Hi everybody, I just bought a bright and shiny red Dell Inspiron M5110 on Ebay, "For Parts Or Not Working". It came to me with the charger only, no discs, and the reported problem was that in BIOS it showed "No Hard Drive Found". I dismantled it and found that the HDD was broken so I slipped in an Hitachi 320GB, reassembled it and it loaded Windows 7 from another Dell disc in my possession so an hour later it was in working order. However the Wifi/ Ethernet cable and USB ports on both sides do not work so I cannot connect to the Internet but the Bluetooth does work. Using the Bluetooth I flashed the BIOS by transferring A05 from my Desktop but if I try to enter BIOS it requires a System or Administrator password , neither of which I have.
I have stripped it again and rechecked the antenna connections and the I/O board - motherboard connection, removed the CMOS battery but nothing solves this. If the WLAN card is broken I have another from a Dell Studio 1558 - could I replace it with this? However the fact the USB port on the other side is not working suggests it is something to do with the drivers.
So, how can I get a System Password and get the Wifi/USB working?
Please remember any solution cannot involve connecting to the internet though I can send files from my desktop via Bluetooth.