I have a battery dead on the mobo. changed it, now i cant get past the cmos p-word. tried pulling the batt, and jumpers. nothing works.

the south bridge chip is bad. RIP one MOBO it's toast
amd NVIDIA nForce® 570 relics. soldered down it is RIP]
or
causes
my guess ESD hits (bad actors) or lightening hits.

OR
try copper top brand? COINs CR2032.
not china no name junk batteries.? brands matter in the real world.
or Energizer brand (pink bunny)?
or one noob put a ML1220 coin there and it blows out.
dead wrong this it is rechargeable and now leaks acid as it blows its guts out.(the manual said it explodes)

more, yes seen all things done wrong. me.
on topic
I use wood tooth pick to trip the coin cell lock.
and not any metal ever or worse jabbing small screw driver there or omg a knife to do that then they slip
and wreck a PC copper trace or smash to ***** the ant sized SMD diodes there, all this is BAD ACTORS.

after a new coin cell we must reset bios
and set time and date
and boot order and hit save and exit
or all is lost. SEE? that word and key SAVE ?

to test CMOS
remove AC power for 1 hour.
the put back AC power, and go to BIOS see if all settings are still good.
it must be.
one more is the cmos jumpers set wrong or PW_CLR set wrong or the factory test jumper molested ever.
desktops have lots of jumpers why not validate them all first.
or this wild thing
one mobo I found in a case that had 3 or 4 mobo formfactors (DIY) mobo studs mounting holes, and the last noob put in a new mobo and did not remove studs that must never ever be there and shorted out the CMOS> sad no:?

I believe you have done a battery discharge way but is still not working. There are software that can actually do the reset or even remove the password on the BIOS. Also, please try the below
With the battery in, find the CMOS jumper. There should be two pins connected with a jumper(lets named it Pin 1 and Pin ) and there should be pins that is free (lets call it Pin 3). Let say Pin 1, 2, and 3. You need to take off that jumper and moved it to pin2 and pin3 for few seconds and then reinstall it back to Pin1 and Pin2.
CMOS password should be now reset.

Many motherboards have a "clear CMOS jumper" capability. There are 3 pins on the Mobo and the jumper is put on pins 1 - 2 for normal operation and moved to position 2 - 3 to clear CMOS memory. (It may be the other way around on some Mobo's). Your PC will oly work with the jumper in the normal position. If you temoraily moved it to the clear position (and then put it back to normal) you erased your cmos memory which remembers the date & time, hard drive cofiguration and many other importnt parameters which need to be set correctly in order for your PC to run properly. If you have the manual that came with your motherboard, it explains how to go into cmos setup and set these parameters. If you do not have this manul, navigate through the menus and choose "default (or optimal) bios settings" Then set your date and time, choose save bios settings and exit bios setup. Hopefuly your computer will start up OK now. If not, you should find a PC technician to help you.

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Best regards,
Yavacotech

Hi:) Turn the computer off but leave it plugged in so you have no static problems. Open the computer tower and on the motherboard near the Cmos Battery there is a blue or red jumper that covers 2 of 3 pins move it to the other side of the 3 pins for 30 seconds then put it back that will reset the bios to default.

Probably your BIOS battery, replace that and setup you BIOS again and it should be fine. BIOS batteries look like little round watch batteries.

Any more questions just let me know.

Thanks
John

jumper is nothing but a wire which shorts two points. if its standard then it is black in color with two holes at bottom and rectangular in shape about 2 cm x 3 cm the closed part would be facing you about 1cm x 2 cm. You can understand its quite small.

sounds like a hardware compatilibilty issue. Reset cmos, double check all connections and jumpers and try a new memory

Try to verify the real battery voltage and polarity (use multimeter) or cleaning the socket contacts.

if you are getting password in the booting of the pc then it is bios password plz check the link
http://www.tech-faq.com/reset-bios-password.shtml
if it is not then try to boot in the safe mode and change the password

If I understand correctly your saying when you exit the cmos, id doesn't save your changes. Make sure when you exit you select the option to save and exit. If that doesn't work, your cmos battery is dead. Look in the mobo manual to find out what replacement battery you need.

Harris