Bios PW question for cf-31 purchase

Hello all,
I may be in the market for cf-31, and have been confused by the talk about Bios passwords. It seems that people advise against buying machines with Bios passwords. I don't know what that means, however. Passwords that aren't discoverable or disclosed? If you buy one "without a Bios PW" does that mean that the buyer can set the PW. Thanks.

 

I think bios password as used here means locked and not disclosed by the sellers.

If the bios is unlocked you can do what you chose.

 

As SHEEPMAN say if the BIOS has a password and has been lost or forgotten you are unable to get into BIOS. The only way around this is to replace a BIOS chip. Shawn is the man for this job, in fact I think he has one a MK3 for sale that has been replaced. You will find it in the for sale section, near the top.

 

Check the buy sell trade section here.
You "might" find a CF 31 for sale...currently NO password.

 

Thanks very much. I'm looking for a 31 mk5, I think, but I'll check out the mk3.

 

I have got lucky with a couple of password protected toughbooks I got in the past. WIFI, all usb ports, etc worked as it should. I just couldn't get into the BIOS.

BUT.......................

I remember others not being so lucky. Some everything worked but WIFI was locked out in bios and couldn't be made to work, etc.

The worse one I remember was a guy from overseas had a 50/51 model and put a brand new 500 GB hard drive into it. Well the advanced TPM password protection for the hard drive was activated on that unit. It locked the hard drive were it couldn't be used.

So it's buyer beware.

 

Got it--that just the info I needed. I've just been able to get into BIOS on my 29s and 30s w/o a problem and didn't quite realize that there could be. Would not want to be locked out for the reasons you mention. When the BIOS chip is replaced, do the machine hours go down to zero?

 

Not always.