Power On Password for Dell Inspiron 531

hi all im a local IT person for a rather small town recently the Police Department of Crump, TN has called me with a problem one of their systems as mentioned in the subject line of my post asks for a password before it finishes initial power up I know Dell charges for help with this particular problem. I was just wondering if theres a key combo that can be pressed to help with this it seems like i remember reading an older post about this same problem and i do belive that there is i just cant remember it. Any help is much apreciated