Hi.
        The bios password is in the cmos ram; I don't know if encrypted or
not. Being a small ram, it should be easy to find it and show it; hence the
existence of password crackers.
        So for really severe problems (people constantly guessing it and
changing it) my only sugestion is to study the mobo and see if it has got
a jumper to enable cmos writes, and take that jumper to a difficult to access
switch. If not having such jumper, you would have to study the cmos ram
component and see if you can cut some trace on the mobo and do it yourself.
But perhaps this disables things as automatic daylight changes.
        As another trick, perhaps you can use strange characters (foreign)
for the password. Perhaps the bios would not admit it, but an external
program (or just direct access to ports 70-71) can do it. For example, an
old trick for emulating the space character (20H) is use the 0FFH character
(with Alt+255): shows like a space in DOS.
        So no easy solution...

>
> David,
>
> I'm not aware of a "backdoor" password for Award BIOS.  That's not to say
> there isn't one.  However, I feel it is more likely your students have
> downloaded a BIOS password cracker from the net.  They're readily available,
> just do a search.  If that is the case, you may never be able to keep them
> out of the BIOS unless you can find and delete the password cracker.  Of
> course they'll just download it again.
>
> No easy solution to this - What about it list members??
>
> Good Luck,
> Dave
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Spencer <[log in to unmask]>
>
> >I wrote a message earlier about Bios passwords. The problem is not that
> I've
> >forgotten the passwords, the problem is that some students have found out
> >what the "backdoor" password is for Award.
> >This being the case, no matter what password I put into the system, the
> >students are able to get into the BIOS using the "backdoor" password that
> >Award uses. What I want is a way to prevent them from using this password
> >and getting into the bios. Any help would be greatly appreciated. TIA
> >
>



************************************
Javier Vizcaino. Ability Electronics. [log in to unmask]
  Starting point:        (-1)^(-1) = -1
  Applying logarithms: (-1)*ln(-1) = ln(-1)
  Since ln(-1) <> 0, dividing:  -1 = 1     (ln(-1) is complex, but exists)