R40 No startup-error codes 0271,0176,will not enter bios

[awilli8793]

R40 think pad- upon startup I get the "IBM Thinkpad" splash screen, screen goes to error codes 0271,0176. Then I get the Power on Password icon, which I have no idea what the password is, (or if that is only the power on password). I cannot get into the bios either, if I hold down the F1 it displays "entering bios setup, but never gets to it, it goes back to the error codes and power on password screen. Is there anyway to boot from a cd or thumb drive? I don't have an internal 3.5 floppy drive. I do have an external 3.5 floppy drive! any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Someone has said replace the mother board, I only paid $300.00 for the whole system, wouldn't a mother board cost more than that?

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum!

Sounds to me like you have more than one issue there...

Try pressing F12 on boot to see if the machine will allow you to boot from CD, which it probably won't since I suspect that your BIOS is locked with the password, but try it anyway.

This is the link for the manual, and you can look up your error codes there...

Good luck and let us know.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-45899

[awilli8793]

Thanks for the reply!

Tried to boot using F12, no luck. It displays the error code definitions briefly;0271- check date and time. 0176-security,system has been tampered with.

Its a long story of how the computer got into this situation. I'll try to give the short version.
We had bought the thinkpad for my son who is graduating high school and will be heading off to college. We bought off of a popular internet auction site. We knew it had a Bios password, I thought we could find a work around for that. The computer arrived, my son checked it out. I did not have a chance to look at it because I've been working 6 12hr. days since mid january. He says it would load everything but had a supervisor and system administrator password on it. So he orders a new security chip off of the same "popular auction site" and attempts remove the old chip and install the new one.(I'll bet that is what the code-0176 is all about) It didn't work so he puts the old one back in and that is where we are today.

Would this possibly work for me?:
( I hope its o.k. for me to copy and paste someone else post)

"If you've changed the system board on your laptop, this is the utility you need to set the model type, sub-model type (mmmm-sss), and system serial number. Also sets the system UUID, as well as other initialization utilities like hard drive formatting.
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/bp ... tm22us.exe"
Yes I am grabbing for straws here!

[ajkula66]

You're looking at motherboard replacement...

My opinion, get a cheap barebone R40 and use the existing locked one for parts...

Good luck.

[awilli8793]

well, it was worth a shot. New MoBo is what I'm thinking . I'll still give it a week or so just in case someone happens to see the post here and has a miracle cure! "The glass is half full !"