Bios 1.08 kills T43 fingerprint reader?

[kimr]

The Thinkpad software installer showed me that there was a new bios 1.08 for my T43 so I installed it. It didn't reboot itself, but after 10 minutes I cycled the power and it came up OK except that now it was prompting me for passwords instead of using the fingerprint reader.

The XP fingerprint software said the reader was disabled, so I went into the bios to try to enable the fingerprint reader and the "fingerprint" option under "Security" was missing!

I reset the bios back to 1.05 and the reader is still disabled and there's still no bios option to enable it. Anyone have any ideas as to how to get the fingerprint reader enabled?

Thanks,
Kim

[kimr]

After sleeping on it, I remembered that one of the new features of bios 1.08 was the ability to disable bluetooth in the bios so the OS didn't see it. That's the one configuration option that I had changed before going back to 1.05. I decided I should re-enable bluetooth in case it was really the fingerprint reader it had disabled. To do so, I would have to reinstall bios 1.08.

I did so using the software installer, and this time the installation completed and rebooted successfully, and now the fingerprint reader is working. The fact that the first attempt to install bios 1.08 didn't complete properly must have caused the fingerprint reader to stop being recognized.

[Scorpiontico]

After sleeping on it, I remembered that one of the new features of bios 1.08 was the ability to disable bluetooth in the bios so the OS didn't see it. That's the one configuration option that I had changed before going back to 1.05. I decided I should re-enable bluetooth in case it was really the fingerprint reader it had disabled. To do so, I would have to reinstall bios 1.08.

I did so using the software installer, and this time the installation completed and rebooted successfully, and now the fingerprint reader is working. The fact that the first attempt to install bios 1.08 didn't complete properly must have caused the fingerprint reader to stop being recognized.

how do you disable bluetooth device on the bios?

i havent seen that feature in there.

thanks.

[kimr]

Under the "Config" option in Bios 1.08 there are three new items:

"Added new BIOS setup menu, to hide following internal communication device from Operating System.
Bluetooth: Config -> Network -> Internal Bluetooth Device
Modem: Config -> Modem -> Modem Device
Infrared: Config -> Infrared -> Infrared Device"

Note that they skipped from bios 1.05 to 1.08. The readme lists changes for interim, unreleased versions, of which the new config options were in 1.06a!

See the readme for details:
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mo ... uj09us.txt

Kim

[roast]

Note that they skipped from bios 1.05 to 1.08. The readme lists changes for interim, unreleased versions, of which the new config options were in 1.06a!

My T43p came with the 1.06a BIOS. I've upgraded it to 1.08 since then though.