BIOS password: what to do with Lenovo W500?

[Beer4Me]

At work, I have a Lenovo W500 15.4" notebook that is blocked off with a boot BIOS password. It's a pretty nice machine with decent specs, 2.53 GHz Core2 Duo, 4 GB DDR3/250 GB 7200rpm, and Nvidia Quadro graphics. The previous user must've set this up, but they have left the company long time ago - way before I came onboard. I called Lenovo support, and they said that the system board would have to be replaced. The unit is under warranty, but this repair is not.
Any suggestions?

Addendum: Worst case scenario, I strip the laptop of parts (RAM, CPU, HDD, Wifi, etc) for re-use, and document and recycle the system board and chassis.
I suppose I could also ask the CFO I could keep the unit since it cannot be deployed. However, I'd rather get this fixed and deployed since we're such a small company.

EDIT: See post #3. Thanks Ertaz.

 

[Ertaz]

At work, I have a Lenovo W500 15.4" notebook that is blocked off with a boot BIOS password. It's a pretty nice machine with decent specs, 2.53 GHz Core2 Duo, 4 GB DDR3/250 GB 7200rpm, and Nvidia Quadro graphics. The previous user must've set this up, but they have left the company long time ago - way before I came onboard. I called Lenovo support, and they said that the system board would have to be replaced. The unit is under warranty, but this repair is not.
Any suggestions?

Addendum: Worst case scenario, I strip the laptop of parts (RAM, CPU, HDD, Wifi, etc) for re-use, and document and recycle the system board and chassis.
I suppose I could also ask the CFO I could keep the unit since it cannot be deployed. However, I'd rather get this fixed and deployed since we're such a small company.

Do you have the documentation to take it apart? There should be a CMOS battery that you can cross the lead to the battery in order to clear.

 

[Beer4Me]

Taking the laptop apart is no problem, and I have access to the battery. Would it be good enough just to pull the CMOS battery out for a few minutes to reset the BIOS?

EDIT: That worked! I pulled the battery out from the board for 15 min, and started it back up. BIOS cleared and reset to defaults. Thanks a lot. Can't believe I forgot to check for that.

 

[Ertaz]

Taking the laptop apart is no problem, and I have access to the battery. Would it be good enough just to pull the CMOS battery out for a few minutes to reset the BIOS?

EDIT: That worked! I pulled the battery out from the board for 15 min, and started it back up. BIOS cleared and reset to defaults. Thanks a lot. Can't believe I forgot to check for that.

Cool.

 

[ncage]

Cool.

See this:
http://www.tech-faq.com/reset-ibm-thinkpad-bios-password.html