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Resetting Olivetti M380/XP9 system password

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First post, by HomeLate

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I'm trying to reset the system password on an Olivetti M380/XP9 with a BA832 motherboard (BIOS Rev 1.07).

Here's what I've tried so far:

- Removed the CMOS battery and left it out for an extended period — no effect. The password prompt persists.
- Tried common default passwords (OLIVETTI, blank, etc.) — none worked.
- Located and removed the PAL chip at U104 (identified as PWPRO — password protection — in the Olivetti service documentation) — the system would not boot without it, so this isn't viable.
- I have the original Olivetti Setup Utility diskette, but the password prompt appears before the system will boot from floppy, so I can't use it.

From the Olivetti service manual I can see the BA832 uses an 82C206 integrated peripherals controller, and the Extended Setup references both CMOS RAM (64 bytes) and a separate NV RAM area. The password appears to live in NV RAM.

What I'm looking for:
- Any information on the specific NV RAM chip used on the BA832 board and how to clear or replace it
- Whether anyone has experience with the 82C206 and knows of a hardware method to reset its NV RAM
- Whether it's possible to reset the password

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Reply 1 of 10, by weedeewee

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Interesting...
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/olivet … p9-ba832,-ba839
no photo or bios available.

Any chance you could provide those ?
Clear photos can be used to find any possible nvram chip that might contain a password
Bios files might be altered to bypass any password prompt.

Right to repair is fundamental. You own it, you're allowed to fix it.
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https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Serial_port

Reply 2 of 10, by HomeLate

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I'll submit some photos soon on the Retroweb. I'll also upload an image of both 27256 chips.

Here's a picture of the mainboard. I'll make a better picture soon for the Retroweb:

The attachment image-1773419600765.jpg is no longer available

This is the password prompt I'm seeing, halting the system to continue booting:

[attachment=-1]PXL_20260312_180202918.jpg[/attachment]

Reply 3 of 10, by HomeLate

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I managed to clear the password by removing the P82C206 from the mainboard. Next to the RTC, this chip contains also a small portion of RAM to store CMOS settings. It's unclear to me, that after removing a dead backup battery, the CMOS settings still were stored in the chip.
The chip is socketed and I used a good PLCC chip extractor tool. Once pulled, I placed the chip back in its socket and I got a CMOS ram error while booting. The password was gone and I'm able to enter the bios settings.

Reply 5 of 10, by rasz_pl

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I was going to say I dont see any batteries on that mobo. probably on teh other pcb with ISA slots somewhere.

https://github.com/raszpl/sigrok-disk FM/MFM/RLL decoder
https://github.com/raszpl/FIC-486-GAC-2-Cache-Module (AT&T Globalyst)
https://github.com/raszpl/386RC-16 ram board
https://github.com/raszpl/440BX Reference Design adapted to Kicad

Reply 6 of 10, by HomeLate

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rasz_pl wrote on 2026-03-15, 18:42:

I was going to say I dont see any batteries on that mobo. probably on teh other pcb with ISA slots somewhere.

It still had the original 6v battery pack inside form 1989. Fortunately no corrosion.

Reply 7 of 10, by weedeewee

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HomeLate wrote on 2026-03-16, 16:00:
rasz_pl wrote on 2026-03-15, 18:42:

I was going to say I dont see any batteries on that mobo. probably on teh other pcb with ISA slots somewhere.

It still had the original 6v battery pack inside form 1989. Fortunately no corrosion.

makes one wonder.... Does that battery pack still measure any voltage ?

Right to repair is fundamental. You own it, you're allowed to fix it.
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Do not ask Why !
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Serial_port

Reply 8 of 10, by Predator99

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Interesting...would have been fun to patch the password verification out of the BIOS. Unfortunately you found a better way 😀

Reply 9 of 10, by DaveDDS

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Old dead batteries can still provide a little ... and CMOS backup doesn't take much. In fact even internal capacitance of devices on the board can keep CMOS content, sometimes for a surprisingly long time.

Best way to clear CMOS is not-only to remove the battery, but also short the battery input to ground and leave it for several minutes (If I'm not in a hurry, I might leave it overnight). Even better, ground the power input to the CMOS chip (some NV designs have effective diodes which prevent reverse discharge through the battery section).

Don't forget to remove the short to ground and reconnect the battery before power-on.

- Dave ; https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ; "Daves Old Computers" ; SW dev addict best known:
ImageDisk: rd/wr ANY floppy PChardware can ; Micro-C: compiler for DOS+ManySmallCPU ; DDLINK: simple/small FileTrans(w/o netSW)via Lan/Lpt/Serial

Reply 10 of 10, by HomeLate

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weedeewee wrote on 2026-03-16, 16:20:
HomeLate wrote on 2026-03-16, 16:00:
rasz_pl wrote on 2026-03-15, 18:42:

I was going to say I dont see any batteries on that mobo. probably on teh other pcb with ISA slots somewhere.

It still had the original 6v battery pack inside form 1989. Fortunately no corrosion.

makes one wonder.... Does that battery pack still measure any voltage ?

It still has 1.43v 😀

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