Packard Bell Legend 301CD won't boot

While waiting for a hard drive for another old computer I decided to try to revive my old Packard Bell Legend 301CD with a 2 gig Quantum Fireball HD
When I first booted up I got a message indicating that the battery was dead so I attached a CR2032 battery to the Dallas Realtime clock. Then I removed everything except the hard drive and floppy disk drive.

The hard drive has nothing on it. I formatted it with Windows 10

I couldn't boot even to drive A with the hard drive attached but I was able to boot with just the floppy drive attached using the number one DOS6 installation disk.

With the hard disk installed the start up screen froze after:

AMIBIOS (C) 1992 American Megatrends.inc BIOS version 1.009.09
008192 kb
Keyboard detected
Mouse detected

I turned the computer off and unplugged the HD then in addition to the above I got:

CMOS System Options not set,
Memory size
Floppy drive B Failure
for setup <F1>, <ESC> to boot


When attempting to get in to the BIOS I entered F1 and got:

Password (1)

I didn't have a password so I unplugged the computer and disconnected the battery for a minute or so.

Then I was able to get into the BIOS.

I changed to the current date and time, Changed the boot order from C then A to A then C.
I set the A drive as a 3.5 1.44 and left B as not installed

After saving changes I restarted and got the same:

CMOS System Options not set
Memory size
Floppy drive B Failure
for setup <F1>, <ESC> to boot

I pressed F1 and found that the date was wrong so I changed it and the other settings again.

While the computer was running I decided to see if the connection to the battery was getting power so I used a multimeter and found 2 volts at the battery and where it was connected to the Dallas Realtime clock. I checked again with the computer off and got the same.

I restarted and got a black screen. I unplugged the floppy drive and the hard drive and restarted and still get a black screen.

I'm suspecting that if the default CMOS setting is drive C then A, that's why I couldn't boot to A with the hard drive attached. I'm also wondering if the Dallas Realtime clock has more wrong with it than just the battery. Or, there if something wrong with the connection at the Real time clock.

Any other ideas of what's going on and what to do about it?

Thanks Pentium4User,
The solder joints seem OK and I'm not getting the dead battery error so I think you may be right about the chip. Would that explain the black screen too?

Thanks Pentium4User,

I've had the ram out before but to be sure I just reset it, then switched the 2 RAM banks and tried to start with no RAM so it's down to just the motherboard and always get the black screen. No beeps either. Previously one RAM bank that wasn't seated properly and I got a long high beep then long low beep and long high beep so no beeps worries me. I tested the monitor on another computer and it works fine.

The motherboard had a bath and is now in the computer. With no RAM I get 1 beep and a black screen. With the RAM in I get the long high, low, high beep. I thoroughly blew the motherboard with compressed air but there may be some moisture still in the memory banks that will dry in a few hours. However, since I still get the black screen I think the next step is to replace the Dallas DS12887 Real time. It's soldered in a bunch of places. I have a small air grinder that I can grind the ends of the connections from the back of the motherboard. Is that the way to go or is there a better method of removing the DS12887?

Thanks for the reply. I had done that. Originally I got a message indicating that the battery was dead. After the modification I didn't get the dead battery message but I still got the message that said the CMOS settings needed to be updated. The last thing I did before the screen went black on start up was to check the voltage where I soldered the connections. The voltage said about 2 volts at the battery and at the connection.

Thanks for the reply. I had done that. Originally I got a message indicating that the battery was dead. After the modification I didn't get the dead battery message but I still got the message that said the CMOS settings needed to be updated. The last thing I did before the screen went black on start up was to check the voltage where I soldered the connections. The voltage said about 2 volts at the battery and at the connection.