I got the Bad Bios Blues

[unacceptable_risk]

Just a quick one here.

I have an old Dual pentium board from ebay.

Stuck 2 p100's onto it and it boots up fine till it needs a disk of sorts.

Thats when I discovered the previous owners bios password lock. Which they can't remember.

So I have confirmed that there A: is no reset jumpers on the board, B: The battery is fixed, and C: the floppy wont fly, so even the new bios that I have to burn here is useless.

So I am about to pull the bios out of the board (should clear it),
and I wanted to know if anyone thinks that its a terrible idea?

Am I going to kill it? Ive pulled many a bios b4 but never from a MB that I was interested in keping.

Cheers all

[sptw]

There's a way to clear the CMOS by software, but unfortunately your floppy don't fly.
Is this installed in a socket or is this soldered directly to your motherboard?The second option will be a bad idea, but if it's in a socket, go ahead.Remember, the chip has a notch on one end. This notch identifies the orientation of the chip in the socket.Be sure to note the orientation of the chip before it is removed.Try to remove the chip without bending or distorting the pins.And for last, remember that ESD (Electro Static Discharge) can damage the chip, then be careful.One more thing, the password is on the CMOS, not in the bios itself, then i'm not sure if this operation can clear the cmos, i'would try to disassemble the battery though.

Good luck.

[unacceptable_risk]

Thanks muchly for your feedback,

I am chasing up the i/o card from the previous owner(no onboard floppy controller) if I can get the same card in the right slot I will be in business. I will probly try to upgrade bios all in 1 go. Fingers crossed, he didnt sound too helpful tho.


the battery,is of a sort I am not familiar with. the only thing on this board that could be a battery is a rectangular black plastic box which is soldered flush to the board it is marked (BENCHMARQ b24287mt) doesn,t look as straight forward as pulling the chip.

I have had many dealings with these chips and am confident of not breaking it. If damaging the chip is the only reason to leave it, and I can't get the i/o , I'll pull it.

Will let you know how it turns out, thanks again


:poke2:

[sptw]

the battery,is of a sort I am not familiar with. the only thing on this board that could be a battery is a rectangular black plastic box which is soldered flush to the board it is marked (BENCHMARQ b24287mt) doesn,t look as straight forward as pulling the chip.

I know what you are talking about.Yes, this rectangular black plastic box is a another type of battery, a real-time clock battery sometimes called RTC .In fact it is a CMOS with battery inside the box.The coin inside this is sized to provide ten years of data retention and clock operation in the absence of the power, then even if this little chip could be removed, it could not clear the CMOS.Look, try to found out the brand and model of your motherboard.There's some versions of this Real-Time Clock (RTC) Module from Benchmarq with the addition of the Ram Clear Input option.Unfortunately Benchmarq seems to be out of the market, and i could not find anything related to this version (b24287mt), but maybe you are in luck and can find something in the manual of your motherboards.

[unacceptable_risk]

Well, I just learned something about RTC modules.

They are much like a chip with a box over it, and much like a chip it inserts into a socket.

but the wording in the manual is misleading. When they say that the battery may be replaced, they do not mean that the plastic box will clip off the module as I assumed.:o

What they mean is that the whole rtc will lift away neatly with a chip puller or the like. So if you lever one end of said box with a finger, you will do rude things to the pins when it pops out.

Anyway, it's out. I levered the pins gently back into alignment and re inserted it.

I will post again to say whether it worked, or will never work again.:2guns: ..............................:D

[sptw]

I realized that Texas Instruments incorporated Benchmarq.Now benchmarq is a part of TI.Well, i found out that this code number that you wrote above is wrong, the correct is BQ4287.It's a RTC Module With 114x8 NVSRAM and NVSRAM Control.
Well, i don't think it can be usefull for you, anyway here's the BQ4287 RTC datasheet (http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/productfolder.jhtml?genericPartNumber=BQ4287&pfsection=desc).

[unacceptable_risk]

Wow, you had much more sucess at TI than I, Taa.

I have some pictures here, one is the benchmarq in all its gory, the others are of another similar unit that conveniently poped open when provoked. It tells a story of simplicity really.

The Bq is heavilly glued together, almost waterproofed:rolleyes: , but if I can get safely into the casing I should be able to put a reset switch on the top of it and even replace the button, prior to its imminent failure.

I should mention that the manual says"¯PASSWORD CLEAR
If you want to clear the PASSWORD that previously entered fro CMOS
memory, you may press < INS/0> key and power on until memory counting
compelete.
This function will clear CMOS memory include PASSWORD."

I have tried and tried this technique, if it works- I'll be stuffed how. And so I have options,,,,,but interesting ones.

[sptw]

Hey, good pictures :)

There's another option to solve your problem.You can get a new bq4287.Texas Instrument use to be very friendly when request a samples.Unfortunately, i could not see Texas Intrument in Australia, but in accord with Texas'site the bq4287 is still active.I used to request Texas for some chips and books samples in the past, and they used to do it for free.Look for the bq4287 link above.There's a request samples there.Use your mind :rolleyes:
In negative case, Digi-Key (http://www.digikey.com/TI.DKS$M=BQ4287MT-SB2) has one for $8.18 (Texas sell the 1K package for $4.12 :D :)
And for last DS14287 (http://www.maxim-ic.com/quick_view2.cfm/qv_pk/2717) is the similar one from Dallas (http://www.dalsemi.com/), maybe you can find one nearest you.Dallas sell the 1k package for $4.13.

[tripodal]

lets have some benchmarks of it now

[unacceptable_risk]

Hello people,

I really should have realized by its glued tight look, that the BQ RTC was in fact resin filled.

So I tried a couple that I had sourced from the parts pile to no avail. As a last ditch effort, I dropped the open one from the previous pic in and booted er up.

To my delight I sailed straight into the bios. Here things seemed fine but on closer inspection, things like the calender in standard settings was scrolling randomly at speed etc. Also the bat was flat, which may have aided my efforts in this case.

So after a few attempts, I worked out at which point I could swap chips while the system was on. Thus Fooling my way in and resetting the Pword on the Benchmarq RTC.

Problem solved, 5 minutes ago I got a bootup from floppy and hd recognition etc. I will post some stats to chuclke at asap.

Thanks to all those who helped.:)