VOGONS


First post, by keenerb

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I just picked up an essentially unused HP ze1110 Duron 1ghz/512mb laptop.

It seems like it might be a good compact system for late MSDOS games. Apparantly the audio hardware has an SBPro compatible interface, but the bios is completely locked down, all I can change is boot order.

Anyone know how to get into advanced bios settings here?

Assuming the SBPro mode is already enabled, anyone have any idea how to get it to work in pure DOS? A boot floppy and "SET BLASTER=blah blah blah" didn't work.

Reply 1 of 4, by hyoenmadan

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Define locked. Do you mean the lack of settings in the CMOS setup utility of your machine BIOS? Your machine was locked with a sort of admin password?

If the first question is true, yes. Unfortunately machines with SystemSoft/Insyde and Microid BIOSes are the less configurable ones. I don't know too much about Mr.BIOS, but to unlock Insyde/SystemSoft hidden CMOS parameters you need an special program called BAP (BIOS Adaptation Program), which unlike Award/AMI/Phoenix, never ever has been leaked from chinese factories. Many years have been spent by hackers and entusiasts trying to find it without any luck.

Reply 2 of 4, by keenerb

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hyoenmadan wrote:

Define locked. Do you mean the lack of settings in the CMOS setup utility of your machine BIOS? Your machine was locked with a sort of admin password?

If the first question is true, yes. Unfortunately machines with SystemSoft/Insyde and Microid BIOSes are the less configurable ones. I don't know too much about Mr.BIOS, but to unlock Insyde/SystemSoft hidden CMOS parameters you need an special program called BAP (BIOS Adaptation Program), which unlike Award/AMI/Phoenix, never ever has been leaked from chinese factories. Many years have been spent by hackers and entusiasts trying to find it without any luck.

Sorry, there's no password; you can only adjust boot order, there are no other options.

Reply 3 of 4, by Koltoroc

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Even more modern HP notebook BIOS implementations are not significantly better. Maybe some diagnostic info and some USB options and that's it.

Reply 4 of 4, by keenerb

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That's disappointing but not surprising.