BIOS date and time in a Pentium 4 not adjustable.

Change the battery. It is possible that the low battery condition is preventing any further action.

Dan

The parameters of the BIOS are grooved in a Flash memory

THe date/time comes from a clock circuit ; it needs a higher minimum voltage for operate

Check the onscreen instructions carefully (normally on the bottom row) on what keys to press to change item values. Sometimes it's F5/F6, sometimes something else like direct entry (guess you tried that).

As others mentioned, you probably need to replace the battery first. It may be blocked due to that. The most common battery is a CR2032, although you can possibly use a CR2025 or CR2016 in a pinch if you happen to have one. The only difference is the thickness. 3.2mm, 2.5mm,

Some of those older boards had a potted module with a 0.6" chip form factor.

IIRC: it was a Dallas RTC chip (which may have been more or less compatible with the original Motorola chipset RTC). That had a couple of lithium coin cells stuck on top and potted.

Thanks for the replies.

Dan wrote,

Replaced the CR2032 cell with one fresh out of the package. No change in BIOS behaviour. Date and time still not changeable.

Adrian wrote,

Photo of the screen here.

Bender wrote,

Photo of the lower left part of the board here.

Retrieved the Intel BIOS updater and updated. The latest version available is the same as the extant version. No problem reported in the update process.

Booting stops with these being the last three lines on the screen. CMOS Date/Time Not Set Press F1 to Run SETUP Network selected as first boot device for current boot

There is no 8P8C connector on the system board and no Ethernet adapter installed. Nothing about network in the boot area of the BIOS configuration. The BIOS identifies the WDC drive with a bootable system as "WDC WD1200JB-00DUA3" but won't boot from it.

None of the capacitors are bulged. With the capacitors installed, no leaking electrolyte visible. Replacing capacitors seems a poor investment for an uncertain return.

Any further thoughts before scrapping the board?

Thanks, ... Peter E.

Hi Peter,

Are there two pins on the motherboard that you can temporarily short that will clear the CMOS settings?

What OS? - most I've seen have time and date icon on the taskbar, have you tried setting it there?

Something gross !!

Are you sure that during BIOS setting, your keyboard is Numlock ?

David wrote,

There is a pin set J8C2; described here.

Still could not adjust the clock but the "Save changes and proceed" option worked and the system booted. Not sure that clearing the passwords made a difference. I could have just failed to recognize how to pass the clock problem earlier.

Bender wrote,

Debian and antiX. Now that I see how to start the OS, will try to set the clock there.

Look165 wrote,

Numlock is ok.

Will return to this machine February 13 or later. Appears promising now.

Thanks for the help, ... Peter E.