very technical puter question

I need to flash bios a neighbors motherboard but before doing that I want to try and clear the bios and send it back to factory specs. He doesnt have the book and i cant read the name of the manufacturer. Is their any other way to identify the bios jumpers ?
thanks

Alternatively, is it a "name-brand" computer? If so, you might be able to google the make/model and possibly find the motherboard used, then google again. I have had fairly good success with googling "(motherboard model) specifications" (not in quotes, though).

Also, did you try removing the motherboard battery for 10 minutes or so? Sometimes that will clear the CMOS too.

A good way to clear the bios if you don't know the brand is to pull the battery for a couple of minutes. That should pretty much clear it. Find out the make and model number and post back.

Edit: Posting at the same time as zbird. :-)

the Screen Savers or Call For Help. They demonstrated a free program a wile back that could extract that info with the touch of a button.

how did you get the BIOS flash without knowing the MB info? If you just got a generic Award or Phoenix BIOS you may be making a paper weight.

Your neighbor will be very upset if you turn that MB into a high tech Frisbee ...

thanks for backing me up. Nothing worse than a 1.8 gigahertz frisbee

There are 2 easy ways to identify a motherboard:

1) Manufacturer imprint on the mobo
2) FCC number, either an imprint or a sticker

I'd look for the FCC number, I've managed to retrieve most manufacturers using the FCC database. The easiest way I've found to search the database is using the help pages: FCC Database.

If neither is available, there are some esoteric ways of identifying the mobo, for instance using the BIOS serial. Instructions are described at e.g. this Czech site.

If all you need to do is restore the manufacturer's settings, remove the battery as told by other posters.

As a side note:

Why do you want to restore the BIOS to the manufacturer's settings if you want to flash the mobo? How do you expect to flash the mobo if you don't even know the maker? How do you know that the rom file you've got is actually suited for this mobo?

You do know that you can irrepairably harm a mobo if you fuck up the flash?

...before doing that I want to try and clear the bios and send it back to factory specs...

To do so - you might have to remove the hardrive and other hardware...some BIOSes auto-detect stuff...

Also - go into the BIOS and look for something like "Restore Defaults"

Flashing BIOS can be risky - are you sure you need to do this?

I would not, at least not with the jumpers. The
suggestion to disconnect the BIOS battery for say
15 seconds, is a good one if you feel you have to
do that, and many BIOS will have some sort of
reset/defaults option in the BIOS screen.

I could't figure out why my K62 450 was only running at 150mhz...

Answer was the battery died...and values BIOS reset to default...

(note - not all BIOSes allow CPU speed changes)

with the sketchy instructions in bad english.
I often wind up doing cut and try and it can
take days to get something I like ...

Edit: I've seen all sorts of problems that turn
out to be a $5 battery and a five year old MoBo,
unrecognized removable drives, etc.

Edit2: but if you actually zap (rewrite) the BIOS
you will get to do that anyway.