Cant find Cmos battery. HP Pavillion N5290

jjsjunkyard · TweakNOOB Joined: 01 Apr 2005 Posts: 2

First of all, This is the first forum I have ever used, so forgive any mistakes and/or poor etiquette.
I have recentlly purchased an HP Pavillion N5290. It has a bios password that I need to clear. I have read that if you remove the cmos batt. it will reset the bios to default settings and clear the password. But I can not find the batt. Anyone know where on the motherboard I might find it?

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Xal · Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 4:19 am Post subject:

Welcome to Tweaknews

The battery is usually a coin sized siver battery and can be located almost anywhere on the motherboard, however some brand name machines use different kinds of batterys or a battery pack, these are harder to locate. look arround the inside of the case for a battery pack or on the motherboard for a bulky component, the chances are that that will be the battery. Be careful tho because it may be solderd on, in which case you will need to find the jumper to clear cmos. The jumper is usualy marked "clr CMOS" or similar. Not having worked on that model I can't give you any clearer instructions at the moment.
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Xal · Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 4:34 am Post subject:

According to the HP site the HP Pavillion N5290 is a laptop. Is that what you have? If this is the case then the battery will be MUCH harder to find and may not even clear the password as some notebooks have one set as default. Where does it ask for the password, on boot or on entering setup?

You may get lucky and find the battery under the keyboard or under a pannel at the bottom of the laptop (assuming it is one). If you find it, remove it AND the laptops power cord and standard battery. That will clear the password if in fact it can be cleared.
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Phenom II x4 955 @ Stock
Asus M3N78-EM
4gb Corsair XMS2 DDR2 667 @ 800
1gb Powercolor Radeon HD 5850 @ Stock
X-fi Extreme Audio PCI E
Nexus 600W Silent PSU
Nexus Fans
Custom case

fussnfeathers · Lord of the Tweak Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 2763

Removing the battery clears the CMOS, but doesn't reset the BIOS........wierd, I know, but that's how it works. The password for your BIOS is flash memory based, and non-volatile, so it won't disappear when you remove the power.

Call HP tech support. They'll give you the password, it's a generic one for all machines........I just don't remember what it is.

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FreeTheRock [banned] · Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 11:07 am Post subject:

well the password should be reset if you remove that battery becasue thats what i hade to do on my old dell. they could have changed that but last time i remember the password will be gone if that battery is removed for a while mabye like 5 or more minutes.

2old2care · Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 11:17 am Post subject:

Like FnF said most laptops are a bit different in the way they are done....you can make it lose the time and some settings, but NOT a password. And, yes they used to use a "backdoor" password, but many do not anymore. Some require you to plug in a programmer to a header on the mainboard to clear a password. I'm sure it varies from manufacturer to manufacturer.
You may need to get a hold of HP support for this one.

Can't wait for biometrics to become everyday. Shock

BTW...most of the laptops that are this way do NOT have a Cmos battery. They use the regular battery.
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Xal · Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 3:11 am Post subject:

^^ true, laptops manufacturers don't like there bios played with in most cases....
_________________
Phenom II x4 955 @ Stock
Asus M3N78-EM
4gb Corsair XMS2 DDR2 667 @ 800
1gb Powercolor Radeon HD 5850 @ Stock
X-fi Extreme Audio PCI E
Nexus 600W Silent PSU
Nexus Fans
Custom case

jjsjunkyard · TweakNOOB Joined: 01 Apr 2005 Posts: 2

HP support was no help.
Yes it is a laptop
It asks for the password on boot. It says press f2 to change boot order, press f8 to ...... I cant remember exactly what the options it gives you prior to asking for the password, but the options dont really matter because even if you choose one of them (and, believe me I have tried them all) It still is asking for the password.
I have found some other HP notebook owners with the same problem, but I am yet to find out how they fixed it.
I am ready to give up.
Any more ideas?