remove cmos battery

[rick O'shea]

Howdy Friends & Neighbors,

My Sis just picked up a used Packard Bell w/W95. She asked me if I'd help her install 98. I said "of course". I started it up, and it seemed to go through at least a partial setup (running the memory, and that sort of stuff), but then it went to a prompt asking for a password. CMOS password? This is what I believe it wants. I've tried the "bell9,bios,cmos" etc..... nothing will get me passed this stage... Now .... If I remove the CMOS battery to dissolve whatever password was there... will the master cd restore it, or would there be a problem with the BIOS/CMOS at all?
Thanx,
Rick

 

[Nothingface]

You need a cmos battery in there. if you remove the old one, be sure to get a new one. I'm not sure if that will remove the password, but i'm pretty sure it will. The restore cd should work just fine. Has nothing to do with your battery.

 

[rick O'shea]

Thanx Nothingface, .....
There IS a CMOS battery in there, but what I'm wondering is .........
1: If I remove it for a while then replace it ..... will that erase the passwords saved on it?

2: If I perform the preceding actions ....... will I lose my CMOS/BIOS configurations?

3: If I lose the CMOS/BIOS configs .... will that "master cd" restore the data?

Does that make more sense?
~Rick

 

[rick O'shea]

OK ALL ........... Nothingface seems to have tempoarily dizzapeared. Does anybody else have some advice/intel on this matter?
Thanz Y'all,
~Rick

 

[rick O'shea]

OK Everybody .......
It's time for beddy-bye .... and off I go.
Tomorrow I'll go back to my sisters place. Remove the CMOS battery/replace, and see what happens .... if anyone knows something else I should do .... please let me know... otherwise .. I will post the results tomorrow afternoon.
Thanx,
~Rick

 

[HuskerDu?]

Removing the cmos battery and leaving it out for several hours will completely drain the cmos charge and clear any stored info.
Depending on your motherboard model, there may be a pwd jumper setting on the the board. You can disable the BIOS password from there if so.

 

[pyritechips]

Removing the cmos battery and leaving it out for several hours will completely drain the cmos charge and clear any stored info.

I agree with this. My BIOS/mobo for example states, to clear the CMOS move the jumper from pins 1 and 2 to pins 2 and 3 for "several seconds".

No!

I tried that and it does not work. I even removed the battery for up to 10 minutes. I finally left the battery out and the power cable removed overnight.

Doing this merely resets the BIOS to factory default. Any settings changes you have made to the BIOS will be lost.

 

[pyritechips]

*Footnote*

Resetting the CMOS also set back the system clock to to its time of creation. I reset mine 3 days ago and discovered that it was the 3rd of Jan, 2001.

Whenever resetting your CMOS, immediately set the proper time and date. Software, especially trialware, depends upon an accurate time and date and may malfunction if program and system time do not match.

 

[HuskerDu?]

I would suggest ID'ing the mobo and hunting down a schematic and/or pdf of the set-up info for the board to determine how best to accomplish this if all else fails.

 

[rick O'shea]

HuskerDu? & Pyritechips,
Thanx for the feedback. Turns out my darling sister has agreed to do a "drive by" and toss this machine on my front lawn monday morning. This will much easier and more fun, as I'll get to tear into it on my own time and get a better look at that mother ........board. Jumpers? That would be great. After I get to play with this a bit I'll post back with details.
Thanx~Rick

 

[MadDogMugsy]

I just read this on another thread this morning

There is an application out there that can delete the password ... I don't know anything about it , but this is the site: http://www.utilitygeek.com/details.php?fileid=82 ... it is called KILLCMOS

cheers
MDM

 

[rick O'shea]

MDM,
Thanx ..... that's a good site to know about .... unfortunately this hunk of bolts won't even fully boot before the password is "requested". So this afternoon I'll get my chance to pop it open and have a look. ~Rick

 

[jimi]

Rick battery removal, and you don't need a new one, re-use the old one, just leave it out for awhile and bios setting will get wiped. the killcmos program works fine also, download it to a floppy and boot from the floppy, this bypasses the requested password. but as PC said both methods will reset your system date & time, and any other bios changes that were made but for the most part you shouldn't have to worry about them.

 

[rick O'shea]

Hello out there,
I hope I'm not offending anyone by saying this, but that Packard Bell is the best paper weight I've ever had .... don't think it's good for much else.
I did a little research, and found out that it has a pb680 mobo. I used the jumpers (J1F2A) to disable the password (moved them from 1-2 to 2-3). This worked and allowed me access to the wonders lurking inside .... wadda mess! So thanks people for the replies, and good advice ... see ya next time.
~Rick