and DIMM1 can not be use at the same time.

References:

1. IC Book
2. ID HW

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