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Re: Overriding Dell BIOS Password



    From: Jeffrey Finkelstein <[hidden email]> 
   Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2007 21:25:50 -0500 

   On Wed, 2007-11-07 at 22:20 -0400, Samuel Baldwin wrote: 
   > Howdy, 
   > 
   > So my friend has been running into problems with a semi-old dell machine 
   > and a BIOS password that has been long forgotten (inherited machine). Calling 
   > Dell tech support didn't help (they couldn't prove that they didn't 
   > steal it, so they 
   > wont help them.. another plight in and of itself). 
   > 
   > So, short of getting a new motherboard, what can one do to override 
   > this nonsense? 

   Remove and replace the CMOS battery? 

Laptop or desktop? 

*Supposedly* there's no way to unbrick a laptop other than convincing 
Dell that you own it or replacing the motherboard.  Laptops don't have 
a conventional CMOS battery that can be replaced.  However, on my 
Inspiron 8000 and 8200, there's a small board (about 1" square) 
underneath the graphics card that when removed and replaced resets all 
of the other BIOS settings (if it isn't seated correctly, all kinds of 
weird things happen, everything from losing the backlight to the 
machine powering off completely).  I have no idea if this also resets 
the password.  I suspect not. 

I've also seen some kits on eBay for doing this. 

-- 
Robert Krawitz                                     <[hidden email]> 

Tall Clubs International  --  http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2 
Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- mail [hidden email] 
Project lead for Gutenprint   --    http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net

"Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works." 
--Eric Crampton 

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