The hard, complicated work has already been done by the electronics repair community, and now the process to bypass the supervisor password requires just a few steps and an inexpensive programmer tool. While the method may only be for ThinkPads with Intel 4th- to 8th-generation CPUs, this will still save plenty of usable ThinkPads from going to waste, as Hileeq’s popular post potentially encourages more people to attempt this themselves — who knows, this might cause a domino effect to unlock newer generations of ThinkPads.
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Jhet Borja Social Links Navigation Freelance Writer Jhet Borja is a serial hobbyist who was taking apart toys from childhood and sketching inventions. He now loves doing DIY projects ranging from designing custom 3D-printed parts, building PCs and keyboards, all the way to woodworking. If he's not getting his hands dirty, he's probably brainstorming his next project.
Famj__Liberfree "$10 programmer " I still can't get past this. What in whoosey whatsit is a $10 programmer? Reply
USAFRet Famj__Liberfree said: "$10 programmer " I still can't get past this. What in whoosey whatsit is a $10 programmer? I'll not link it here, but google is your friend. Reply
guraldunix 4th Gen Intel CPUs are approaching 14 years old. Sure, absolutely, laptops of that age could be put to use for something. Nevertheless, I wonder at that point if a raspberry pi might be more performant. Reply
usertests guraldunix said: 4th Gen Intel CPUs are approaching 14 years old. Sure, absolutely, laptops of that age could be put to use for something. Nevertheless, I wonder at that point if a raspberry pi might be more performant. These are laptop chips, so definitely slower than the desktop chips of the same gen, but maybe not by too much. Models and core counts aren't specified AFAIK. For example, i7-4700MQ (mobile) vs. i7-4770 (desktop). The 4770 non-K is 23-32% faster. Here's a comparison between the Raspberry Pi 4 (BCM2711), Raspberry Pi 5 (quad-core Cortex-A76), Intel N100 (Alder Lake-N), a 2c/4t 4th gen laptop chip, and 4c/8t: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/4297vs5743vs5157vs1947vs1923/BCM2711-vs-ARM-Cortex-A76-4-Core-2400-MHz-vs-Intel-N100-vs-Intel-i5-4200U-vs-Intel-i7-4700MQ It indicates that the dual-core i5-4200U is a little faster than the Raspberry Pi 5. I don't think that can be the case, and I assume RPi on PassMark must be running into an x86/ARM translation problem. Geekbench 6 results instead: RPi 5: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/9919608899 single, 2144 multi i5-4200U: https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/intel-core-i5-4200u741 single, 1387 multi i7-4700MQ: https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/intel-core-i7-4700mq908 single, 3003 multi Haswell lacks H.265 HW decode, but it has basic 8-bit H.264 HW decode. Raspberry Pi 5 lacks H.264 HW decode, but gets H.265. RPi edges out on video capability (but is garbage on this point next to something modern like an Intel N100). I have no idea about the graphics, other than RPi 4/5 having pretty bad graphics, and some Haswell laptop chips include 128 MiB eDRAM. If you manage to get the full 40 EUs, it could be good, but it's not going to have good DX12/Vulkan support compared to Skylake. In conclusion, 4th gen quad-core Haswell laptop chips are at least comparable to the Raspberry Pi 5. They are still useful after 14 years, they'll remain useful for longer if maintained properly, and if they are running Linux. If you put Windows 11 on it, you're going to have a bad time because of some features that aren't available until Kaby Lake or later. Reply
jrharbort Surely you could have found something better than a slop generated image for the article? Reply
TerryLaze guraldunix said: I wonder at that point if a raspberry pi might be more performant. You would have to source a monitor psu keyboard and mouse and would pretty much be locked down to have it in a single spot or deal with setting all of that up again and again. Not to mention that just getting a pi is pretty hard right now. Famj__Liberfree said: "$10 programmer " I still can't get past this. What in whoosey whatsit is a $10 programmer? "Three weeks ago, he posted a video explaining how to bypass locked Lenovo ThinkPads with Intel 4th- to 8th-generation CPUs using a cheap CH431A programmer to read, write, erase, and save EEPROM and SPI flash memory." The CH431A programmer is a simple rom flasher, you will have to take the bios chip out of the laptop though which will include desoldering it so for most people that's gonna be already too much for them. Reply
Air2004 I can't believe there isn't a simpler way of bypassing/erasing that…. I remember sometime in the early 2000 my friend had a couple laptops that "fell off the back of the truck" but couldn't get past the password screen of the bios…. so I did some digging around online… to reset bios pass all that needed to be done was to pull battery, unplug, remove cmos battery , hold power for 15to 30 seconds to discharge any residual power, put cmos battery back in, leave laptop battery out, then plug jn and hit power button at the Sametime…. atleast j think that was the order…. any how , bam password was gone and could now reformat that drive Reply
TerryLaze Air2004 said: I can't believe there isn't a simpler way of bypassing/erasing that…. I remember sometime in the early 2000 my friend had a couple laptops that "fell off the back of the truck" but couldn't get past the password screen of the bios…. so I did some digging around online… to reset bios pass all that needed to be done was to pull battery, unplug, remove cmos battery , hold power for 15to 30 seconds to discharge any residual power, put cmos battery back in, leave laptop battery out, then plug jn and hit power button at the Sametime…. atleast j think that was the order…. any how , bam password was gone and could now reformat that drive Supervisor password isn't a simple bios password that resets together with the bios settings. Reply
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- https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/usd10-programmer-saves-bios-locked-lenovo-thinkpads-from-the-dump-exploit-bypasses-supervisor-passwords-to-save-4th-to-8th-gen-intel-models-from-e-waste#main
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