T60 Locked

[Elayde]

Hi, I've had my T-60 laptop for two years now. The problem at the beginning was the touchpad not working; drivers etc. settings were on. I was then directed here, and the official guide told me to access bios to turn settings on. I found out that my bios required a password (it had a picture of a human on its left side). I then followed the guide from Lenovo site to remove battery to reset them all. After removing the password, the laptop beeps twice when booting and gives notification "CHECK DATE AND TIME SETTINGS", forcing me to black screen with a password, and a picture of a computer on its left side. I called the lenovo support of Finland, and they told me it's a power-on-password, requiring the change of motherboard. My computer has HDD password which I use always to log in. I have also installed several different OSs during years, butbit has never asked me for the POp password. I understand it's a security problem, but following the official guides has blocked my access completely, so wouldn't Lenovo be in responsebility of changing my motherboard / unlocking the CPU? They told me a motherboard costs 550 euros for that laptop..

[richk]

You removed the power-on password. Now that you pulled the cmos battery, you need to have the supervisor to use the machine. You can do a lot better on used boards. What is the full model number?

[Elayde]

Type: 2007-77G Processor: Intel Centrino Duo (2.16 GHz), Ati X1400, 2 Gb RAM

[richk]

I hax a replacement and I would give you a trade-in on your old board, but shipping from San Francisco to Finland is fairly expensive. It would be best for you if you could find one in Europe

[rumbero]

Together with the matching serial number for your 2007-77G machine, check your warranty on the www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=SITE-WARNTY&sitestyle=lenovo web site. Then click on the link at the bottom saying "View parts lookup results for this system". This will open a listing of all the components built into your system. Search for the word "planar" and note down the FRU number in the second column left to it.

Search for that FRU either on eBay or at the German Lapstore web site at www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/546/lang/x/kw/Systemboards_-_Mainboards_fuer_Lenovo_Thinkpad_T... and order a suitable replacement board for a fraction of the price asked by Lenovo.

Then replace the board yourself following the detailed procedure explained in the hardware maintenance manual which can be found via the www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/migr-39298.html listing of all available Hardware Maintenance Manuals.

Doing it yourself is much cheaper, and you learn a lot about your machine by doing it. Unfortunately, if your machine is still under warranty, this will completely void your existing warranty, so better think twice about it.

[Elayde]

Thanks for help both of you. What does the planar changing actually do? Does it kill the password? Regards, Otto

[richk]

Changing the planar would certainly eliminate the problem, but there must be someone closer to you who can help you

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

planar is a motherboard, which has the CMOS on it, so by changing the entire motherboard you also eliminate the old CMOS which is locked.