[ale] bios chip removal?

[Mike Panetta]

Actually, the chip with the sticker on it (assuming there is only one, and its the
size of a normal chip) is either a Flash ROM or a mask ROM chip (depending
on the boards age).  Shorting out its pins won't do anything at all.  What he wants
to do is reset the CMOS settings to defaults.  They are stored in battery backed
ram (NVRAM) somewhere on the board.  Older boards just had a battery and
a seperate chip that stored the few bytes of info, I think it was actually in one
of the asics on the board, depends on age, and newer boards usually use an
all in one NVRAM/RTC/BATT chip (usually made by dallas, some may be made 
by mostek or ST micro).  Some of the newer boards with a highly integrated 
chipset may still place the NVRAM/RTC in one of the chipset ASICs, but generally
there has to be a battery or supercap somewhere to keep it all powered when
the power is off.

Can you not reset to defaults by using a command from within the bios itself?  Is
it password protected?

Who makes the board?  How old is it?  Whats its part #?  Have you found a manual?

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: "James P. Kinney III" <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Sent: Oct 18, 2003 8:20 AM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts <ale at ale.org>
Subject: Re: [ale] bios chip removal?

It's kind of brutal, but pull the chip and set it on a conductive
surface. Aluminum foil works fine. Make sure all the pins are in contact
for about 30 seconds. This will drain the stored data from the writeable
portion and force the chip to use the ROM portion.

On Sat, 2003-10-18 at 07:57, Geoffrey wrote:
> Okay, a bit of hardware ignorance here.  I've got an older mb that I 
> need to reset the bios on, but there's no jumper to reset or battery to 
> remove.  I've noted there is a removable ic that has a bios sticker atop 
> it.  Anyone know if I remove this chip, will this do what I want?  Or 
> will it toast this puppy?
> 
> I couldn't find a new bios from the manuf. so I went to the ami website. 
>   There was a link to another company that could provide bios updates. 
> I filled the form in, sent it off.  Got email back asking me to call a 
> 800#.  I called and after a bit of a sales pitch, I was offered new bios 
> for $69.  I couldn't believe it.  I told the guy I could replace the mb 
> for that.  I'm in the wrong business...  What a racket.
-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7