I just picked up an old 386 computer that I want to play around with to finally learn what goes on inside the computer. It's a NEC Powermate SX-16. Do I need a setup disk to enter CMOS. There is no key to enter setup at startup, tried con-alt-escape. Tried con-alt-s and Nothing. It has two floppy drives 5 1/4 and 3 1/2. When I put a floppy in, get error, can't read from drive, drive is no longer valid ..what does this mean? Anyway, just messin' around. Any replies appreciated Thanks Akimboooooooooooo

Here you go.... ENTERING BIOS Del key with AMI or Award BIOS. Esc (some Toshiba systems) F1 (some Toshiba systems and some using Phoenix BIOS) F2 (some NEC systems) F10 (some Compaq systems) Ins (some IBM PS/2 models) On some Dell systems, you can press the Reset button twice. Ctrl-Alt-Enter works on some Dell systems Ctrl-Alt-? works on some IBM PS/2s Ctrl-Alt-Esc for some Award BIOS systems Ctrl-Alt-S for some Phoenix BIOS systems Ctrl-Alt-Ins for some other Phoenix BIOS systems Might try taking the ribbon cable off the large floppy and see if it'll boot on the 3 1/2".

Howdy, Well try this as well, this normaly works. Remove some of the memory or pull the hard drive cable it will normaly error out and ask if you would like to enter setup. You can also try the Cory method. This is beat, and not to hard but hit all the keys when the system is booting up. Beleive it or not this does work sometimes, the bad thing is ya don't know what ya did to get into the setup since you are just pressing down on all the keys. Laters, Kevin The Tech Dude.

When you get into the CMOS setup you may be asked for a pass word to enter. If so and you dont know the pass word then remove or circuit break the battery on the mainboard and this will cause the chip memory to be deleted. Password and every thing else. If you have auto detect for the hard drive this is ok. otherwise you will need to get the info required for the hard drive to reload. Most hard drives have this info printed on them. Good luck Ross

Look and see if there is an external battery, if there is, disconnect it for about an hour, then try it... If the battery looks like 3 button cells soldered to the board, bend a paperclip into a U shape and tap both ends of the battery.

I have the same computer and when I turn it on it saye invalid configuration information. Then it says strike f1 to retry boot. But when I do it just beeps twice and displays the same message.I think my hard drive has gone bad.Does any one think it may be something else?

Inform me about how to break CMOS setup passward. Now it is off stage