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ThinkPad Supervisor Password

mmartini57

Junior Member
I have an IBM ThinkPad G40 that I purchased at a liquidation sale. It has a supervisor password in CMOS. I used it for a month then I had a really great idea, that turned out to be a very stupid idea. I use a program, Kill CMOS, that puts everything in CMOS back to the factory default. It worked, now when I turn the laptop on it displays the message that the time and date are incorrect, Kill CMOS set it back to the factory default. Now it is prompting me to enter the correct time and date after I enter the supervisor password which I don't know. It will not boot up past the supervisor password prompt to be able to boot from floppy drive, CD-ROM, hard drive or network.
I registered the laptop with IBM when I first bought it. I called IBM and they said that the only way to get rid of the supervisor password is to replace the mainboard and the cheapest mainboard I found for my laptop is $565.00 I have taken the battery and the CMOS battery out and left them out for a week, that did not work. Come to find out that the supervisor password is stored in an EPROM chip which communicates with the CMOS around a 1000 times during boot-up and if any of them fail it will not boot. The EPROM is modified electronically and not with ultra-violet light.
There is a guy in Australia, Joe http://www.ja.axxs.net/unlock/, that says he can get the password for anyone. All I have to do is build this circuit board, he gives instructions in making it, and email him the file it produces and for a fee he will email me the password.
Am I stuck with purchasing a new main board or take a chance that Joe will be successful in retrieving the supervisor password or does anyone know a way around the supervisor password.

Thanks
1cross + 3nails = 4given
 
This post does not really belong in highly technical.

Having said that, you can get a replacement security chip to solder in here. Short of that, you can read out the EPROM values from the current chip, and then research online on how to decipher the output (no need to pay Joe).
 
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