Sorry, love of the goddess made me send this message before it was completed. I finally got my Grid 1520 , which was locked by password, functioning. I had to disassemble it down to where I could get at the underside of the motherboard and ground pins 12 and 21 on the DS1287A Dallis real time chip. There's likely a way of grounding it above board but I haven't been able to find it. Someone had mentioned earlier ( Mike Ford ?) that he had acquired a dozen or so of these indestructable 286 laptops but couldn't find a way of getting past the passwords. It's because the password is in the Dallis chip. Lawrence Reply to: lgwalker(a)mts.net Love of the Goddess makes the poet go mad he goes to his death and in death is made wise. Robert Graves