Reset BIOS on Toshiba A205-S5880

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paranoidandroid09

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Jan 28, 2009
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Hello

I have a client's laptop here (Toshiba A205-S5880) and someone (her son, I believe) has put a BIOS password on it. I have looked high and low for a reset button on the laptop and on the web. I did find one other forum with a similar topic and in that forum it says to look for two small contacts labeled "XXX" on the board in the section under the memory slots. Shorting the contacts together and turning on the laptop is said to clear the BIOS password. However, I don't see those contacts on this laptop. There are a similar pair of contacts in a similar location but I'm afraid to try it as it might short something out. The set of contacts I found are slightly larger and are labeled C945, which I guess is for a capacitor.

I see the CMOS battery but its in a location not easy to reach without potentially damaging the leads to the board built into the battery. You'd have to use a pair of needle-nose to grab them and pull it out (or you could further disassemble the laptop to reach them). Plus I don't think disconnecting the CMOS battery would do any good.

Does anyone else have any experience with this machine type? Is this a case of "send it to Toshiba"? Thank you!
 

kev200

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Nov 27, 2008
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I had the same problem also. One of my friend's laptop was locked with a the bios password. it took me all night and reading 100s of blogs like this to figure it out. Its obvious that the bios has to be reset to change the password. It is almost next to impossible to get to the CMOS battery without damaging the laptop. after comaparing the blogs that worked from different models. I realized that i needed to look for the JI jumper and bridge them. It is located beneth the 2 RAM mondules. Remove both memory sticks and bellow them you will see the J1 jumper. I uploaded a jpg image so that you can see exactly where it is. Bridge for about 30 seconds. Replace battery, RAM and the Power up. presto you have cleared the CMOS.I did this with the battery, laptop plugged out and powered off.

http://i53.tinypic.com/vorhvt.jpg
http://tinypic.com/r/vorhvt/7

Took me all night but when you care about someone like timone, you do what it takes. Love makes you do good stupid stuff or great stuff. Ahhh now i have to go to work. Hope this works for you.

Toshiba A205-S5880

KEazy
 
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