Camera Battery Blog

Hacking IBM Thinkpad Bios Password

Lost your IBM ThinkPad Supervisor password? No problem, on this page i will show you how to recover your old password.

Although IBM claims their TP BIOS passwords are impossible to break, there is a easy and cheap way to fix this.

The stuff you need cost about 5 $ at your closest radio shack type of store. Also you need a spare PC with a serial port.

This article is based on a IBM ThinkPad T42. There are no guarantees and you might end up destroying your TP. So continue at your own risk. Other models this ought to work with are:

• 240, 240x
• 390E, 390x
• 570, 570E
• 600e, 600X
• 770Z
• A20m, A21e, A21m, a22m, A30p, A31, A31p
• G40, G41
• R30, R31, R32, R40, R50, R51
• Transnote, T20, T21, T22, T30, T40, T40p, T41, T42, T42p T60
• X20, X21, X22, X23, X24, X30, X31, X40, X41 Thinkpad X60 battery

The supervisor (SVP) password is stored in a chip called ATMEL 24RF08.It can not be reset by disconnecting the BIOS battery or shorting any jumper. It has to be read in order to deciffer the password. For this we need some kind of hardware so read on…

Soldering the ATMEL 24RF08 Chip reader

To read this chip we need to interface with it using a secondary computer and some simple electronics. You will need to purchase this:

• 2 x 2200 Ohm Resistors
• 2 x C5V1 Zener diodes (For example BZX55/C5V1 )
• Serial Port 9 pin Female

The serial port can be salvaged from any old PS2 type mouse. The zeners and resistors can be found in scrap electronics, but they are rather cheap so i would not bother. Solder them according to the image below. Leave the wires leading to SDA , SCL and GND. These will be connected to the TP later.

Here is a simplified schematic for those unfamilliar with the above symbols:

Locating the ATMEL chip

Usually the ATMEL chip is located somewhere below the touchpad. Start off by remving the keyboard and mousepad. This is done by unscrewing a couple of screws located under the TP. It is quite clearly illustrated on the bottom side of your ThinkPad.

Pull the TP keyboard up and let it rest against the screen. Pry off the touchpad part and fold it over where the keyboard used to be. Remove the WiFi card.

Under it all you should find a chip with something like this printed:

ATMEL

24RFC8

0446

Heres a closeup of the Atmel chip.

You can see the Atmel right under were the Wifi card used to sit:

Soldering the ThinkPad

Now this is the tricky part. You will have to solder 3 wires to the motherboard of your Thinkpad T61 battery. Two wires to the ATMEL chip and one to ground. The ground is a piece of cake, just solder it anywhere you can find ground. The mounting screw holes on the motherboard is a good place. Solder 3 wires according to the image below:

As you can see, the SCL and SDA are located right next to eachother. It can be difficult to hold them in place while soldering. I have used some tape to hold them in place. The tape can be left there to minimze the risk of pulling off the soldered wires during the next steps.

Leave these wires unconnected and make them ready by peeling off the insulation. These will be connected to the reader ciruit later on. Make sure they can not reach ground or short circuit in any way.

Preparing the spare PC

You have made the hardware to read the chip, so now you need to supply the software. There is this great sofware made by http://www.allservice.ro/ that can be found here:

http://home.ripway.com/2005-7/365678/index.htm - Select R24RF08 v2.0b - Reader for ATMEL 24RF08 (Freeware)

While you are at it, download the Supervisor Password decoder IBM Pass 2.0 Lite found here:

http://home.ripway.com/2005-7/365678/index.htm Inspiron 1520 battery

Also great software made available by http://www.allservice.ro/ .

Note:

Softpedix wrote that the download mirror has limited bandwidth. If you can’t download with the above, try these:

http://www.allservice.ro/forum/viewtopic.php?t=61 – Programmer

http://www.allservice.ro/forum/viewtopic.php?t=56 – IBMpass Lite

Install the software.

Connect the ATMEL chip reader to the spare PC.

Fire up a command promt(Start->run type cmd) and navigate to the folder where you installed R24RF08 v2.0b. Type in (don’t hit Enter):

r24rf08 dump.bin

Dumping the password

1. Turn on your ThinkPad with all the wiring you just soldered.
2. Press F1 during the startup to enter the BIOS.
3. Wait untill all activity stops, blinking HDD leds and such.
4. Connect the ATMEL Chip reader. GND first then the SDA and SCL.
5. Now go to your spare PC and Hit enter on the command prompt.

Now there should be a file created in the same folder with the name dump.bin. Disconnect all the wiring off your TP and assemble it back together. This test cant fit for latitude D410 battery.

Decoding the Supervisor Password

On your Spare PC start the program IBM Pass 2.0 Lite. Load the file you just created (dump.bin). Navigate with the scroll list to the memory address of 0×330. Tada! It should look something like this:

The article is from: Sodoityourself.com

Hack dead laptop battery

As far as we know, the new 6 cells laptop battery die after 600-800 charging and discharging circles. Then we spend $80 or more to buy a replacement.Its too expensive, and these dead laptop batteries can pollute our environment if we dropped them random. Now I see a video about “hack dead laptop battery”. Let me introduce the “hack laptop battery ” for you.

Generally, our “dead laptop battery” is the laptop battery that cant work or cant supply any power. Most “dead laptop battery” are only power exhasut battery but not broken battery. Most accessories of these batteries are good, we can replace the battery cells to hack our laptop battery.

First you must prepaire some tools as multimeter, electric welding tool, tin stick, 6 new cells, wire and so on. Then you can hack dead laptop battery yourself following these steps:

1. First take the dead laptop battery out of your laptop.
2. Then take the battery apart.
3. You will see 6 cells connected by wire. Carefully examine every cells by a multimeter to ensure the cells are powerless.
4. Use a electric welding tool to separate cells from wires. Then take them out of battery shell.
5. Then welding the new cells together by consulting the dead cells combination and blueprint.
6. Put the new cells into battery pack and connect the wires and cells.
7. In the end put the two peices of battery back together. Cool down it for about 48 hours.
8. Now hack dead laptop battery complete. You will found that the new battery works again.
9. Also some strange shape batteries like thinkpad T61 battery and inspiron 6400 battery are the unsuitable hack example.

This is the hack dead laptop battery video :

Please note that: do everything carefully, as the cells can explode if you strike it hard or the cell is too hot when you weld them. In all if you are a DIY expert, dont try to hack dead laptop battery, buy a new one is the best choice.