I looked again and the Dallas chip is socketed 😀 I removed it for a few minutes, but CMOS didn't reset. I guess it will take more time... maybe days to finally reset. Lets wait 😉

since this board has award bios, you can try various infamous universal passwords, that would always work no matter what the password is, like Award, wantgirl, and many others that you can google.

Well.. It has power-on/POST password. You can't go into BIOS and it won't boot.

kixs wrote:

Well.. It has power-on/POST password. You can't go into BIOS and it won't boot.

Try these, might be of help http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000451.htm

Perhaps you can flash the BIOS using a flasher or hot-flashing it using another motherboard?

When you said "Remove the Dallas chip" was that as in, take it out so it resets or take it out then start up the machine? If you haven't tried the latter, do it, if it works you'd just have to enter BIOS setup, loading defaults and pressing F10 then re-inserting the chip before pressing return.

Otherwise, that's tricky. You could, as others suggest, attempt to hot flash it in another machine or else attempt inserting it in another machine just as you would with a hot flash but running CmosPwd which might then work. I attempted to figure out where the CMOS Reset jumper went, pin-wise, but the only board I have to hand with a Dallas chip is a HOT-433 and as it turns out, that also has no CMOS jumper.

I removed the Dallas RTC and waited around 2 hours. Then I inserted it... but the password was still there and all the settings as I found later.

But I did try those "generic" passwords from RacconRider's link and the 2nd one did it. I could enter the BIOS and remove the password. Now it boots into Win95 😁

It is actually a 486DX-50. Will try and mess around with it for a little 😁

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The reason removing the chip didn't reset it is because that chip isn't just the battery, it also contains the NVRAM which has all the settings in it. Disconnecting that whole assembly from the board didn't keep the NVRAM from being powered, you just moved it into your hand. 😀

What HighTreason suggested might have worked though - booting the system without the NVRAM present, getting into the setup, then reinserting it before saving the settings back to defaults.

I guess BIOS passwords usually aren't high security, but those generic bypass passwords still surprises me. Interesting link.
AMI is fantastic - their backdoor passwords include such unlikely guesses as "AMI", "BIOS", and the word "PASSWORD". Wow.

Yes, what HighTreason suggested might work, but I'd try it as the last resort only. I once did a hot swap of bios flash on a DFI NF4 LanParty Ultra motherboard, but without success.

I'm just not happy that the board itself doesn't have a reset CMOS jumper. I'm not confident enough to tinker around BIOS and than not be able to reset the changes if the board doesn't POST anymore.

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It seems that the Reset jumper might short Pin 21 to either a ground pin or Pin 24...

http://www.datasheetdir.com/go-DS12887.pdf

Edit: I have a board with an Odin 12885 that connects Pin 21 it to Pin 16 at the Reset jumper, this chip doesn't have a battery on-board so this is the batteries ground pin, it appears to correspond to the pins hidden in the Dallas 12887. It is interesting to note that such a reset mechanism probably won't work if the chip has no functioning battery, either built in or external.

Edit 2: Pin 21 to Pin 12 might work.

I've played around with the board today and put in AMD 5x86-133. But there is no way to enable WB L1 cache. I tried with jumpers and in BIOS, but CHKCPU always show WT mode.

Anyway it is nice to see it being faster then my other 486 motherboard Chaintech 486SPM - it is almost 10% faster with the same setup. I wonder what WB would bring to the table 😉

I checked again the jumpers on the board and one jumper is indeed set to WT - JP12, but if I set it to WB, then the board wouldn't even POST. 😕

I noticed one more thing. There are some "connectors" (I don't know what they are called) that configure CPU type - Intel & AMD has the same settigns and have two of these. Like on this picture (not my setup) - arrows pointing at them:

On my board I only have one "connector" on RN5. How can I connect these if I don't have that connector?

This is the only difference left. I don't know why else wouldn't board POST if set to WB.