Service Forum

victor · S.F. Boss Joined: 07 Mar 2004 Posts: 2581 Location: Staff

Thanks!
Hoops&Yoyo were always my fovourites
Is a bit off-topic but see one of their best here:

JGK95 · Nou Venit Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 1

Victor!!

YOU ARE A GOD AMONGST MEN!!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

We received this laptop as payment for General Contracting work done on this client's house and the client didn't bother to mention that she didn't have money so she basically took her son's laptop out of his hands and handed it to us. The little &()*()$^ locked the BIOS Supervisor pswd before we received it and stated that he 'forgot' the both the Supervisor password and the read only password. When he came forward with the RO password, he still had 'forgot' the Supervisor password. So we were basically stuck with w2k, some lousy itunes, bad pron and tons of spyware on a T23 by IBM. After googling this site and specific thread, I learned TONS! I created the cable with pins, didn't solder but rather taped the wires to the laptop which had pins poked into the correct points on the eeprom and used the mentioned software on page one. I wound up successfully using IBMPASS v1.1 as version 2.0 provided the password in an unreadable and encrypted manner.

THANK YOU THANK YOU AND THANK YOU AGAIN!!!

Jay K.

adam · Nou Venit Joined: 21 Oct 2006 Posts: 1

Hi victor,
I read with interest your posts about how to unlock a ThinkPad supervisor password. I was very pleased to find the detailed information you gave, and wish to thank you for it. Having just that problem with my laptop, I was thankful that there was a solution to be found.
I built the circuit, ran the program, crossed my fingers...but got this error message- circuit not found or bus error .
I have rebuilt the circuit many times, and cannot find any error with it. Also, on my laptop the enter password screen only appears for 5 seconds, which is too short a time to connect the final cables. Do you have any suggestions to help me?
Thanks
Adam

victor · S.F. Boss Joined: 07 Mar 2004 Posts: 2581 Location: Staff

Will be my pleasure to help you, but I need to know in details what you did.
Some high res. pictures will be of some help too.

So provide me (by email) the following info:

- What laptop model it is and machine type,
- What PC are you using as technician,
- What interface you made,
- Pictures with interface, COM wires, eeprom wires, etc.
- Anything you think is helping me to figure out what the heck is going on there.

gogu n · Nou Venit Joined: 23 Oct 2006 Posts: 2

I found your infos onto a site sodoityourself.com...but all infos were taken from your site. Anyway, the pass appeared when I clicked the A<->A button, and appeared into capital letters, so for persons seeing unreadable characters(onto decoder page), please hit that button, onto decoder.... will work.
I only know that all was easy, from interface to software, once again MULTZUMESC Smile

victor · S.F. Boss Joined: 07 Mar 2004 Posts: 2581 Location: Staff

Multumesc la fel, Gogu.

jhu · Nou Venit Joined: 07 Sep 2006 Posts: 3

victor · S.F. Boss Joined: 07 Mar 2004 Posts: 2581 Location: Staff

HIN232 and MAX232 are "identical". Even if the HIN232 may work with 100nF capacitor, I suggest you 1uF/50-100V.

Eventually, the circuit is the same.

andy · Nou Venit Joined: 31 Oct 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Sweden

Hi Victor and Everyone else,

I just completely dismanteled my X41. IBM of course tried to make the eeprom as inaccesible as possible. For you who are intrested, I located it at the underside, on the other side of the pcmcia/pc card slot (which is on the upperside of the mainboard).

I have a couple of questions before I start soldering.

1a) Which parts need to be connected for the computer to boot, and for me to be able to read the eeprom?

I have disconnected about everything that is possible to disconnect. These are monitor/LCD cable, fingerprint board, harddrive, 56k modem + bluetooth, MiniPCI adapter, and battery pack.

1b) Is it safe to start it up (the X41) while having the mainboard and everything else dismanteled, or should I fit everything together again before I boot it up?

2) Should I run the computer on battery or on the AC adapter?

3a) Maybe it is safer to not power up the computer at all, but to drive the eeprom with the 3x1.5v battery pack as power supply?

3b) Is it safe to _not_ unsolder the eeprom, but instead use the battery pack directly with the eeprom in place on the mainboard?

4) Victor, you said in another post that the X41 has a 24S08 eeprom. However, that is not the case for me, I have an 8-pin eeprom labeled 24RF08CN. Is that going to cause any problems?

Thanks in advance, and best regards
Andy

victor · S.F. Boss Joined: 07 Mar 2004 Posts: 2581 Location: Staff

Hi,

1a+1b) You have to assemble back almost all components you removed. Of course, you can use an external monitor instead of the internal LCD. But the ideea is that the laptop have to be functional.

2) Doesn't really matter, but you can plug the AC, is more secure.

3a+3b) Do not unsolder the eeprom! Do not power the eeprom while soldered on the board with an external source. Never do that!

4) pca 24s08 AND 24rf08 IS THE SAME THING. All X41's that I saw have had the Phillips eeprom. Anyway, doesn't matter.

Good luck!

andy · Nou Venit Joined: 31 Oct 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Sweden

Hi Victor,

Thanks for the quick reply!

Regarding question 3. My idea was to _not_ connect any power or battery to the laptop and instead use the 3x1.5v battery pack. But instead of completely unsoldering the chip, leave it soldered to the mainboard.

So, do you think it is ok to drive the eeprom with the battery pack with the chip unsoldered _without_ the main ibm battery or ac power connected?

Best Regards
Andy

victor · S.F. Boss Joined: 07 Mar 2004 Posts: 2581 Location: Staff

No, is not OK. The battery pack shown in the diagram is only for unsoldered chips.
I have already answered, "Do not power the eeprom while soldered on the board with an external source"

andy · Nou Venit Joined: 31 Oct 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Sweden

Oh, sorry, I misunderstood your answer. I believed that you meant AC adapter when you said "external source", didn't think of the battery pack as external source in that context.

Thank you very much for your help Victor.

Best regards
Andy

roycampbell · Nou Venit Joined: 31 Oct 2006 Posts: 2

Hi there,

I have built the simple circuit and am trying to get the password on an X31. However, when I input into the r24rf08 program the programme just closes down. That is that, I type in r24rf08 my.bin and press return and the programme just vanishes.

From reading other posts I think it should either give me an error if the circuit is incorrect or start reading the eeprom but I get neither.

I have tried two different computers.

Could you please suggest what I'm doing wrong.

victor · S.F. Boss Joined: 07 Mar 2004 Posts: 2581 Location: Staff

Yeah, you are not the only one who ask this question:

R24RF08 is a Win32 Console Application but needs the parameters in command line
For example you installed the software in "c:\allservice\24rf08" folder (or directory).
You have to launch it from within a console window.
Start>Run, type "cmd" and press OK to open this console window.
You should see the system prompt:
C:\bla_bla...bla\>
Now to run the reader, type exaclty:

cd c:\allservice\24rf08<enter> - with space between "cd" and the rest. This will switch you to the program folder.

r24rf08 a.bin<enter> - this will actually execute the program.

Of course, do this at the right time, following the procedure. <Enter> means to strike the Enter key. In the example above the binary will be stored in a file named "a.bin" which will be in the same folder with the reader, c:\allservice\24rf08.

Quod erat demonstrandum