ZeroSystem wrote on 2025-08-20, 02:30:

I've been working on a Pentium for awhile and eventually got it to boot up with a CF to IDE adapter and a 528mb SD card. After getting MSDOS 6.22 and then Win95 working on the system I decided to try and get a larger SD card to work with it. I was attempting to get a 4gb SD card to work when I noticed that during POST I would get an error stating the CMOS battery wasn't working, so I decided to replace it without doing any research whatsoever. Big mistake. Thinking I could just swap out the battery without any issues I did just that and found that PC immediately behaving differently. At first things seemed normal however some of the test of the POST sequence was now in a different language. Also, before any changes were made, the PC always asked me to press either F1 to resume boot up or F2 to enter setup (BIOS) after it POST. After I made the change of CMOS battery it would only give me the option to enter setup (text being in a different language) and when selecting setup would freeze the PC. Hoping I could reset the CMOS I unplugged the PC for 15+ minutes without a CMOS battery installed. Now the PC does not send any video signal at all. I'm not certain but I believe the motherboard I am dealing with is this one: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/intel- … 0bx-2-seattle-2

I will attach some pictures of the MB since I'm not sure if I am correct . Appreciate any and all help with this issue!

Motherboard ID looks correct.

By changing the battery you'll have lost previous BIOS settings which will need reset thru the setup program (default language is usually US English but this can be overridden). If F2 won't let you into setup, read the attached PDF and try forcing it into config mode by moving the configuration jumper (pictured) one pin to the right when powered off and then reboot.

As mentioned above, the BIOS have three modes of operation.

You were both correct, by switching the jumper I was able to gain access to the BIOS and got everything back up and running again with it's original 528mb SD card. Although I do want to try to upgrade the SD card to a larger size still, that will have to wait for another day. Right now I'm just glad this turned out to be a simple fix, as this had me a bit worried at first I'll admit! Thanks for the help!

I've only had a handful of Intel motherboards over the years, but I've never encountered this. If I had a motherboard that had this feature, it must have had the jumper set to "Setup mode."