[Tigerama]

I just found that I am having this same problem. I have an unflashed version of A05 that came with my 10v. I would not have noticed it until I connected a USB mouse and let the machine sleep. It never woke back up again.

Does anyone have any idea on how to fix this *without* dismantling the machine?

[DenisM]

Same problem here. 10V (ver 06) is about 10 days old.
Attempts to flash the BIOS failed to clear the lock or change any option.

Running Winphlash with the advanced options on, allowed me to reset BIOS values to their defaults, but no luck on unlocking - proving the BIOS is still capable of being accessed/programmed, It thinks a user password is 'set' , but I did not set one.
And altho' bootup password in enabled it does not ask for a password on boot or while entering setup.

Otherwise it's working perfectly. A great little unit

It's on the way back to Dell to be fixed...

D.

[vienna]

I am having the same locked Bios Problems. (Mac OS x 10.6.2, Bios A04)
Is removing the CMOS Battery really my only option to disable USB Legacy Support?
I would like to disable it to have my Dell 10V wake up from sleep...

As far as I found out so far I have to go into the guts to manage a healthy awakening...
Or is there another way?

[Leewave]

I've just found this thread, having had the same (or similar) problems with my BIOS settings to most of you here. In my case I can only change Speedstep and Onboard LAN control on the advanced tab, the others are all greyed out and not selectable. I did not flash the BIOS, it is still A06.

I will probably try to follow eroku's advice above about the BIOS battery...

[Leewave]

And.... SUCCESS!!

I followed eroku's advice in this thread, disconnected the CMOS battery (what a hassle) rebooted and had now access to the previously greyed out settings. After reconnecting it and a further reboot to test - all ok so reassembled and did not break anything!

Since the CMOS battery is glued to the underside of the motherboard next to the RAM, you have to disassemble it quite a bit. I followed the very useful RAM upgrade guide here How to upgrade Dell Mini 10v memory | jRin.net which has a couple of youtube videos embedded.

Some caveats if you are going to open the case - Dell's machines are flimsy. Be careful not to overstress any of the plastic parts which are held in by clips, and use firm pressure on screws to get them started, with the correct sized crosspoint screwdriver. The metal is soft.

I found that you had to remove the wifi module since Dell have added a plastic lug to the case which prevents you just lifting the motherboard out with the wifi card still in place (why??) and there is one philips screw which you need to remove. They use thread lock on assembly. This screw was very (read VERY) tight and the metal of the screw is SOFT METAL. Be careful not to bugger it up. I had to squeeze the motherboard out by extreme flexing of the case without undoing it and then had to use heavy duty pliers to remove the screw. I found a replacement screw from my toolbox.

The quality of Dell's computers is sufficient and ok while assembled and in use, but watch out when taking it apart. They are not patch on the quality of Apple's computers. (But we knew that anyway).



--☝
From this:


To this:
--☟


Since so many other people seem to be having this BIOS lock problem which seems independant of BIOS revision, it must be something to do with NBI perhaps.

My mini is now running well, no sleep problems (yet!) and it's running 10.6.2. Now I'm worried about any updates using NBI. I think I'll leave it alone for a bit.

[piratesmack]

How to fix without disassembling your Dell Mini:

Download and unzip the file attached to this post.
It's just Freedos Balder with KILLCMOS (a dos program that clears CMOS) added.

Now you have 2 choices:
1) You can burn the ISO to a CD
2) You can write it to a USB drive

Option 1: Burning to a CD
Just burn it using your favorite cd burning software, but make sure to burn it as an image and not a data cd. Google 'how to burn an iso' if you need help

Option 2: Writing to a USB drive
The below instructions were mostly copy/pasted from the Arch Linux wiki. Only follow the instructions for your operating system.

Note: This will erase all data on the USB drive

If you are using Windows (untested):

• Download win32 disk imager from http://launchpad.net/win32-image-writer. Run the program. Select balder10_killcmos.iso and the usb stick. The Win32 Disk Imager's file browser assumes image files end with .img, so if the image-file you've selected ends with .iso, you will have to type its name in manually; this difference in suffixes is simply cosmetic however, the image will be written fine regardless. Click on the write button.

If you are using Linux:

• Ensure the USB drive is unmounted first, then run the following command in a terminal, replacing 'X' with your USB drive letter
  

  dd if=balder10_killcmos.iso of=/dev/sdX

  *Make sure to use /dev/sdX and not /dev/sdX1.

Or if you are using Mac OS X (untested):

• To be able to use dd on your usb device on a Mac you have to do some special maneuvers. First of all insert your usb device, OS X will automount it, and run
  

  diskutil list

• in Terminal.app. Figure out what your usb device is called - mine was called /dev/disk1. (Just use the `mount` command or `sudo dmesg | tail`.) Now you run
  

  diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1

• to unmount the partitions on the device (i.e., /dev/disk1s1) while keeping the device proper (i.e., /dev/disk1). Now we can continue in accordance with the Linux instructions above (but use bs=8192 if you're using the OS X dd, the number comes from 1024*8).
  

  dd if=image.iso of=/dev/disk1 bs=8192

After you've made your boot disk, restart your computer and boot from it.
When you get to the freedos boot menu, just press Enter to select the default option ('3 - Freedos for 386 + fdxms')

When you get to the dos prompt, type the following:

KILLCMOS.COM

Your computer will beep once then immediately reboot. On the next boot, you should get an error message like "Invalid CMOS using setup defaults"

Now go into BIOS setup and the options shouldn't be greyed out anymore.

Hope this was helpful.

[Leewave]

So what causes this problem in the first place? It seems it does not happen to everyone either.

Someone said it can't be anything to do with NBI since it operates on a level above the BIOS, after the BIOS has loaded. Or something like that

And is it safe for me now to run NBI, now that I have finally got full access to the BIOS settings and don't want to open it up again, how safe is it to run NBI again prior to upgrading the OS?

[piratesmack]

Hmm... I noticed today that my BIOS settings were greyed out again
I haven't used NBI at all since the last time this happened, so I don't think it had anything to do with it.

I hope this doesn't keep happening, but I'll dual-boot with Freedos just in case.

[Yotajunk]

Originally Posted by piratesmack

How to fix without disassembling your Dell Mini:

Download and unzip the file attached to this post.
It's just Freedos Balder with KILLCMOS (a dos program that clears CMOS) added.

Now you have 2 choices:
1) You can burn the ISO to a CD
2) You can write it to a USB drive

Option 1: Burning to a CD
Just burn it using your favorite cd burning software, but make sure to burn it as an image and not a data cd. Google 'how to burn an iso' if you need help

Option 2: Writing to a USB drive
The below instructions were mostly copy/pasted from the Arch Linux wiki. Only follow the instructions for your operating system.

Note: This will erase all data on the USB drive

If you are using Windows (untested):

• Download win32 disk imager from http://launchpad.net/win32-image-writer. Run the program. Select balder10_killcmos.iso and the usb stick. The Win32 Disk Imager's file browser assumes image files end with .img, so if the image-file you've selected ends with .iso, you will have to type its name in manually; this difference in suffixes is simply cosmetic however, the image will be written fine regardless. Click on the write button.

If you are using Linux:

• Ensure the USB drive is unmounted first, then run the following command in a terminal, replacing 'X' with your USB drive letter
  

  dd if=balder10_killcmos.iso of=/dev/sdX

  *Make sure to use /dev/sdX and not /dev/sdX1.

Or if you are using Mac OS X (untested):

• To be able to use dd on your usb device on a Mac you have to do some special maneuvers. First of all insert your usb device, OS X will automount it, and run
  

  diskutil list

• in Terminal.app. Figure out what your usb device is called - mine was called /dev/disk1. (Just use the `mount` command or `sudo dmesg | tail`.) Now you run
  

  diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1

• to unmount the partitions on the device (i.e., /dev/disk1s1) while keeping the device proper (i.e., /dev/disk1). Now we can continue in accordance with the Linux instructions above (but use bs=8192 if you're using the OS X dd, the number comes from 1024*8).
  

  dd if=image.iso of=/dev/disk1 bs=8192

After you've made your boot disk, restart your computer and boot from it.
When you get to the freedos boot menu, just press Enter to select the default option ('3 - Freedos for 386 + fdxms')

When you get to the dos prompt, type the following:

KILLCMOS.COM

Your computer will beep once then immediately reboot. On the next boot, you should get an error message like "Invalid CMOS using setup defaults"

Now go into BIOS setup and the options shouldn't be greyed out anymore.

Hope this was helpful.

The problem with this, is we can't change the boot order since the bios are locked and we can't boot from usb when thats the case. So I'm having some trouble with this process.

[drchuck]

what are t he @#$% supervisor and user passwords for the bios? i only have 1 hand and disassembling the system is not a good idea for me.

chuck