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BIOS question on a 386

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vladstamate

Experienced Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2012
Messages
197
Location
Orlando, FL, USA
Hi all,

I am getting this screen on my (newly gotten) 386 PC.

photo.JPG

My question is: does "RUN SETUP UTILITY" implies that I need to have a disk or that as soon as I have a keyboard I will be able to do work using the BIOS UI?

I assume "CMOS system options not set" error is due to CMOS battery being drained, right?

Regards,
Vlad.
 
When you press F1 it will take you to the CMOS Setup page.

The CMOS battery could be drained and need replacement or it could be OK and the CMOS registers are just empty. You will know this when you add some values to the CMOS and turn the machine off for a while.
 
Stone said:
When you press F1 it will take you to the CMOS Setup page.
Click to expand...

That is what I wanted to know, I was afraid I might need a disk. My AT keyboard has not arrived yet, so I cannot press F1 (and trying to use the XT keyboard did not work, as expected probably).

Thanks,
Vlad.
 
Some keyboards have a switch labeled XT/AT (or something similar) on the bottom. Have you looked there? I have several like this, Key Tronic and other types.
 
Do you mean to say that in all of San Jose, nobody's junking a PS/2 keyboard?. You can get either a PS/2-to-DIN(AT) plug adapter for peanuts, or just graft a DIN connector onto the existing cable.
 
vladstamate said:
My question is: does "RUN SETUP UTILITY" implies that I need to have a disk or that as soon as I have a keyboard I will be able to do work using the BIOS UI?
Click to expand...
Stone said:
When you press F1 it will take you to the CMOS Setup page.
Click to expand...
Agreed, based on the experiment that I performed on the 386 that I have with a 1989 dated AMI BIOS. After I removed the motherboard battery (for half an hour or so), the BIOS/POST presented the same text as yours does, and when I then pressed the F1 key at the "Press <F1> to resume" prompt, the following menu presented:

EXIT FOR BOOT
RUN CMOS SETUP
RUN DIAGNOSTICS

Your AMI BIOS is dated a year later than mine. It is unlikely that AMI went backwards (by removing the built-in 'CMOS SETUP' functionality).
 
When you press F1 key, you will enter the AMI BIOS SETUP UTILITY. There in standard cmos settings set date, time, HDD parameters and also type of display(my ami bios has, VGA/PGA/EGA, monochrome and various colour modes). If you are using vga monochrome monitor use vga mode, not monochrome. In advanced settings you have options for coprocessor and cache...
For keyboard, you can use ps/2 to DIN adapter or buy typical din motherboard(you can find a lot of them cheap).
You may want Sound Blaster 16 or compatible to enjoy it more :)
good luck
 
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