Lenovo ThinkCentre M920s - 10SJ-000VUS - I3X0MS - BIOS locked

[snhcfixes]

Greetings,

I have a ThinkCentre M920s (type 10SJ-000VUS) with a supervisor password. The motherboard model is I3X0MS.

I tried already the suggestion to clear CMOS, remove CMOS battery, etc. on this model to clear the password. Even the manual suggests that this should remove the password but simply had no luck with this method.

Attached is a dump of the BIOS. The chip type is a W25Q128JV.

Thanks for your suggestions!

Edit: Realized this is posted in the mobile devices section. Apologies! Could someone move this to the desktop BIOS section?

[snhcfixes]

Re: Lenovo ThinkCentre M920s - 10SJ-000VUS - I3X0MS - BIOS locked

Hi all,

Any suggestions? Grateful for any ideas!

So far all my searches off-site for this particular model have lead me to questionable sites behind paywalls.

Thanks!

[keeney123]

Re: Lenovo ThinkCentre M920s - 10SJ-000VUS - I3X0MS - BIOS locked

Greetings,

I have a ThinkCentre M920s (type 10SJ-000VUS) with a supervisor password. The motherboard model is I3X0MS.

I tried already the suggestion to clear CMOS, remove CMOS battery, etc. on this model to clear the password. Even the manual suggests that this should remove the password but simply had no luck with this method.

Attached is a dump of the BIOS. The chip type is a W25Q128JV.

Thanks for your suggestions!

Edit: Realized this is posted in the mobile devices section. Apologies! Could someone move this to the desktop BIOS section?

So, you followed this Manufacturer's Exact Model with motherboard in the Manual procedure to clear the CMOS chip and it did not clear the BIOS Security?
Wonder if the procedure told you to take out the battery, unplug unit, press the power button for 30 sec.
If all that was done, I would also do the above procedure first and then remove the hard drive, and external connected devices and ram. Do not reconnect the devices. Just reconnect the BIOS battery and plug in only the power cord. and press the power button to boot up. See if it will get into the BIOS and if the supervisory password is reset.
If the above is done I would consider the manufacturers procedure to be incorrect. Is this a UEFI BIOS? I had an Acer UEFI BIOS that automatically set the hard drive password. They only allow the user to change this after first boot up into the BIOS after a certain procedure was done. After that they set the Hard drive password themselves. The supervisory password could not be set until the hard drive password was set.

[snhcfixes]

Re: Lenovo ThinkCentre M920s - 10SJ-000VUS - I3X0MS - BIOS locked

So, you followed this Manufacturer's Exact Model with motherboard in the Manual procedure to clear the CMOS chip and it did not clear the BIOS Security?
Wonder if the procedure told you to take out the battery, unplug unit, press the power button for 30 sec.
If all that was done, I would also do the above procedure first and then remove the hard drive, and external connected devices and ram. Do not reconnect the devices. Just reconnect the BIOS battery and plug in only the power cord. and press the power button to boot up. See if it will get into the BIOS.
If the above is done I would consider the manufacturers procedure to be incorrect. Is this a UEFI BIOS? I had an Acer

Correct. I have tried that and several variations of it. Despite the fact the manual implies this should reset the password, it has not.

I have not yet tried without the RAM and other devices yet. That's a new idea to me. I will give it a try tomorrow and report back.

[keeney123]

Re: Lenovo ThinkCentre M920s - 10SJ-000VUS - I3X0MS - BIOS locked

Correct. I have tried that and several variations of it. Despite the fact the manual implies this should reset the password, it has not.

I have not yet tried without the RAM and other devices yet. That's a new idea to me. I will give it a try tomorrow and report back.

You might want to tell the manufacturer their procedure fails. Also, have you read the attach PDF?

Your unit has a clear Cmos jumper look at below 920 hardware manual attached page 9

Correct proceedure for clearing the Cmos with jumper is in information manual. page 23
Manual attached below.
All information from lenovo site.

[snhcfixes]

Re: Lenovo ThinkCentre M920s - 10SJ-000VUS - I3X0MS - BIOS locked

Thanks for these files. I had the UGHMM PDF already but have not seen the other ones. I followed the BIOS recovery procedure in the IPIG document (burnt a CD, enable the CMOS recovery jumper, update the BIOS) and this worked perfectly.

No idea why the other procedure did not work for me but at least this is a manageable solution. I have a couple more of these boxes I will try this on but I have no doubts this will work for them too.

Thanks for the help.

[keeney123]

Re: Lenovo ThinkCentre M920s - 10SJ-000VUS - I3X0MS - BIOS locked

Thanks for these files. I had the UGHMM PDF already but have not seen the other ones. I followed the BIOS recovery procedure in the IPIG document (burnt a CD, enable the CMOS recovery jumper, update the BIOS) and this worked perfectly.

No idea why the other procedure did not work for me but at least this is a manageable solution. I have a couple more of these boxes I will try this on but I have no doubts this will work for them too.

Thanks for the help.

Glad you got it working. I don't know why Manufacturer has to hide a procedure in multiple PFD instead of just one. It is almost like trying to follow a law that has been written. One has to jump around a lot.