Acer Aspire 5532 Laptop Hardware Reset BIOS Question

[japentz]

Hey there awesome techies!!

First, I'm an old standard desktop pc tech. Have built many desktops and love it! However, I've never touched much more than replacing a hard drive or battery on a laptop. Never much messed with the insides, so I have a dummy question.

My friend has an Acer Aspire 5532 laptop (circa 2009). It got badly infected as they went to a bad site and did a download. (standard "user" who did not be careful and had minimal anti virus.)

At any rate, I agreed to help, just thinking I could do a simple rebuild. However, the BIOS is locked with an unknown password, and I can't boot to the CD/DVD. My friend would not know enough to even go into the BIOS.

Bottom line, I need to hard reset the BIOS and reformat and reinstall Windows.

I don't know how to short jumpers on a laptop with a metal instrument. I know how to take the little jumper caps off and change their position on a desktop. this is from the service manual

Removing BIOS Passwords:
To clear the User or Supervisor passwords through hardware, open the WLAN door and use a metal instrument to short the J1 jumper .

other instructions say:
4. Use an electric conductivity tool to short the two points of the HW Gap.
5. Plug in AC, keep the short condition on the HW Gap, and press Power Button to power on the system till BIOS POST finish. Then remove the tool from the HW Gap.


Forgive my ignorance but I tried to find a picture of an electrical conductivity tool.

what I am picturing is some sort of metal wire that connects the two jumper points where I hold them on the jumpers while powering on the laptop.

Before I attempt this, I want to ensure I have all the tools I need. What is best to use as an electrical conductivity tool and where would I get one?

Thanks
J.

 

[hang-the-9]

While Tom's does not allow questions on bypassing security like BIOS password, I can tell you that the image you posted is not the "WLAN Door" but is the RAM chip. If the system won't boot to the optical drive you can try a USB stick with the Windows setup on it (plenty of instruction out there how to make one). You should also be able to use the restore partition if there is one to set the thing to factory defaults.