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Question on Theft Tracking Bios Option?

post #1 of 8
1/30/06 at 10:22am
Thread Starter 
So I went into the BIOS last night just to check it out.. Very plain BIOS.. nothing fancy.. Any way.. I noticed an option for.. Compusomethingorother that said it will send periodic "pings" to some center somwhere. In case your machine is ever stolen it'll track it down as soon as there is an internet connection..

My question(s) is(are):

1) Does this really work?
2) Does this cost anything?
3) Can I check to see what information is being sent? (maybe http: to that center or something?)
4) Is this something worth turning on?
5) Anything else I should know?


Thanks!
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post #2 of 8
1/30/06 at 10:26am
Sounds like a very nifty feature.

Turn it on and send the heart beats to your own webserver on the notebook itself. http://httpd.apache.org/ :P
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post #3 of 8
1/30/06 at 2:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Black_Barney
So I went into the BIOS last night just to check it out.. Very plain BIOS.. nothing fancy.. Any way.. I noticed an option for.. Compusomethingorother that said it will send periodic "pings" to some center somwhere. In case your machine is ever stolen it'll track it down as soon as there is an internet connection..

My question(s) is(are):

1) Does this really work?
2) Does this cost anything?
3) Can I check to see what information is being sent? (maybe http: to that center or something?)
4) Is this something worth turning on?
5) Anything else I should know?


Thanks!
http://press.namct.com/content/view/5002/165/

According to Dell's documentation, once this feature is enabled in the BIOS on my I9300 it can no longer be shut off.
Therefore, I haven't turned it on yet! Just something to keep in mind since Big Brother will be watching you.
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post #4 of 8
1/30/06 at 5:29pm
you also have to pay for the service, from the provider.

iMO its not worth it. if you get your lappy stolen, you dont deserve to have it anyways (:
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post #5 of 8
1/30/06 at 6:49pm
Umm... I beg to differ! My laptop was stolen, and it wasn't by any fault of my own. My house was broken into and they took the laptop. It's not like I left it sitting on a table in Starbucks while I went to take a piss.

I actually ordered the software for my new E1705. They don't seem to be offering it now, but I was able to order it on 1/5. It's Computrace Lo/Jack for Laptops by Absolute software. And yes, it is basically a service you pay for. I bought 3-years of monitoring for $60. Every so often when you computer is connected to the internet, the laptop reports it's IP address to the monitoring center. In the event your computer is stolen, a recovery team will work with law enforcement to track the location of the computer and recover it using the IP addresses that it reports.

Maybe it was a waste of money, but after having my old laptop taken, I'd just like to have the possibility of getting the A-holes caught. Actually, it can’t be that big of a waste since they have a money back guarantee if they can’t locate your laptop.
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post #6 of 8
1/30/06 at 10:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrB
Umm... I beg to differ! My laptop was stolen, and it wasn't by any fault of my own. My house was broken into and they took the laptop. It's not like I left it sitting on a table in Starbucks while I went to take a piss.

I actually ordered the software for my new E1705. They don't seem to be offering it now, but I was able to order it on 1/5. It's Computrace Lo/Jack for Laptops by Absolute software. And yes, it is basically a service you pay for. I bought 3-years of monitoring for $60. Every so often when you computer is connected to the internet, the laptop reports it's IP address to the monitoring center. In the event your computer is stolen, a recovery team will work with law enforcement to track the location of the computer and recover it using the IP addresses that it reports.

Maybe it was a waste of money, but after having my old laptop taken, I'd just like to have the possibility of getting the A-holes caught. Actually, it can’t be that big of a waste since they have a money back guarantee if they can’t locate your laptop.

i will have to look more into this... as if you look at my signature my previous xps gen 2 got stolen a couple weeks ago... tho again the laptop I have now is much better. *pets the E1705* good lappy
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post #7 of 8
1/31/06 at 1:55am
FWIW: Once the Computrace feature is activated, shutting it off again in the BIOS will no longer be an option.

In order to turn it off again on my I9300, I just had to run the svctag.exe Dell NVRAM erase DOS utility to clear the BIOS and disable Computrace again.
I suppose the same could be done just by flashing to an older non-Computrace BIOS version.
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post #8 of 8
1/31/06 at 2:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Tempest
i will have to look more into this... as if you look at my signature my previous xps gen 2 got stolen a couple weeks ago... tho again the laptop I have now is much better. *pets the E1705* good lappy
Same here. I had an older Gateway lappy with an AMD64 3200 and a Radeon Mobility 9600. It was a decent notebook, but this one is SOOOO much nicer. Blessing in disquise I guess, but I'd rather not loose this one.
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