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Why does nobody talk about pulling the CMOS battery to clear a boot password on an old Dell
Picked up a Dell OptiPlex 780 at a garage sale in Reno last month for $15, but it booted straight to a BIOS password prompt and the seller swore he never set one. Did some digging and turns out you can just unplug the power, pop the coin cell battery out of the board for about 10 minutes, and the password wipes itself clean. Cost me nothing but time, and the thing runs fine now with a fresh $2 battery from the drugstore. Has anyone else done this on newer boards, or did they start locking that trick down at some point?
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uma_lopez1d ago
Funny how the simplest fixes are always the last thing people try... we live in a world where everything has to be complicated. You could've paid some shop 80 bucks to "unlock" it and all they'd do is the same thing. My dad had a similar deal with a lawnmower once, guy said the carb was shot, turned out to be a clogged fuel filter. Newer boards did wise up to the battery trick though, a lot of them store the password in a chip that keeps power from the main battery or they moved it to where pulling the coin cell does nothing. Some Dells even have a jumper or a service tag code you gotta call in for. So enjoy the 780 while it lasts, those old ones are the sweet spot for cheap fixes.
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