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    CF-28 What to do, what to do? Choices.

    Discussion in 'Panasonic' started by kusa, Jan 11, 2008.

  1. kusa

    kusa Notebook Consultant

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    First off, as a newby to the forum, hello all. Im a newby to toughbooks but do have some experience. Refurbed two Cf-72, one Cf-27 and I currently have two cf-28. Love the 28! However. This is the situation. My primary field unit is I believe a mark II (cf-28pb) I CAN ACCESS BIOS, 12" touchscreen, brand new 80gb hard drive, computer properties states 800mhz 248 mb ram. I also have a 13" non touchscreen cf-28S, I CAN NOT ACCESS BIOS, 30gb hard drive, 1000mhrz, and if I remember correct, 512mb ram, Rim wireless. Both are in great shape, all covers etc... Now my question...What are these "back door" bios passwords? If I can gain access to the 28S bios I would like to make it my primary machine after transferring the 12" touchscreen and larger hard drive, rubberize back lit keyboard, etc...

    One: How do I get in the bios back door (I dont want to "short" anything!)
    Two: According to what Ive been reading here I can switch screens...correct? (I would like to just switch the whole damn lid and not crack open any screen seals)
    Three: Is there that big of a difference from 800mhz to 1000mhz
    Four: If I kept the markII, can I just transfer the memory?

    Note: I use these machines for communications...no gaming.

    I need feedback and advice from you veterans out there!

    Thanks!
     
  2. Toughbook

    Toughbook Drop and Give Me 20!

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    Welcome to the forum. Glad you are having fun with your Toughbooks.

    First... We cannot discuss paswwords or password cracking here on the forum. The owners worry about things like that getting out of hand. (I don't blame them) Anyway... There is no known way to crack a CF-28 BIOS password. If someone has found it they can PM it to me but from everything I have ever read and heard... You can't. These are Mil-Spec machines. That means that they aren't going to make it easy like, "Short leg two against leg 15 to make it work"... Or... "The secret password is GAZOO!"... It just is not going to happen. Your options are.
    1. Send it in to Panasonic to have them replace the BIOS.
    2. Use it as artwork and hang on your wall.

    Switching screens is easy. You must remove the hinge cover (8 screws) then fold the keyboard over the palmrests and take out the 7 screws that hold the stainless over in place. (You MUST have the correct screwdrivers for these operations or you will strip the screw heads! You have been warned!) Take off the stainless cover and CAREFULLY remove the two monitor connections. Then remove the 4 screws from the hinges... two each side. Assembly is the reverse. Be careful tucking in your keyboard ribbons.

    If you switch in a touchscreen where you didn't have one before you will have to load the touchscreen driver. This is done through the mouse... Update your mouse driver in Device Manager and point it to the touchscreen driver... Then you are set!

    Good luck and let us know how it goes.
     
  3. picoshark

    picoshark Notebook Consultant

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    There are utilities to reset the CMOS password. You might search for cmospwd and try that. This is considered risky, proceed with caution, not responsible for accidents, etc.
     
  4. kusa

    kusa Notebook Consultant

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    Thanks guys. Concerning the bios..thats what I figured. Concerning the screen replacement...Ive had both machines apart in this manner to swap out keyboards. Another note on the 28S, I can use the computer, it boots from cd, I can install OS and drivers all ok, but is sounds like I can not do any bios upgrades because I can not access it...correct?
     
  5. Toughbook

    Toughbook Drop and Give Me 20!

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    If you can't get into the BIOS you cannot upgrade it... Correct.
     
  6. picoshark

    picoshark Notebook Consultant

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    The BIOS upgrade is a matter of booting from a floppy and running a batch file. I doubt if it will overwrite a locked BIOS. I was preparing to upgrade a CF-28 BIOS this week and ran into a quirk I did not know about. It apparently wants you to have a fully-charged battery installed, in addition to having the AC plugged in. I do not have any battery, I don't know if there is a way to fool it or not.
     
  7. kusa

    kusa Notebook Consultant

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    One more thing concerning these two machines; Is there that big of a noticeable difference in speed between the 28S (1000mhz) and the 28PB (800)? After getting some sleep and checking both have 248mb of ram.

    Will the 800mhz with new 90gb drive perform just as (almost) just as well as the 1000hrz with the old 30gb drive? Again, both are 248 mb of ram.

    If I only keep one 28 it seems logical to keep the one that I can bios access.
     
  8. gravitar

    gravitar Notebook Deity

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    The CF28 service manual mentions a jumper plug you can build and plug into the parallel port to disable the BIOS password. I'm out on the road on business right now or I'd look it up for you. I know I found it in there, though. I think I posted it to the Yahoo group several months ago for those of you that are subscribed to it. Note that I've never built/tested the plug myself!

    What I have done before that has worked is to pull the CMOS battery and boot it up. It goes back to defaults, then you can put the battery back in and you're fine. I haven't found an EASY way to get to the battery though.. I was only able to do it after stripping the computer apart to bits and pieces :)
     
  9. kusa

    kusa Notebook Consultant

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    Thats the route Im preparing for at the moment. I just pulled my tools and the service manual out. However, Before I turn this machine into bits and pieces, is it worth it to gain an additional 200mhz? Know one has given me any input concerning the difference between 800mhz and 1000mhz.
     
  10. ohlip

    ohlip Toughbook Modder

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    Pulling the cmos battery for at least thirty minutes may work and then after 30 minutes put it back and boot, see if it works. Thats the only easy way, i can offer to you coz it works to my cf-18 that the owner forgot his password before he sold it to me for a very cheap price.
     
  11. gravitar

    gravitar Notebook Deity

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    I never ran a benchmark test to compare them. I'm not very good at determining speeds of computers.. the old ones seem to work just as good as the new ones for me!

    If you were asking if you should BUY a 1 GHz to replace your 800, I'd say no. But since you've already got the 1000, why not make it work right? if you keep it, you would want to get into the BIOS. If you sell it, whoever you buy it from would want to get into the BIOS. (and it would discourage buyers if you tell them you can't do it) And besides, if you're as warped as the rest of us, you think it's fun to take stuff apart and were looking for an "excuse" to do it, anyway. right?
     
  12. kusa

    kusa Notebook Consultant

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    Thank you all! You guys rock! I wish I had known about this site a year ago when I was pulling my hair out with other toughbooks.

    Great success!!!!! My 28S 1000mhz is now bios accessible, rubberized backlit keys and touchscreen! Thanks for all the feedback and tips. Next is to transfer the new 80gb hard drive over then start working on internal wireless and gps.

    As far as upgrade ram...is it still the consensus that Kingston is the way to go?

    Thanks!
     
  13. ohlip

    ohlip Toughbook Modder

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    Don't be to excited, now is your turn to give us your feedback of which system you used to eliminate the password pulling cmos battery for 30 min.. or disconnecting cmos battery and then boot or the others
     
  14. kusa

    kusa Notebook Consultant

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    Before I started the project I spent ALL night reading the forum. I took the advice of opening the machine and disconnecting the cmos. It was a little nerve wracking but not as bad as I thought it would be...still it was the deepest Ive been into a CF-28. I fought with the battery connection for a while cause I didn't want to force it. I didn't have the beta from the last few posts at this point so I didn't know how long to leave it disconnected. I followed Gravitars instructions the best I could...I unplugged it. closed the case enough to keep from getting zapped, put the battery in and powered it up, let it run for about 30 secs and turned it off. I didnt have a monitor hooked up so I had no idea what was goin on inside. I decided for extra measure to power it up again, approx. 30 sec wait, shut it down, removed the battery. I then opened the case back up and plugged the cmos battery back in and began reassembly hoping for the best until I could at least get the lcd wired back in. Powered it up again and it went straight into bios with the default settings. Then I finished putting both 28s back together. All in all it took half the day including new hard drive install, OS install, and swapping out the better parts for my primary unit.
     
  15. ohlip

    ohlip Toughbook Modder

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    Good! you have a good start, now read all the thread posted with relationship to cf-28 toughbook and sooner or later you have a unit that is fully loaded and ready to rock. Good Luck
     
  16. ZeroFlight

    ZeroFlight Notebook Evangelist

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    You know that angled panel on the bottom cabinet that has 4 tiny screws holding it down and a piece of sticky plastic under that? Pull those up (and the keyboard backlight pcb if one is there) and you can get to the CMOS battery with a pair of needle-nose pliers or tweezers through the big hole. You only have to pull the back part of the plastic up though. Hopefully that will make resetting the BIOS a little easier for you in the future. :)

    Just for reference, after unplugging the CMOS battery (assuming the AC and regular battery are also unplugged) you can just hit the power switch a couple of times to drain the capacitors on the mainboard to reset the BIOS. Once in awhile you need to boot up to the BIOS without the CMOS battery plugged in that's kind of rare.
     
  17. trl425

    trl425 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hello,
    I am a newbie, what does the CMOS battery look like? So I know what to pull?
    Thanks for any help.
     
  18. Mega-Man

    Mega-Man Notebook Consultant

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    while we are discussing this CMOS - what is the life of this battery? I assume it will die sometime ? - thanks
     
  19. tough-2-go

    tough-2-go Notebook Deity

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    They are usually rated at around 10 years.
     
  20. klboo

    klboo Notebook Evangelist

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  21. Terminus

    Terminus Notebook Consultant

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    My second CF-28 (arrived today) also has a bios password set. I was not until a few mins ago a member of Yahoo (I joined so I could see the image you referred to klboo....) I was able to boot from a DVD so maybe I might try to build a bootable image onto the hard drive. It came with a caddy (already disassembled) but no hard disk. I have to go look at the images of the hard drive replacement thread to make sure I get it re-assembled correctly. I guess I will have to use the pull CMOS battery method since it seemed to work for KUSA. The battery seems to be charging which is nice. I'm going to throw an old 30gb in to see what I can do with it. The screen seems to be a bit dim but it's a 13.3 non touch screen so I don't know what that is supposed to look like. I guess I will open the case today as well.

    ETA: What a pain, I have to be approved to join that Toughbook group on Yahoo.. I don't know when I will be able to get access.
     
  22. Terminus

    Terminus Notebook Consultant

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    Here is a picture of the CF-28 CMOS Battery, underneath the angled-access plate.


    [​IMG]

    It's trivial to open and remove/replace.

    You should have a pair of angled hemostats or curved needle-nose, or perhaps even tweezers if nothing else.

    I was able to lift the connector, power the unit on (without battery or power adapter connected) and then immediately re-connect and it wiped the BIOS password.
     
  23. kd4e

    kd4e Notebook Consultant

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    SECOND CF-28?

    Hey, no fair!

    :)
     
  24. Terminus

    Terminus Notebook Consultant

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    Umm, I'm afraid that's outdated. I've got 4 now. I'm doomed.
     
  25. kusa

    kusa Notebook Consultant

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    That screaming monkey on our back is a tough SOB. Im just about finished getting this 29 dialed in and now Im looking at another; I cant afford it but that monkey keeps screaming "another! another!"

    I bet our wives and girlfriends wish there was a AA or NA equivilant.

    God grant me the serenity to accept that I can not stock pile too many toughbooks... The courage to not join cf-28 feeding frenzies...and the wisdom to know when I should...

    "Hello, my name is Kusa and Im a toughbook junkie...with no end in site"...
     
  26. Toughbook

    Toughbook Drop and Give Me 20!

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    As a reminder... We cannot talk about resetting or wiping out BIOS passwords on the forum. The thread will be closed if it is brought up again.

    ... And I don't want that to happen...
     
  27. kd4e

    kd4e Notebook Consultant

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    I am still looking for the specific bios upgrade for my CF-28S3QGBDM
    so that I may add 512M or RAM.

    I previously downloaded several of them because I had interface problems with the Panasonic site - but they are not labeled so I can be certain which
    is correct.

    Thanks! doc