this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
59 points (100.0% liked)
technology
23303 readers
17 users here now
On the road to fully automated luxury gay space communism.
Spreading Linux propaganda since 2020
- Ways to run Microsoft/Adobe and more on Linux
- The Ultimate FOSS Guide For Android
- Great libre software on Windows
- Hey you, the lib still using Chrome. Read this post!
Rules:
- 1. Obviously abide by the sitewide code of conduct. Bigotry will be met with an immediate ban
- 2. This community is about technology. Offtopic is permitted as long as it is kept in the comment sections
- 3. Although this is not /c/libre, FOSS related posting is tolerated, and even welcome in the case of effort posts
- 4. We believe technology should be liberating. As such, avoid promoting proprietary and/or bourgeois technology
- 5. Explanatory posts to correct the potential mistakes a comrade made in a post of their own are allowed, as long as they remain respectful
- 6. No crypto (Bitcoin, NFT, etc.) speculation, unless it is purely informative and not too cringe
- 7. Absolutely no tech bro shit. If you have a good opinion of Silicon Valley billionaires please manifest yourself so we can ban you.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
A lot of the time motherboards have a two pins you can short to reset the BIOS to the factory install. Not sure if older laptops or laptops in general have them or not though.
Dell has an info page that shows reseating a motherboard CMOS battery to reset the bios https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000124377/how-to-perform-a-bios-or-cmos-reset-and-clear-the-nvram-on-dell-systems
Oh actually I came across something like this for my device except it seemed like it had a high chance of error and really frying the machine so I skipped it. Maybe I will return to it assuming the password doesn't magically appear in the near future.
I did try removing both batteries and the RAM and letting it sit for a few hours in hopes it would reset because I read something on a forum about that. I wasn't too hopefully it would work and it sure didn't.
It's not really likely to fry anything. The CMOS battery is separate from the device's regular batteries, it's usually a little watch battery, there to keep bios settings and run the clock.
glans is probably talking about jumper pins located on the board to reset the password, which could cause some troubles if you jump the wrong pins, though probably not complete machine death.
Those are also unlikely to fry things. Online tutorials, especially ones from software guys, are really overscared of physical damage from opening machines and poking the insides.
Listen hardware is scary okay?
It's actually pretty hard to physically ruin computer hardware if you're not actively trying to
I know, I know. But I can't revert inserting my CPU backwards.
For the record I've never done that. I just forgot the collar so was just rawdogging my CPU onto the board. Fortunately I didn't ruin anything somehow.
Worst thing that'll happen from running a CPU with no cooler is it'll detect that it's getting too hot and shut down before it can damage itself, CPUs have had temperature sensors built in for a long time now.
I caught a graphics card on fire once by plugging in a too powerful power supply. I am not a smart man
it was something to do with a paperclip
Usually these things are stored on an EEPROM chip on the motherboard. You can absolutely burn out the eeprom, bricking the machine until you can find someone who can do surface mount rework.
Ya sorry by both batteries I mean the main battery and the CMOS battery
Modern dell machines will require you to call in to support, where you give part of the serial and they give you a master unlock.
Gone are the days of the cmos reset. The sysadmin at work was fired for being racist, then asked for a consultants fee to unlock the machines he didn't write down the passwords for.
yeah but in this case, it was like 50 mini workstations so it'd basically be replacing all 50 machines.
My machine is Acer and apparently you can bring it to an "acer service centre" (whatever that is) and they will fix for a fee rumored to be about $100.
They're probably talking about a bestbuy or equivalent