The BIOS reset jumper is left of the coin battery holder.
If you take the battery out, the board doesn't forget the settings immediately, you have to let it sit for some time without battery.

Good suggestions 5u3, I tried the jumper then I pulled the battery for 2 hours while I took the dog for a walk but it’s still asking for a password.

The seller just replied to me and said it didn’t have one and when he booted the machine it said floppy fail because he didn’t have one plugged it. With a drive attached it asks me for a password after its detected. I don’t know what to try now.

Google BIOS passwords

There are many backdoor passwords available.

Many thanks Vetz, there was a list at http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000451.htm award password 36 almost at the end of the list.

It was TTPHTHA

this original post was from 2010? 5 euro for a 486SP3? why have the prices changed so much and can we blame feipoa's OC experiments?:)

rgart wrote:

this original post was from 2010? 5 euro for a 486SP3? why have the prices changed so much and can we blame feipoa's OC experiments?:)

This is just the beginning 😀 They will only go up from here. That's why I wouldn't worry too much about prices, just try not to get ripped of too hard.

potentially what do you think the shelf life of 286, 386 and 486 parts are? I would not count on them as a long term investment.

Hard to tell but the boards back in the days are built to last. The caps might need replacing though. There will always be a market for this kind of stuff.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Hard to tell but the boards back in the days are built to last. The caps might need replacing though. There will always be a market for this kind of stuff.

486 boards are going to be long lived. Most don't have any electrolytic caps on them to go bad. They don't have elaborate voltage regulators like later boards which require filtering caps as the 5v rail comes right from the power supply and 3.3v is handled by a simple VRM. The components that do require electrolytics are all on expansion cards (serial/parallel and sound in particular
) and aren't exposed to most of the heat stresses that may encounter if they were on the motherboard.

Sorry to bring back a dead thread, but I just flashed my BIOS using the attached 1998 BIOS - 3.07 (SI4I0307) version, but now I seem to have lost my primary and secondary IDE interfaces, and I cannot get the BIOS to see anything (at all) on these two channels.

I tried flashing to an earlier 1996 BIOS - 3.05 (SI4I0305.AWD) using PFlash after finding the following link, but I had the same issue.
http://www.elhvb.com/mobokive/archive/Systema … os/sp3-bios.exe

Luckily, I saved the original BIOS image to floppy prior to flashing. Once I restored that, the 2GB drive was recognized on the primary IDE channel again. I've tried multiple IDE drives to no avail.

Any ideas??

Check if the board is an A or B revision. Look here on how to find out the revision. AFAIR only the earlier BIOS updates worked on the A revision boards.

5u3 wrote:

Check if the board is an A or B revision. Look here on how to find out the revision. AFAIR only the earlier BIOS updates worked on the A revision boards.

Looks like I have: 496 MU + 497 MW = revision A4

What is the latest BIOS I can get to? Anything that would get me passed the Y2K bug or 528MB hard drive limitation?

Artex wrote:

Looks like I have: 496 MU + 497 MW = revision A4
What is the latest BIOS I can get to? Anything that would get me passed the Y2K bug or 528MB hard drive limitation?

Unfortunately I cannot tell for sure because I only have newer revisions of the board. The only bit of relevant information seems to be this:

si4i0101.zip PVI-486SP3 A4 version chipset BIOS 0101. […]
Show full quote

si4i0101.zip PVI-486SP3 A4 version chipset BIOS 0101.

si4i0205.zip
PVI-486SP3 BIOS rev. 0205.
1. Support Cyrix DX4 CPU.
2. Support AMD DX4-120Mhz CPU.
3. Support disable on board secondary IDE controller.

si4i0305.zip
PVI-486SP3 (SiS 496/497 B ver. chipset) M/B, Plug and Play BIOS rev. 0305. 04/06/96
1. This BIOS do not support A4 version chipset.
2. Fix Crystal sound card hang with UMC IO.
3. Fix hang on PnP init when warmboot.
4. Fix ICU configuration error if ECP DMA disabled.

si4i0306.zip
PVI-486SP3 (SiS 496/497 B ver. chipset) M/B, Plug and Play BIOS rev. 0306. 07/06/96
1. Update to Award BIOS version 4.51PG.
2. Modify Int10 for Mono display.

There also is a final beta rev. 0307 BIOS with the Y2K fixes (It's posted somewhere on VOGONS).

5u3 wrote:

Unfortunately I cannot tell for sure because I only have newer revisions of the board. The only bit of relevant information seem […]
Show full quote

Artex wrote:

Looks like I have: 496 MU + 497 MW = revision A4
What is the latest BIOS I can get to? Anything that would get me passed the Y2K bug or 528MB hard drive limitation?

Unfortunately I cannot tell for sure because I only have newer revisions of the board. The only bit of relevant information seems to be this:

si4i0101.zip PVI-486SP3 A4 version chipset BIOS 0101. […]
Show full quote

si4i0101.zip PVI-486SP3 A4 version chipset BIOS 0101.

si4i0205.zip
PVI-486SP3 BIOS rev. 0205.
1. Support Cyrix DX4 CPU.
2. Support AMD DX4-120Mhz CPU.
3. Support disable on board secondary IDE controller.

si4i0305.zip
PVI-486SP3 (SiS 496/497 B ver. chipset) M/B, Plug and Play BIOS rev. 0305. 04/06/96
1. This BIOS do not support A4 version chipset.
2. Fix Crystal sound card hang with UMC IO.
3. Fix hang on PnP init when warmboot.
4. Fix ICU configuration error if ECP DMA disabled.

si4i0306.zip
PVI-486SP3 (SiS 496/497 B ver. chipset) M/B, Plug and Play BIOS rev. 0306. 07/06/96
1. Update to Award BIOS version 4.51PG.
2. Modify Int10 for Mono display.

There also is a final beta rev. 0307 BIOS with the Y2K fixes (It's posted somewhere on VOGONS).

So it looks like I may be out of luck, since I tried both the 305 and 307 BIOS versions and they both yielded the same IDE controller issue. I'll prolly just swap it with my second PVI-486SP3 which is the last revision (B4 Version chipset: SIS 496 OR, SIS 497 OT) and give that a go.

Artex wrote:

So it looks like I may be out of luck, since I tried both the 305 and 307 BIOS versions and they both yielded the same IDE controller issue.

Yeah. With the A revisions it might be better to avoid the onboard CMD640 controller and use an IDE or SCSI controller card instead.

5u3 wrote:

Artex wrote:

So it looks like I may be out of luck, since I tried both the 305 and 307 BIOS versions and they both yielded the same IDE controller issue.

Yeah. With the A revisions it might be better to avoid the onboard CMD640 controller and use an IDE or SCSI controller card instead.

Will do! Thanks for your help - greatly appreciated.

5u3 wrote:

A newer beta BIOS (v. 3.07) exists, it fixes the year2k bug. It does introduce a few more bugs however (at least on my board).

Congratulations, you found the base of the ultimate 486. 😁

What bugs did you experience after flashing your BIOS to v3.07?

Soupdragon wrote:

I just bought one of these mainboards from eBay but it has a system password as well as a bios password applied. I removed the b […]
Show full quote

I just bought one of these mainboards from eBay but it has a system password as well as a bios password applied. I removed the battery and its not reset them. I cant see a jumper on the board related to resetting it.

I have emailed the seller and I awaiting his response. But does anyone here have any suggestions on other things I could try to reset it.

Thanks

James

I would flash an eeprom with the latest BIOS and swap the chip on the Board.
Good idea?

jesolo wrote:

5u3 wrote:

A newer beta BIOS (v. 3.07) exists, it fixes the year2k bug. It does introduce a few more bugs however (at least on my board).

Congratulations, you found the base of the ultimate 486. 😁

What bugs did you experience after flashing your BIOS to v3.07?

IIRC (it's been five years), the main issue was that ctrl-alt-del resets didn't work any more when the CPU was in protected mode.

I love this board. I had my first in 1996 and recently (re)built the ultimate 486-class machine on one I found on eBay.

AMD 5x86 160 w/ Tseng ET4000/W32p VLB at 40MHz

http://www.bytecellar.com/2013/11/26/setting- … -class-dos-box/

bp