Please help. The cmos battery in my old 486 died, while entering in the info manually [for the 1st time in 2 years] I accidentally saved the default setting requiring a password on bootup. I never used a password before & don't know what it is. Now I can't get the computer to overide "Enter CURRENT password".

Does anyone know the default password for American Megatrends AMIBIOS 1994?

The date is 11-10-94, full bios string:
40-P101-001223-00101111-072594-UMC498H

I don't know the motherboard manufacturer, but MB-1433/40/50U1V pops up during the boot.

I need to access some old files on that system ASAP.
Thanks.

Hello,
If you put in a new battery take it back out and it should reset the bios and get rid of the password, then you will have to set it up again.

This is correct! Take out the battery and this will reset the cmos psswd. Depnding on your board you may also have to jumper some terminals. Tof ind this out look up you board on the web and find out what to jumper they al differ.

Try this page for Default Passwords, Hacks and links to BIOS Manufactures:

http://www.wimsbios.com/

For a Quick Fix try these default passwords:

AMI
AMI, BIOS, PASSWORD, HEWITT RAND, AMI?SW, AMI_SW, LKWPETER, A.M.I.

AWARD
AWARD_SW, j262 , HLT, SER, SKY_FOX, BIOSTAR, ALFAROME, lkwpeter, j256, AWARD?SW, LKWPETER, Syxz, aLLy, 589589, 589721, awkward, CONCAT

If your motherboard has jumpers to clear your CMOS you may need to remove the jumper then put it back. That would clear your CMOS then you would need to go into Setup and reconfigure everything.

I had the same problem as ac
Used the default passwords (same as techguy listing)and AMI got me in!

Hope its as simple as that for you.

PLEASE LET US KNOW. Problem here is that to few peple do, so others do not know if info is OK

Just had a look at http://www.wimsbios.com/
If info there does not get you in you are lost.

Yes it worked for me as well.

The password for AWARD (some versions anyway) is located on registers 1c and 1d of the CMOS memory. As the password is resolved to one single word of 2 bytes there are many substitute passwords that will work.

It is not essential to have "the" password. All that is necessray is to have one that resolves to the same hash sum.

I have a program that generates four possible passwords, and could generate many more. I have tested the answers on AWARD 4.51 and also 6

Check if your motherboard has a clear password jumper and clear the password by opening or closing the jumper. If this doesn't work there's also a clear CMOS jumper, if you use this one you wil need to reconfigure.

Unfortunately I can't help you either.

I also have the same problem, I don't remember my password.

The string on my machine is:
30-0101-ZZ1617-00101111-043091-HT21SX-8

Thanks for your help.