5. Secrets of the Hardware Gurus

There is hardware and then there is hardware: The lack of a simple machine screw — about a penny’s worth of metal — can cause an adapter card not to seat properly in the system bus and cause your $2,000 PC to resemble an electric paperweight. Or a sudden spike in electricity — caused by a lightning storm or your kid opening the refrigerator — can fry your PC in an instant. The following sections give some hard-won solutions to knotty problems that computer manufacturers — and the writers of instruction manuals — somehow seem to ignore year after year.

Resetting a system password

Many modern BIOS systems offer the chance to set a system password that must be entered before the PC begins to load an operating system. This is a good way to protect a machine from mischief, but can be a danger if you happen to forget the password or if the CMOS memory for the BIOS becomes corrupted. If you are unable to get past a system password, your options are limited; the password is not stored in a file, but rather in a small segment of specialized memory on the CMOS.

Consult the instruction manual for the BIOS or contact the manufacturer of your system to determine whether there is a default password that supercedes your private entry. Ask also whether there is a reset button on the motherboard or a jumper that can be changed to reset all of the entries in the CMOS. One last step is to find out whether the battery that keeps the CMOS memory alive can be disconnected or removed to cancel all settings for the BIOS.

If you end up clearing the BIOS, you will need to enter new settings, including those that allow your system to recognize the hard drive and other peripherals. It’s a good idea when you first purchase a machine to walk through the BIOS settings and write down critical entries, including hard drive type and all of the specifications that accompany it, memory and display settings, and anything else that the system may not be able to determine automatically if this data is lost during a hardware problem.

Just as an example — because different motherboard manufacturers handle the process differently — current Intel motherboards have a pair of jumpers near the backplane where connections are made to the outside world. One jumper is called CLRPSWD, and as its name suggests, it is used to clear the password. Intel motherboards are used by a number of computer manufacturers, including Dell. Other makers usually offer similar facilities. Consult the instruction manual or online resources for your computer. A typical password reset works like this:

1. Unplug your computer, ground yourself, and open the case to expose the motherboard.

2. Locate the password jumper. (As delivered, the jumper is enabled, meaning that it is in place across the two pins to complete a circuit.)

3. Remove the jumper to disable the system password feature; carefully set aside the jumpers.

4. Close the cover and reattach the power cord and any other cables that were removed.

5. Power up the computer and load Windows. Once the operating system is running, use the standard method to shut down the computer from within Windows.

6. Unplug your computer, ground yourself, and open the case to expose the motherboard.

7. Locate the password jumpers and replace the jumper across pins 1 and 2 to reenable the password feature.

8. Close the cover and reattach the power cord and any other cables that were removed.

9. Power up the computer and load Windows. You will be given the option to assign a new password, or you can skip over the password screen, which enables the machine to load without that security feature.

Clearing the CMOS settings

If you have altered the default settings for the system setup and the machine does not function properly, your best bet may be to reset the CMOS system memory to its default condition — the settings that were assigned to it by the manufacturer. There are three ways to do this:

1. The CMOS Setup screen has a command that will change all settings back to their default condition. Consult the instruction manual if you cannot find the command.

2. Most current motherboards offer a jumper you can remove, causing the system memory to reset to its default configuration.

3. Depending on the motherboard’s design, you may be able to remove the battery that backs up the memory to effect a reset.

One jumper is called CLRCMOS, and as its name suggests, it is used to Clear the CMOS memory. Consult the instruction manual or online resources for your computer. A typical CMOS reset works like this:

1. Unplug your computer, ground yourself, and open the case to expose the motherboard.

2. Locate the CMOS Reset jumper. (As delivered, the jumper is disabled, meaning that the jumper does not connect across the two pins to complete a circuit.)

3. Remove the jumper from the nearby system password pins and connect it across the two open pins for the CMOS Reset; leave it in place for ten seconds.

4. Remove the jumper from the CMOS Reset and return it to its former location on the system password pins.

5. Close the cover and reattach the power cord and any other cables that were removed.

6. Power up the computer and load Windows. Once the operating system is running, use the standard method to shut down the computer from within Windows.

7. If you need to make adjustments to the CMOS system memory, restart the computer and go to the Setup screen.