From: NURDEN1@elaine.ee.und.ac.za (Dale Nurden)
Subject: Re: Bios passwords
Organization: Elec. Eng., Univ. Natal, Durban, S. Africa
Lines: 29
NNTP-Posting-Host: pc-elxx1.ee.und.ac.za

>Some of our students change the AMI bios passwords on a few of our computers 
>and set it for always. What we'd like to know is if there is a way to bypass 
>or remove the password. We have tried switching bios, but to no avail. The 
>battery is soldered to the bord, an all three machines is still under 
>guarentee so if that would have help we can't remove the batteries.

As far as I know, there is no way to get around the BIOS password except by 
shorting out the power supply to the CMOS memory, thereby erasing it. This 
will remove the password, but it will also destroy all the previous BIOS 
settings, so then you'll have to go and set them all up again. On my 386, 
there is a jumper on the motherboard which is provided for the purpose of 
shorting the battery. You just short this jumper briefly, and it interrupts 
power to the CMOS long enough to erase it. I would imagine there is 
something like this on your board too. 

In the future, I would suggest that YOU set the password, and leave it on 
"Setup" only. That way, no-one else can go and reset it or set it to "
Always" unless they know what password you used. They had to do this over 
here too when they got a bunch of new 386's, for just the same reason.

-Dale

 /~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\
|      DALE M. NURDEN         \   /       NURDEN1@elaine.ee.und.ac.za    |
|                            _  #  _                                     |
|  Technical Co-ordinator       |       Dept. of Electronic Engineering  |
|    Durban Youth Radio        /|\        University of Natal, Durban    |
|   Durban, South Africa    __/_|_\__            South Africa            |
 \______________________________________________________________________/
