Help with a craped out LapTop

Hello all,

I Have in my possession an 1100$ Paperweight.

My compaq laptop SOMEHOW managed to change its BIOS password all by itsself. I know this because it has been sitting in my living room for the past 3 months doing the same thing it has always done... sit there and let me surf the net while i am watching TV. I am SURE that noone has gotten on it and manualy changed the password. So some how it erased my old bios password, and changed it to a new one... HOW IN THE HECK CAN THIS HAPPEN? From the last time I was able to boot it until the password change NO ONE has had access to it but me, so I am sure this is not a prank done by another human being.

I need some serious help here people PLZ! Can anyone tell me how to fix this, and BTW the screws to open the lap tops case are a special 7 sided star shape... BAH!!! I HATE COMPAQ...
ok i feel better now im sorry.

im not to good with BIOS passwords but iv seen posts herebefore where they recommended calling Compaq and telling them about it and they can help you out with what to do, if all else fails i think there are BIOS password crackers in the AO file archives and also a google for this problem can also help.

You should be able to get the proper screwdriver from a hard ware store but if you are lucky some laptops have semi easy acess to the cmos battery (if they have one at all) see if the keyboard comes off, and make sure you pull the main battery. Another option would be to contact compaq, when I was an IBM tech IBM laptops had a key initiated bios resest that reset the box to factory defaults (HP at one point did this via floppy), you may be able to get this from compaq.

Here is the the problem with a BIOS Cracker,

The laptop will not read ANY diskdrive, or accept any keyboard commands untill the password has been given... I cannot even get into bios by pressing the f2 key. Could this be a virus that did this or what? BTW my laptop is more then a year old so compaq is gonna charge me an arm and a leg + 200$ to attempt to fix this.

Thats a problem, can you remove the laptop battery? Sorry, I don't know much about laptops. Always use a home or office PC, cause it's easy to open and resetting the BIOS is not a problem( remove the battery). It may be possible to find 7 sided screw drivers, but are you sure it is seven and not six? If it is six it should be easy to open with a hexagonal screwdriver. Good luck!!!

Ahh, i forgot about ripping the keyboard off :)

thanx b

ummm how do you pull the keyboard off?

Its a seven I have worked with laptops...you should be able to get a bit set at a local hardware store..if not there then at a computer show if you can wait for one to come around (blue star productions runs one of the major ones in the US). But that may do you no good as some laptops have long term capaceters insted of cmos batteries....if you can get it open and find the cmos battery pull the main battery also

[QUOTE] Originally posted here by blunuke420
Ahh, i forgot about ripping the keyboard off :)

thanx b

ummm how do you pull the keyboard off? [/QUOTE
feel around the edge of the key board on the old IBMS there was a relase lever (new IBMS dont have this)or occasional he mouse buttons would push down and up or down and out.

I think your best bet would be to try to open up the laptop and find the cmos battery. Remove the battery then turn the compute on. Turn the computer back off then put the battery back in and it should of cleared the password.

well if you do have the problem with capacitors you could always jump the positive and negative sides with a peice of wire or a screwdriver and that will/should drain the stored energy.

PeacE
-BoB

Quote:

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Originally posted here by fl34bit3
well if you do have the problem with capacitors you could always jump the positive and negative sides with a peice of wire or a screwdriver and that will/should drain the stored energy.

PeacE
-BoB

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just make sure you are not holdng the wire with something conductive...a capaciter is low volts but hi amps when it releases (I amy have that backwords), and it hurts like hell if it has any juice to it. I have grabed live 120, and grounded a laptop capaciter to myself the capaciter hurt much worse. Now never mess around inside a monitor the capaciter on a 14'' monitor knocked me out when i accidently brushed it.