HELP With VERY old board

[UnWishedLegacy]

Hey everyone,
I recently aquired a VERY old HP PC, and the Power On Password was apparently input too many times and the Mobo has locked me out, and it isn't giving me an option to input a password, it's just giving a black screen and the HDD light is constantly on- oddly enough, I have no HDD installed (hoping to run Knoppix on it).

Unfotunatly I have no idea what sort of Mobo it is- All I know is that the processor is a Socket 7, Intel 166MMX and the PSU isn't connected to the Mobo with an ATX Connector. The Keyboard and mouse connections are PS/2 and it has onboard graphics.

What I need to know is...
"How can I get to a password screen so I can unlock the PC?"
I've taken the Battery out, hoping it will reset the CMOS/BIOS/whatever it resets but I don't think it'll work.

Thanks

Anth
Uw.L

 

[Balrog]

I have a similiar board, I dismantled the rig to reuse the parts and case, mine has CMOS jumper next to battery and board is labeled TX97-XV, Google says its an Asus board. Yours doesn't have any labeling on it at all? I have a couple of Socket 7 MoBos stuck to my walls, they were working fine when I dismantled them, you're welcome to them both if you want to pay for shipping. In fact I have the CPUs and the EDO RAM to go with them.

Regards, Balrog

 

[Breadfan]

Try to do a Google search like Balrog said on any kind of model or other numbers you can find on the board. Sometimes they're on the back of the board too...

How long did you remove the CMOS battery? Take it out, hit the power button, and leave it out for 30mins and see if that wipes the memory on it.

 

[repo man11]

P166 with PS2? Sounds like an old desktop machine. Not a whole lot you can do with those pizza boxes. But Breadfan's suggestion should clear CMOS, which should get it back on the road.

The TX97 is a good old motherboard. It can run at 500 MHz with a K6-2. Free is a pretty good offer. If you have a spare AT case, you might want to jump on that Unwished.

 

[Supertrucker]

its also possible that there is a jumper for password protection, a few of my older machines had a jumper to bypass the password

 

[bulk88]

This MB may have a built in BIOS and battery unit, probably made by Texas Instruments. Try googling a backdoor password. That worked on a 486 for me. search the name of the manufacturer OF THE BIOS (SUCH AS AWARD OR PHOENIX OR AMI/AMERICAN MEGATRENDS) and "backdoor" and if that doesn;t work try "password" instead of backdoor.

If that doesn;t work try pulling out the CMOS and battery combo thing I talked about earlier. Also look for a jumper. Also see if u can locate a program that can read the bios and tell u the password in it.

EDIT added whats in caps

 

[UnWishedLegacy]

Thanks for the advice- I really have no clue about the board and there are no visible jumers- just a bank of tiny switches.

If I can't get this fixed, I may very well take you up on your offer Balrog- depends on how much the shipping is as I live in the UK (I seem to remember that a couple of PCI modems cost about £10 shipping- could have got a new one for that £$£$£.

I havn't had a chance to play again yet (work) but the battery has been out of the machine for a couple of days now so the CMOS should be well and truly cleared
I'l let you know how it goes.

Thanks again everyone.