These passworded laptop BIOS' are locked with special tamper-proof chip on mobo because many hold proprietary corporate information carried around by employees that needs the utmost protection, so there is a race to be more secure instituted (I believe) by Dell. The theory is that if they fall into the hands of thieves they at least won't be able to access the critical data, and with some not even reinstall. This becomes a problem if one is BIOS passworded by owner and then handed down, perhaps years later. OEM's will not help without the verifiable ownership information even if paid for after-warranty service. It takes real detective work to find the solution as I did for a Dell when convinced it was legally obtained.