I have some experience - our first family PC was a Packard Bell Legend 1920. That was a 486SX/33 with the same desktop case layout, but the cosmetics of the front panel is 1 generation newer. My aunt gave me another PB 486 in the late-90's that has the same cosmetics as yours, but the desktop case is a size larger with two 5.25" bays.

Which BIOS? Most of the PB 486 models with Phoenix BIOS had strange key combos to enter BIOS. It was CTRL-ALT-S for me, but I think there were some others where it was INS or ESC instead of S. You could actually enter the BIOS anytime, like at a DOS prompt. That being said, on error, F2 should still take you into BIOS setup. I suppose it is possible that it requires a floppy for the utility, but both of mine were ROM-based.

Other thoughts:
-This BIOS is going to have the 504MB limit.
-This BIOS probably won't auto-detect drives by default. IIRC, in BIOS setup you could attempt auto-detect drive geometry (if less than 500MB) and it would populate user-defined drive type. If it doesn't have that (my older PB doesn't) then you'll want to fix the CMOS battery issue - it sucks manually setting drive geometry every powercycle.
-Remove/disconnect as much as possible while troubleshooting - drives, cards, etc
-Definitely inspect your motherboard. A leaky Varta NiCAD caused significant damage to that Legend 1920. It should be next to the power supply. There should be an external battery header.
-The monitor uses a mechanical spring latch on the power switch. Your issue can be as simple as dried/sticky grease in the channel where that spring slides. This is a frequent issue that I have repaired on many 80-90's HiFi components with the same switch type.
-I never got any SD or CF card IDE adapters working properly with these PB PC's. I did get it working enough to boot to DOS, but I had data corruption issues. And, back to basement storage they went.

Bingo. That NiCd battery did indeed leak. The extent doesn’t look too bad. Fingers crossed I can clean it and get it back to ship shape

Fazeshift, to answer some of your questions: it is a Pheonix bios. Ctrl+Alt+S / Ins doesn't do anything

Here are some photos of the damage. I mostly cleaned it up. Also bonus photo of the motherboard out of its shell. It looks like the battery leak got into the nearby integrated circuit, and even leaked onto the other side of the motherboard.

Unfortunately after desoldering the battery and clean up, I am running into the same problem. It did output an additional error message that the clock wasn't set, which I guess means the leaky battery was still providing some function. But, I am sadly still unable to boot into anything. I have not put in a new battery.

Do you guys think that if I put a new battery in, that will help at all?

no, new battery wont help
you need to
- desolder u49
- scrape off solder mask in all affected areas on both sides
- drill that obviously damaged via holes, I see at least 6 bad ones
- visually inspect and measure traces to identify all broken connections
- fix broken connections thin wires and reinforce weakened traces with solder
- plug a wire in damaged VIAs and solder on both ends to fix the connection
- use for example nail polish to secure the job
- put new u49 in, old one might be ok but also might not be, battery base likes to weak into chips along the lead frame

dylanrush wrote on 2026-03-24, 22:36:

Fazeshift, to answer some of your questions: it is a Pheonix bios. Ctrl+Alt+S / Ins doesn't do anything […]
Show full quote

Fazeshift, to answer some of your questions: it is a Pheonix bios. Ctrl+Alt+S / Ins doesn't do anything

Here are some photos of the damage. I mostly cleaned it up. Also bonus photo of the motherboard out of its shell. It looks like the battery leak got into the nearby integrated circuit, and even leaked onto the other side of the motherboard.

Unfortunately after desoldering the battery and clean up, I am running into the same problem. It did output an additional error message that the clock wasn't set, which I guess means the leaky battery was still providing some function. But, I am sadly still unable to boot into anything. I have not put in a new battery.

Do you guys think that if I put a new battery in, that will help at all?

Now that I can see it better, I believe that is a PB410 board. The one I know well is a PB430, similar layout though. Even if it is Phoenix BIOS, I'm not sure if there is a hotkey combination, or perhaps battery leak damage is preventing you from getting there.

Unfortunately, no, I don't think a new battery is going to help at all. You have at least the same amount of damage as mine. I had to do a significant amount of cleanup, reflow and a couple bodge wires before it would pass POST.

Fazeshift wrote on 2026-03-30, 20:47:

Now that I can see it better, I believe that is a PB410 board...

You have at least the same amount of damage as mine.

theretroweb one also battery damaged https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/packar … ell-pb410-rev.c
Good old Packard Bell
https://dfarq.homeip.net/happened-packard-bell/

"The Packard Bell story is a brilliant piece of marketing. The computers were terrible, but the marketing was as good as it gets. "
"In 1986, Packard Bell was the name of a defunct manufacturer of TVs and radios. Founded in 1926 or 1933 depending on how you count it, it survived until 1968 when it sold out to Teledyne."
"But look at the other names it resembled: Pacific Bell, the telephone company. Hewlett Packard, the computer company. Packard, the defunct maker of luxury cars."
"People always confused them for something they weren’t, and for a time, it helped... “But Packard Bell, that’s an old company.” "
"Quality, or lack thereof"
"Few repeat buyers"

rasz_pl wrote on 2026-03-31, 08:18:

theretroweb one also battery damaged https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/packar … ell-pb410-rev.c

That seems to be a common theme - the PB430 photos also show damage, and bodge wires on one of them:
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/packard-bell-pb430

I noticed the component locations and layout seem to be the same in that area of the PCB, but component numbering on silkscreen differs from PB410.

rasz_pl wrote on 2026-03-31, 08:18:

Good old Packard Bell
https://dfarq.homeip.net/happened-packard-bell/

That was an interesting read, especially the experience of selling PB vs other brands.

Our Packard Bell was the first real family PC. My parents did not really know any better. It definitely served as a learning experience for me - find those cut corners/cheap components and why it mattered. 486SX, so no FPU. Only 512KB for on-board VGA, upgrade option was only in a rare ZIP chip, and no VLB expansion slots. Cheap/slow Conner IDE drive.

"But the final blow was the 1995 revelation in that Packard Bell routinely sold “new” PCs with recycled parts in them."
That happened to us. The 3.5" floppy drive had a dark grey front plate against the beige case, CD-ROM, etc. In the first year it started getting frequent read errors, and eventually destroyed brand new blanks. They actually sent a tech to our house to replace the drive under warranty. I'm pretty sure he mentioned something about cheap used parts - I assume he was an independent 3rd-party that repaired other brands too. He installed a new Panasonic floppy drive. This was before the used parts became widely known, and perhaps support got worse once these failures grew in number.

"Not many people bought a second Packard Bell. They’d get a $1,500 bundle–which was cheap for the time–and when the computer broke, they’d buy a different brand and reuse the monitor and printer and whatever was left in the machine that still worked. Frequently the memory, CD-ROM drive, and sound card could be salvaged and re-used in a new PC."
Accurate. Within ~2 years I learned enough to build my own PC, and used the monitor, printer, floppy, CD-ROM, sound card from the PB. The RAM and hard drive upgrades too. There were many friends and neighbors that started with a Packard Bell, and went with something else the next time.