Re: bios woes

On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 08:51:23 -0700
Arnold Wiegert <[email protected]> wrote:

: Quite often there is a jumper to remove power from the CMOS
: memory, where the password is kept - presumably. Removing the
: jumper and keeping it off for some time - like about 10 min IIRC,
: may/should return the machine to no password.

This board is a little different. It does have a jumper J1 marked
RTC reset. But it doesn't seems to have any affect. Normally it's
open and as with any Ami Bios you hit delete to enter the bios at
boot. But you get prompted for the current password before you can
enter the bios, and of course I don't have it. 

So I've tried to boot with J1 set to closed. The bios still wants
the current password.

Adapting your suggestion, I've left J1 closed overnight with the
power off. Rebooting still wants the password.

And I left the power on with the jumper set for half an hour and
then tried to reboot but the box still wants a password.

One item I found suggested that the CMOS may take days to empty and
another said to be sure and leave the box unplugged as well as off
to eliminate any AC power to the CMOS. Another said that the
DS1287/1187 isn't affected by the reset jumper and can't be reset
without the password. :\ Real encouragement there, eh?

Thanks for the advice btw, in a week of googling I'd not come across
your tip about wait time anywhere on the net. It led to a lot of
other stuff. I thought it was just set the jumper and go! :)

	ciao,
	b.

PS. Here's the wildest answer I found: )))

"For your problem, you need to temporarily break the chip so it
forgets the password. The best way is to use a very fine drill, and
drill a hole into the middle of the package, about 1.3 mm deep. Then
turn on the power, and wait for the smoke to start coming out. When
it has stopped smoking, the password will be erased. Turn off the
power, and use some two part epoxy to fill in the hole. When the
glue has dried, everything will be as I expect it."