Fujitsu Seimans Amilo Pi 1536 Bios issue

The main issue here is the comedy genius who thought it would be a good idea to fiddle around with bios and set a bios password then completely forget to tell anyone what it is. I know this schoolboy error gets trotted out every time someone buys a stolen laptop but I really mean it this time.

My friend James lent his laptop to one of the roadies that were working the local crew to check his webmail and the next time he came to log on and play EVE (the only reason he puts his mac down) it asked for a bios password. Now given that he was then several thousand miles away from this guy and he didn't really know him he has now several months later presented me with his Lappy with a please see if you can fix this.

It is out of warranty but registered with FS but before I ship it to them and get a £300 bill for a new motherboard I thought I would see if anyone here can find me an answer.

Thus far I have removed bios Battery for 24hours and googled like a mother "expletive deleted".

Any clues gratefully received and the winning entry may even score some tickets to the Reading festival (he is sound engineer for the headline act).

Does your friend have proof that the laptop belongs to him?
I'm thinking that you could ring up FS and ask them for a password, must be a master password to remove it.

AFAIK removing the battery won't do anything, well you tried it so you know but the bios password is stored on a eprom chip.

Do you know what bios it has?

SimonC said:

Does your friend have proof that the laptop belongs to him?
I'm thinking that you could ring up FS and ask them for a password, must be a master password to remove it.

AFAIK removing the battery won't do anything, well you tried it so you know but the bios password is stored on a eprom chip.

Do you know what bios it has?

Click to expand...

Yes he can prove it and they have already said I can send it back to them for it doing but it is going to cost about $300 (he bought it in the US)

I dont think the phoenix bios has a password reset I have googled it to death. There are no jumpers on the main board but near the battery there is a lump of hand solder covering something that is labeled JP3 which may I think be their clumsy way of removing the bios jumper reset. oh well out with the soldering iron I guess

Hi,
Firstly, it is possible only via a shortened parallel port (if you have one, which I don't think that model does) or a replacement bios chip.

You can take a look on the net for replacement bios chips, these models do need soldering though, but can be done with a school boy iron, so not really that difficult.

EDIT: By the way, by this response I didn't mean for you to try this yourself if you are not comfortable. Just it is a much more viable and cheaper option to outsource this work, it is definitely a much cheaper option than buying a new motherboard.

~EDIT FURTHER (Just read your response above): That JP3 jumper is definitely it mate. You've struck gold. Take anything you have which is conductive and make sure you are earthed. Simply make contact with the solder joint and power on. Not recommended I know, but it works.

Solus said:

Hi,
Firstly, it is possible only via a shortened parallel port (if you have one, which I don't think that model does) or a replacement bios chip.

You can take a look on the net for replacement bios chips, these models do need soldering though, but can be done with a school boy iron, so not really that difficult.

EDIT: By the way, by this response I didn't mean for you to try this yourself if you are not comfortable. Just it is a much more viable and cheaper option to outsource this work, it is definitely a much cheaper option than buying a new motherboard.

~EDIT FURTHER (Just read your response above): That JP3 jumper is definitely it mate. You've struck gold. Take anything you have which is conductive and make sure you are earthed. Simply make contact with the solder joint and power on. Not recommended I know, but it works.

Click to expand...

Nope wasn't it I am afraid I de soldered the joint so it was not conducting and rebooted then shorted it across and all various ways of doing it but nothing got rid of the bloody password. I got a quote for a new motherboard £325 + delivery from fujitsu itself. I will have a dig around for a bios chip I know which one it is and it is solderable by me no problem but it's a board out job I am afraid. My other option is to keep scouting the popular online auction site for one with a broken screen and putting this good screen on that one.

This shorted parallel cable you speak of sounds interesting tell me more or PM me details if need be.

You need to bend conductive wire from the following pins from left to right of the parallel port (top left is 1).

From 1 to 15 to 10 (all 1 wire), from 2 to 11, from 3 to 17, from 4 to 12, from 6 to 16, 7 to 13, 8 to 14, 9 to 15.

This is of course if you have a parallel port on the back of your machine. This should make a circuit around the jumper on the board which basically bypasses the bios password check, once booted in to the bios with the wires in, remove the wires and set a new bios password which you can remember and save. Then simply reboot without the wires, enter the new bios password you entered earlier, and change it to blank. Bios password wiped

PS: I believe you could purchase parallel dongles to do this for you, at least with the older Toshiba models, but which pins you need to shorten are specific to model types, and most amilo's the above configuration works (if you have a parallel port).

It is also possible a backdoor password has been set by the PHOENIX bios chip to enable access.

Try the following passwords (case sensitive): phoenix, PHOENIX, CMOS, BIOS

Thank you for your help but this model has no parallel port, bloody new technology. will find a new bios chip