I have about 15 HS-6037 P-III/Celeron SBCs' with phoenix D686 Bios chips. The problem is that I bought them used, really cheap from a third-party supplier who knew nothing about them, and after the purchase, in examining them, I find that some of the bios chips contain passwords. I have found NO WAY TO RESET THEM. Suggestions? I can't even flash them, because to do so requires a FDD, which I am unable to enable due to my password problem. IS THERE ANY WAY TO HACK THIS BIOS? I don't want to be stuck with a pile of worthless hardware!
-The Katalystik Scientist/H.A.-SNU

Have tried clearing CMOS

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Suggested I pull the CMOS battery?!! On any normal system YES... But these bastards have the battery integrated into the bios chip package. Research the D686 and you'll see what I mean. It's an ugly situation. Might flashing work?

You still have a few options available, though admittedly the easiest avenues are not available.

The first thing to check for is a clear CMOS jumper on the motherboard. Consult the manual (if available) or check the board itself - if you have one of these, simply bridge the pins, boot the machine up and the CMOS will be restored to factory defaults.

There are a limited number of "BIOS password readers" available, which may in some cases be either to read or remove the password. However, many of these utilities are strictly unofficial, and should be used with care and at your own risk.

You could try sending your BIOS/CMOS chip to a specialist for flashing, though that is a time consuming option and may not be worthwhile given the age of these boards.

Finally, there is a high-risk option that you use strictly at your own risk. You mentioned you have several of these boards - all you need is one with a non password protected BIOS and you can hot flash your corrupt BIOS.

Here is what you need to do:

- Boot a machine up using a non password protected BIOS.
- Install a floppy disk drive and ensure write the appropriate flash utility to disk.
- Reboot with the flash utility floppy in the drive.
- Swap the working BIOS with a non-working BIOS chip whilst the machine is running. Be very careful not to touch anything else and for goodness sake stay well clear of the power supply unit.
- Proceed to flash the BIOS using the utility as normal.
- If all is well, remove the floppy and reboot - the BIOS should now be reset and working correctly.

Now as I stated, this is a risky procedure and you use it at your own risk. However, this is a recognised method and usually used as a last resort. If in doubt, Google "hot flash +BIOS" and you will be given much more information on the subject.

I hope that helps, let us know how you get on.

John

Hi friend there is 1 way that i could suggest that you reset your bios by takeing your battery out for 2 minutes then put it back in and it should reset your passwords. If it do not work you can look for jumper switch next to the battery. There my be three jumpers switchers or two or 1 .If so take them off and reboot that might work ok friend hope to hear from you soon to see if you resolved your problem.

It would appear that the battery and chip are integrated into a single package, thus making it impossible to remove one without the other. Even if you remove the whole chip, it will still have a power supply and therefore won't reset to the factory default settings.

Problem solved. I took the good bios chip I had, booted into the bios, pulled the chip with the machine running, replacing it with the passworded unit. I simply wiped out the admin password with the utility, saved & exited, and when it came back up, there was NO password. I then proceeded to flash the rest of the chips, and voi-la! We have righteous things! Thanks for all your help guys!

Katalyst:

What type of chip, PLCC32 or EEPROM?

If PLCC32, what did you use to pull the chip while machine was hot?

Thanks