The third option will probably be the best chance you have of getting rid of the BIOS password on modern desktops and laptops if the first method didn’t work. In that case, move on to the next method. Unfortunately, on some laptops and newer desktops, you may not even see the CMOS battery anymore.

You’ll want to wait at least 30 minutes before putting the battery back in and connecting everything back up. Use something like a butter knife or flat head screwdriver to pop the battery out. Make sure you turn off your computer completely, disconnect all cables and unplug the power also before doing this. Thankfully, it’s easy to spot because of its size and shape. You’ll have to open your desktop case or laptop panels and find the circular silver battery. Mostly the CMOS is used for maintaining the real-time clock for the computer.īasically, the chances of this working on a modern computer are pretty low, but it’s worth a shot because the other options are more complicated. This type of storage doesn’t require power and therefore doesn’t have any limitations like the CMOS battery. In older computers, the CMOS battery was responsible for this, but in newer computers, the BIOS and settings are stored in nonvolatile storage like flash memory or EEPROM. If you decide to change the boot order, disable a USB device or even set a BIOS password, it would all be pointless if the settings disappeared when you turned off your computer and unplugged it. This little battery is used to keep the time and store BIOS settings even when the computer does not have power. Most computers have a small battery installed on the motherboard called a CMOS battery.

I was pretty shocked how easily this worked, so it’s the first thing you should try before cracking open your computer. All you have to do is turn off the computer and turn it back on and you’ll be able to enter the BIOS password again without any issue. Without getting too technical, the reason it worked is because the password generated by the website and my password generate the same checksum.Īlso, don’t worry about the system disabled message because it’s just a scare tactic. I tried the Generic Phoenix password on my laptop and it worked! What is amazing is that the password I had put on the BIOS wasn’t even the same as the one listed on the website, but it still worked. For example, I have an Acer laptop at home and I went ahead and set a BIOS password and then entered the incorrect password three times.Īfter the third time, I got a message saying System Disabled, but I also got a number displayed right below that message.Īll you have to do now is go to a website called and simply type in that number! It will give you back a set of passwords for different BIOS brands that match that checksum. So most BIOS manufacturers have a fail-safe that will show what is called a checksum of the password once you enter the incorrect password more than 3 times.

Dell bios reset iso