Inspiron w/ socketed BIOS pls read

Question

I just recently added a 32-pin PLCC socket on my Inspiron 2600 in place of the soldered BIOS chip and I'm experiencing some weird behavior. I have found that I can't turn on the laptop at all, it simply displays a green LED and a yellow battery LED. Currently, there isn't a BIOS chip in the socket because the one I have ordered hasn't come in yet. What I want to know is if this behavior is normal for a socket missing a BIOS chip.

Ed C · Answer

I would hope so. BIOS=basic input/output system. Without that how do you expect it to do anything. At least you know it's getting power.

Toma-kun · Answer

It's just that I tried this on an old eMachines desktop and it'd switch on without pressing the power button and refuse to POST.

Toma-kun · Answer

Does that mean I can buy a newly programmed chip and once I stick it in, I can expect the thing to turn on?

johnallg · Answer

Notebooks are slightly different in their power handling, but the BIOS resides at the wake up addressing for the cpu, so how can the cpu do anything without it?

Ed C · Answer

You got me. How do you know the solder in chip you remove and the socket you replaced it with have all the pins wired to the same circuits on the motherboard. You know Dell does use some proprietary wiring/connectors on there desktops. Never tried what you are doing on either a desktop or a notebook.

Well it' a little late to worry about that. If it work, it works. If it doesn't then you have something to use as a door stop.

Toma-kun · Answer

Well to remove the existing BIOS chip (which was soldered onto the board, BTW) I had to cut the legs off of the chip because I didn't have the tools to desolder it. While the chip is now useless, the motherboard still has the traces where the legs used to be soldered to. I simply soldered a 32-pin PLCC socket to the traces and technically it should work just the same. Now I should be able to swap chips to my desire without having to worry about anything. Unfortunately I don't have a BIOS chip handy, so I can't really tell if it was a success or not.

I really hope this works because it'd be a shame to sell it off.

Message Edited by Toma-kun on 05-23-2004 08:09 PM

Toma-kun · Answer

Ed C - That's what I suspected, but I really didn't spot anything of the like. On the eMachines that I butchered, I saw another chip that said AMIBIOS on it and it had fine pitch legs so naturally I thought the 2600 would have one, but I spotted nothing.

johnallg - I hope so. I checked all pins for connectivitiy with ohmmeter and they turned out fine.

I just find it unusual that it won't even power up the fans or the drives...
Isn't there someone here that'll pull out their socket BIOS just for kicks?

Message Edited by Toma-kun on 05-23-2004 08:37 PM

Ed C · Answer

I don't know how much you come to these forums but there is another chip on the motherboard that stores the system setup password and the admin password. This chip might also control the power functions along with the BIOS chip so if you remove the bios chip, as you have done, it renders the system useless. I think Dell would make provisions like this so if someone stole a notebook they couldn't do what you have done and still have a working notebook.

johnallg · Answer

If you did a good solder job and get an exact chip replacement that is programmed, yes it would work.

Agent Orange · Answer

Dell are unlikely to use a chip that is obviously marked. What's the point in using another chip to store the system passwords and then labelling it for all to see - you could just remove it.

But I'd think that a correctly programmed bios chip in the new slot would work ok, as long as it interacts with the other "password" chip in the same way.

good luck

Locked Topics – Laptops General

Was this post helpful?