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How To Bypass Or Remove A Bios Password?

  • Posted on June 9, 2010 at 7:47 am


A BIOS password is a protection measure that can be used to stop someone powering up a computer system or making changes in some of the computers most sensitive areas. Many big name computer manufacturers such as Dell and HP lock the customers out of this area because they don’t want the customer changing anything and potentially damaging the machine (which the manufacturer may have to warranty). However, when someone like a computer technician or hardware enthusiast needs to make some hardware changes to the computer, they will need to access the BIOS. Here are some methods to bypass or remove a BIOS password. NOTE: Do not try to guess the password on a passworded Hard Drive. 3 wrong guesses will often result in the information on the hard drive being lost forever. How to Bypass or Remove a BIOS Password by Removing the CMOS Battery: The simplest way to remove a BIOS password is to simply remove the CMOS battery. If we pull out this battery, the computer will forget alot of its hardware settings, including its BIOS password. Make sure to power down the computer, unplug the power cables and unplug any USB devices if they are powered. The computer must not be able to get power from anywhere for this to work. Take out the CMOS battery and wait 10 – 25 minutes before putting it back in. The reason for this wait is because the computer can still store power in its capacitors even though everything is unplugged.

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How to Reset BIOS / CMOS Password?

  • Posted on at 7:45 am


There are two passwords in BIOS. One is start up password, the other is BIOS setting password. If you have forgotten the start up password that means you cannot open computer at all. Then the first method is the only thing you can do. Other methods can use to clear setting password. ==Step1:Motherboard Battery Discharge==The common way to reset start up password is discharge Motherboard Battery. Most of the current motherboard BIOS is using the button batteries to provide electric power. That means if there is no electricity, the information it contains will be lost. When it’s on power again, BIOS will set back to its original state, of course, there will be no BIOS passwords. But you will lose your setting at the same time. What we need to do is to power off computer, open the computer box, and then unplug the power plug of the computer to make sure that it is no electricity at all. Then locate the white silver button battery on the motherboard. Remove the battery carefully. Perhaps 30 seconds later, put back the battery. After put back the computer box then power on, the system will prompt “CMOS Checksum Error-Defaults Loaded”. That means CMOS errors detected during inspections, had been included in the system default, BIOS password cracking success! On some motherboards, the battery is soldered to the motherboard, making it difficult to remove. If this is the case, you have another alternative. Somewhere on the motherboard you should find a jumper that will clear the BIOS password. If not, the jumper may be labeled on the motherboard.

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How to Reset BIOS Password?

  • Posted on at 7:45 am


There are two passwords in BIOS. One is start up password, the other is BIOS setting password. If you have forgotten the start up password that means you cannot open computer at all. Then the first method is the only thing you can do. Other methods can use to clear setting password. ==?:Motherboard Battery Discharge== The common way to reset start up password is discharge Motherboard Battery. Most of the current motherboard BIOS is using the button batteries to provide electric power. That means if there is no electricity, the information it contains will be lost. When it’s on power again, BIOS will set back to its original state, of course, there will be no BIOS passwords. But you will lose your setting at the same time. What we need to do is to power off computer, open the computer box, and then unplug the power plug of the computer to make sure that it is no electricity at all. Then locate the white silver button battery on the motherboard. Remove the battery carefully. Perhaps 30 seconds later, put back the battery. After put back the computer box then power on, the system will prompt “CMOS Checksum Error-Defaults Loaded”. That means CMOS errors detected during inspections, had been included in the system default, BIOS password cracking success! On some motherboards, the battery is soldered to the motherboard, making it difficult to remove. If this is the case, you have another alternative.

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BIOS: What It Is and What It Does

  • Posted on at 7:35 am

Intro BIOS (pronounced “by-ose”) stands for Basic Input/Output System. It is a program that resides on a tiny chip that is integrated into the motherboard. These instructions carry out important tasks and provide the steps in the boot process.   The Process When you turn on your computer, there’s got to be some way to get everything started. Once the processor receives a good power signal, it executes a tiny bit of code in a particular memory address (FFFF:0000) in the BIOS that jumps to the actual memory location where the main BIOS program is stored. The boot process kicks into action. The first task BIOS undertakes is loading information from the CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) chip. Many people use the terms BIOS and CMOS interchangeably. They are not the same. The BIOS chip contains a program (Remember a program carries out instructions). The CMOS chip simply contains BIOS settings that are specific to a system, such as the number of hard drives, type of processor, amount of memory, and many other things. These configurations can be altered by the user to reflect changes to his/her computer. For example, if you purchase your own video card, you may have to go into CMOS and disable the built-in video before installing the new card. The BIOS, however, is altered through software. By loading the CMOS, the BIOS knows your system’s makeup.   Accessing the CMOS screen varies from system to system and is usually listed in the computer’s manual. Another way to find out is to look at the bottom left corner of your screen a few seconds after you power on your computer. A message appears that tells you to press a certain key to enter SETUP. The majority use “DEL”, “F1″, “ESC”, or some other key combination. If you make changes to CMOS, you must save them before exiting. Always double-check your settings before saving them. Wrong settings can cause problems. A small, flat battery, usually made of lithium, maintains these configurations after the computer is turned off. These batteries lasts for years.   After CMOS, interrupt handlers and basic device drivers are loaded. An interrupt handler is software that facilitates communication between the operating system (OS) and the processor. It “gets the processor’s attention” when some action occurs. When pressing a key, the keyboard interrupt tells the processor what key was pressed, and that information is sent to the OS. A device driver is another type of software that allows components to be recognized.   Next, if your system has adapter cards, they are checked to see if they contain their own bios. Then comes the POST (Power On Self Test). During the POST, devices are checked for errors, starting with the video card. The graphics adapter’s bios, if present, checks the card’s processor and memory. If everything is OK you will see the manufacturer’s name and version of the system BIOS, plus the name, model, and amount of memory of the video card at top left of the screen.   From there, the POST checks to see if a cold boot or reboot (also called a warm boot) occurred by looking at the number located at a certain memory address (0000:0472). If the value stored is 123h (memory addresses and values are expressed in hexadecimal, hence the “h” at the end) it’s a reboot, otherwise, a cold boot. A cold boot performs a memory test. A reboot skips this test. Other components are then checked for, such as ports, mouse, keyboard, and disk controllers. It then decides which device is the boot device and displays basic information about your system.   During the POST the BIOS compares its findings to the settings in CMOS. If any errors occur you will hear either some type of beep or see an error message. If all is well, it looks on the boot device for the Master Boot Record (MBR) that tells where the operating system is located. Once found, the BIOS process ends.   Updating BIOS At some point you may have to update the BIOS to accommodate hardware changes, but generally this is rare. This is often called “flashing the BIOS” because it is stored on flash memory. But if there does come a time when upgrading is necessary, go to the BIOS manufacturer’s site, the motherboard’s site, or computer’s website if it is a name-brand system. Make sure you know the BIOS date and revision. Instructions are usually given that walk you through the process. Follow them carefully. Two main BIOS makers are Phoenix Technologies and American Megatrends (AMI)  

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Video Card BIOS Upgrade

  • Posted on at 7:33 am

Video card BIOS update, like the motherboard BIOS update, is gradually welcomed by DIY group. Fix the bugs in the card and tap its potential, Flashing your video card BIOS allows you to have your system as stable as possible. Nevertheless, graphics BIOS flash has latent risks. How can we minimize these dangers? NVIDIA and ATI cards are two common graphics adapters in use. Before BIOS flash, the following preparation is necessary. First, find the video card model. Graphic card BIOS are distinct due to different brands and different models, generally they can not be applied universally. Do pay attention to the specific model, for example, the memory is SGRAM or SDRAM, it is 8MB or 16MB, PCI version or AGP version, is there any TV output. . . Otherwise, running an improper BIOS file may make the card going badly wrong or even scrapped. Second, find the version of the original BIOS; search the manufacturers’ website for BIOS details, download a compatible and newer BIOS file for the video adapter. Third, check if any driver required. Fourth, a copy of the NVFLASH utility (used in NVIDIA BIOS flash, you can download it from websites and use it to restore the current graphics BIOS), or a copy of the FLASHROM utility (used in ATI BIOS flash). Fifth, make a boot disk. All video card BIOS flash is carried out more reliably in DOS, so we need to make a DOS boot disk. And then copy the downloaded BIOS file and the NVFLASH. exe file (for NVIDIA BIOS flash)/FLASHROM. exe file (for ATI BIOS flash) onto the disk. Since preparations are ready, then go to the next step-flashing graphics card BIOS. In order to let the operation go smoothly, try to keep the power supply working in gear in the whole procedure. NVIDIA graphic adapter BIOS update 1. Make a backup of the current NVIDIA graphic card BIOS Utilize the BIOS flash disk to boot the computer and enter DOS, at the “A:” prompt, type “nvflash. exe -b backup. rom” and press Enter. The NVFLASH utility will restore the current NVIDIA graphics BIOS onto the flash disk (called backup. rom). 2. BIOS update From the “A:” prompt, type “nvflash -p -u -f (name of the new BIOS file including the file extension)” and press Enter. NVFLASH will overwrite your old BIOS information with the new values. If you see any error messages or odd results, do not restart the system. Consult the troubleshooting below for further instructions. If everything seemed to work properly, restart the system. Depending on the BIOS version you used and the video card, you may need to install new drivers. ATI graphic adapter BIOS update Conventional method 3. Make a backup of the current ATI graphic card BIOS Boot the computer with the flash disk, at the “A:” prompt, type “flashrom. exe -s 0 backup. rom” press Enter. Now the FLASHROM utility will restore the current video’s BIOS onto the disk (called backup. rom). 1. BIOS update At the “A:” prompt input “Flashrom -p 0 ***. rom” (*** means created name for the BIOS update file) hit Enter then the new BIOS will be written into the current BIOS chip. Wait for a few seconds, if there is no error massage popping up then restart the computer. Updating succeeds. Special situation, add flashing command parameter Add parameter “-f” Some graphic cards would encounter ID error during the operation, try to add a mandatory updating parameter “-f”to force the BIOS flash; When the new BIOS file is confirmed supporting the video adapter ID, input “atiflash -p -f 0 ***. rom”, and finally press Enter. Add parameter “-atmel” or “-sst” For some video adapters with the mBGA packaging its memory, and adding parameter “-f” is unable to update BIOS. If the BIOS chip is from ATM Company, then input “Flashrom -p -f atmel 0 ***. rom”; if from SST Company, then input “Flashrom -p -f -sst 0 ***. rom”. Depending on the BIOS version you used and the video card, you may need to install new drivers too. In respect that reprogramming BIOS is not an easy job for all PC users, before flashing your video card with the new BIOS version, keep in mind to restore the current BIOS in case you run into trouble later on. What should we do when BIOS upgrading fails? Well, then, if screen dazzling and instability occurs after reprogram, is there any remediation? We can figure out this issue by upgrading the backup BIOS file over again into the video card just like updating the new BIOS, only to change the command line “newbios. rom” to “backup. rom”. If flash fails, we have several fixes as below: 1. If Windows is accessible, but can not recognize the graphics card, use the DOS boot disk to start up the system, and rewrite the exact BIOS into EPROM. BIOS features can be resumed after start-up. 2. Screen is black. Unplug the AGP video card firstly, and boot up the computer after plugging in a PCI card, after that enter the BIOS setting program in the motherboard, choose “Integrated Peripherals” option, change the option “Init Display First” value to “PCI Slot”, save this setting and shut down. Then reinsert the AGP card at the same time keep the PCI card still connected with monitor, and restart. Finally, upgrade the correct BIOS as we update the new BIOS. 3. If there is no PCI card, we can try to “operate blindly”. First, find another computer, create an AUTOEXEC. BAT file in the DOS boot disk, and in this text file write “nvflash” (a filename of the backup BIOS in NVIDIA graphics card) or “Flashrom -p 0 Backup. rom ( in ATI graphics card). After the batch file finishes editing, boot up the former computer with the disk, when reading is over, wait for more than 10 seconds, and restart the computer. Then everything returns to be normal. If there is an EEPROM programmer, we can use it to rewrite the proper EPROM into BIOS.

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What Happens When Your Computer’s Bios Beeps Back

  • Posted on March 9, 2010 at 7:50 am


What is the reason for a child to start crying? Well, you can come up with many different answers but the simplest answer to the question would be probably he needs some attention for one of his problems. Your computer is just like that. Whenever it encounters one of the hardware PC errors or BIOS errors while performing the Power ON Self Test, it starts beeping to attract your attention. Beep codes are used by the BIOS during the POST to report certain initial system errors. If you’re hearing beep codes after you turn your computer on, it typically means that the system has encountered some kind of problem before it was able to display any kind of error information on the monitor. A beep Code is a an audible code generated during the power on self test when the BIOS encounters a problem but has not booted far enough to display a POST error message on the monitor. Every major BIOS manufacturer has a unique set of beep codes that can be generated during their POSTs. If you have misplaced the owner’s manual there is no need to fret as many manufacturers take care of posting this very useful beep codes on their website.   They carefully listen to the pattern of short beeps, long beeps and sometimes the mixture of short and long beeps. They try to count the number of beeps and to be sure about the pattern of beeps you will find them restarting your computer for number of times.

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