1) Use your systems credential program instaled by Packard Bell. Click here to see where this program is located.  This is a graet program that will tell you all kinds of facts on what your system had on it when it left the factory, however if you upgrade this program will not be able to detect the changes.  I have even seen some NEC computers were using this program.

2)  If you do not have this program (As some older models don't) you can download it from my web site site off my PB tools page.   You may also need to reinstal this program if you added a new hard drive.  If you want to be suure this file is not on your system use the find feature of Win 95 to find the file "Syscred.exe".

3)  Some older model had a printed page with this information on it.  In this case simply find your system type (AKA motherboard number) on your systems credentials page. Not all system have this sheet.
 
 

4)  Another method is to Look on the back or bottom of you computer and find a label (as seen on the right). On this label you will find a line that reads FCC ID:. After the FCC ID: is a series of letters and numbers, the first three numbers refer to your system type. For example mine reads FCC ID:FOD640pt. This shows that I have the PB 640 motherboard.  Not all system have these labels.  5) Go to Packard Bell's Upgrade Page, here you enter in your serial number or manufactures number and then it will connect you to a page about your computer (if you are lucky, some pages are not complete and you will get an error message).

6)  Read your bios when your computer boots up,  then go to my PB Pentium System chart, here you will find a chart with the BIOS found in all PB Pentium systems.  Look down the BIOS column and find the BIOS you have, then follow the row to the right or left and you will see your motherboard number.   Unfortunatly if you have a 486 you will have to use the other methods.

7)  Open your case and compare your motherboard to the motherboard diagrams, these diagrams are found below on this page.

8)  If all else fails Email Packard Bell, they have been known to help people identify motherboards.

Please see my complete Complete list of PB motherboards for more information.

These are the same pictures which are included in you on line manual from Packard Bell (Packard Bell did a nice job making these pictures).
• PB 450 - ????
• PB 520 - Robin
• PB 520r - Robin LC
• 540/550/560 - Williams board or Robin LX, not sure which one
• PB 570/580/590/620/630/650 - The Hillary Series
• PB 600 - Agoura/Wildcat
• PB 640- Thousand Oaks
• PB 660 - Fair Oaks
• PB 680/685/688 - Orlando
• PB760 - Portland, maual name is Tbptsyst.mvb
• PB 770 - C1
• PB 790 - Anchorage "Sea Wolf is the manual name"
• PB 800 - Atlanta
• PB 810 or  PB 810 -  BCM FM530
• MB 860 - This is one of the motherboards with the Cyrix chip
• MB 880 - ?????
Being the newest members the last three motherboards are the ones we know the least about.  Packard Bell is slow to release the information, and therefore it leaves a consumer like me to spend lots of time digging to figure it all out.  If I get lucky one of you will send me an E-mail with some of the answers.  There may even be more motherboards, but this is what I have so far.


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With all this talk about the motherboard I am starting to think that the model name means nothing. Well, that is true in my opinion. The motherboard determines upgradeability and the model name referers to the whole package, an example of this is a Platinum I has a 1Gig hard drive, 4X CD Rom, 16 MB Ram, 133 MHz Processor 14.4 Fax/288 Modem Etc.., However the Platinum I, has been known to have the 600 and the 640 motherboards. This is true with many Packard Bell Models. The motherboard you get will probably be determined by when you buy the computer. I have seen mostly PB 680/688/685 motherboards in the stores recently.

It is a lot of work trying to figure out the differences between models, because you have to jump from web page to web page. Try it for your self by visiting PB web site, New Model Section.