Hi Folks,

A quick one for the those learned people out there..... I have an old '486 processor PC, which has suddenly developed a strange problem. When I switch it on it gives an "Board is locked.......Unlock board and press F1 (or is that 'any other key') to continue" but the keyboard stops working immidiately as well. Any help?

Thanks

Old 486 PCs often had a 'Keyboard lock' feature. It was a security feature, I guess, but all the manufacturers had realised by the mid-1990s that no-one ever used it. By the time Pentium MMXs came out in around 1996/97, PCs didn't have locks on them any more.

Normally the 'Keyboard lock' was literally a conventional key lock that was positioned on the front of the PC case (though yours might be at the side or back). The problem that you might have in fixing this is that many people inevitably lost the keys and, if you bought this PC second-hand, it's likely that the keys weren't supplied with the PC. Careful manipulation with ****tail sticks or a tiny electrical screwdriver might get the lock turned though.

If your PC has no lock on it such as the one that I've described, then the only other way I could think of having a keyboard lock feature would be if it was a jumper setting on the motherboard but I think that would be an extremely impractical way of using the feature so it's unlikely that any manufacturer would have bothered implementing it that way.

If all else fails, perhaps you could disconnect the PC from the mains and remove the motherboard battery for a couple of minutes if it's the removable 'coin-type' battery as found on newer PCs? Unfortunately, in the old 486 days of less standardisation and manufacturers just doing their own thing more often, you might find that the battery is actually soldered onto the motherboard.

Let us know how you get on