Hi y'all

Been a long time since I've been on here but now my house move is finally complete and I've just purchased a nice little Dell C521 Desktop!

Anyhow this isn't about the Dell machine...... i bought a laptop for my girlfriend from a market down my way. a week later the damn thing crashes and won;t start back up, i cracked it open and the main board has died. Now as im a trainee computer techy i work with alot off spares so i got a working main board that would fit off of company stock and repaired it. My company however will not let me take the laptop until they have changed the serial in BIOS to match that of the new main board, something to do with asset management, they need to do it for the company reports.

Does anyone know how i can flash or reset the BIOS so i can enter the new serial number and take my laptop home?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Take a look at the motherboard manufacturer's web site (support).

Will the mobo manufacturer be in the BIOS or will i have to crack open the case?

Thanks for reply

Since you installed it I assumed you would know but if the computer is functioning in Windows use CPU_Z under Mainboard/Manufacturer/Model

yeh i kind of lied about ME installing it, someone else did, im still just a trainee trying to sound good! Thanks for the link though, i'll go there and download it. Cheers

o dont know if this would help, but there are alot of myths about resetting your bios. some work, some dont. i dont know why. Some people take the CMOS battery off and wait for like 15 secs, then put the battery back on. Then there i another way that is called parking the jumper. That is when you take the CMOS jumper off the mobo and park it, or just stick it back on, thats how you reset your bios, as far as the serial number, im confuzzled about how to do that.

Yeh i know them methods, they only seem to work with desktops/towers and not laptops though. Thanks for your input though, very much appreciated.

If you have a Dell computer, Dell has a utility called Asset Tag Utility that you can download that will allow you to change the serial number on your motherboard. All Dell techs are supposed to reset the serial number on a motherboard when they replace it. The next part of this post comes directly from Dell. Good luck!

Asset Tag Utility
The Asset Tag utility allows asset tag and service tag numbers to be entered into the system's NVRAM where they can be viewed on the System Setup screens. The utility is installed with the software support utilities shipped with the system.
Viewing the current asset tag number
To view the current asset tag number, type this command line:

asset <ENTER>
Changing the asset tag number
To change the asset tag number, type this command line:

asset new number <ENTER>
The new asset tag number may contain up to 10 characters. Any combination of characters, excluding spaces, is valid.
Changing the service tag number
To change the service tag number, type this command line:

asset new number /s <ENTER>

NOTE: Do not set the service tag number unless the system board has been replaced, and then change it to match the number on the back of the computer.