So some time ago I set up a BIOS “User” password and and “Admin” password on a laptop.
For those who doesn’t know. A BIOS “User” password is prompted every time you boot a computer using that motherboard, and the “Admin” password is prompted when you attempt to enter the BIOS settings
If you have both set up, either password is accepted on boot, but only the “Admin” password is accepted for getting into the BIOS Settings.
I’ve just had both of these set up because I’m weird and paranoid (before you say “encryption”, yes the disk is also encrypted), and I got into a habit of just using the Admin password for boot.
But now I think its unnecessary and annoying now and doesn’t seem to do much since the disk is also encrypted, so I tried to remove the “User” password in the BIOS settings, but I forgot the User password. Inputing the Admin password is rejected as “incorrect password”, but its accepted when you try to change to Admin password. Wtf lol. The Laptops I had before this one, allows the Admin to reset the User Password, wtf is this new change? Admin cannot reset User Password? Make zero sense lol. So I guess I’m just stuck with this unchangeable setting? Triggers my OCD so much that there’s a setting now I can’t toggle on/off.
I mean it’s still perfectly usable as long as I keep the Admin password enabled and not mess with that, so this is the definition of mildly infuriating, just very samll annoyance I’m stuck with.
It’s an Asus Zenbook btw if you’re wondering.
Does resetting the bios not clear the user password?
Apparantly
Yep.
Oh Asus! You fucked up! For this, I’m out. Never again.
Like other things in life, there’s now nothing Asus can do or say that will convince me to ever buy one ever again.
Remember ATI video cards? Yup, never again. There’s no more ATI. It was nice while it lasts.
ATI was bought by AMD in 2006 and the brand name phased out by 2010. So there’s still ATI cards, there just AMD instead.
I understand what you’re saying but I think we can both agree that nobody is buying ATI cards.
😉
Um… I mean I’m not sure if the takeaway from this thread is “Asus Bad”, but its more like “Who the fuck designed this shit” shitty design BS.
I mean, I still have a usable laptop, just have an annoying setting I can’t seem to ever turn off from the rest of this laptop’s lifespan.
I mean… presumably Asus designed it though…
It’s an Asus Zenbook btw if you’re wondering.
Of fucking course it’s an asus. There’s your problem right there. They don’t know what the hell they’re doing, and no one should ever buy anything this company makes.
Source: I have also been burned by them, and only afterwards did I hear a lot of other people’s horror stories. It’s a shit company.
I had one die on me out of nowhere, the fans would start spinning, but nothing else would happen.
I googled it and the top solution is to put it away for a few years and forget about it, then, it miraculously starts working again.
Hasn’t worked for me so far.Their tag line is “in search of incredible” for a reason, they sure as fuck haven’t found it!
What do you consider a good laptop manufacturer?
You know, that’s a great question that I don’t have a good answer to. I don’t have enough experience with laptops so take this with a bucketful of salt, but I think:
Framework looks amazing, but perhaps a bit niche: https://frame.work/ (next time I’m in the market for a laptop, I think this is what I’ll get)
MSI is alright I think? So is Dell, maybe?
In my head HP has an absolutely dreadful reputation, but that’s just because of printers. A friend of mine is pleased with her HP laptop.
Lenovo, I’m not sure. They’ve had an inexcusable security blunder in the past which made me write them off ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-enHfpHMBo4 ) but maybe they’ve turned things around, I really don’t know.
The laptop market is in a really poor state, other than macbooks (which aren’t really relevant for this discussion for obvious reasons) it’s a race to the bottom and everyone’s making compromises that I really don’t want to see.
Is this new? I have some 10 year old ish Asus motherboards that have been really solid
I’m not sure. My Asus laptop is about 5-7 years old (just woke up and can’t quite do the math…). They’ve also really been screwing up on the security front: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC8qfXxAhAw
is it not possible to delete/turn off the user/boot password requirement all together and then save and reboot then try setting it again? I’ve never seen a mb that cared about user password entry, admin gave bios access and from there any setting was able
I deleted the Admin password, I see the User password still says “Installed”, yea it seems like if I reboot, I’ll get locked out, because I wouldn’t have an Admin pin to override the Boot Password screen. So yea… nope, not testing it, I quicklt re-added the Admin password back in and now have that Admin password saved in my password manager just in case I forget this one too.
If it honestly doesn’t permit the User password to be reset, is there a “factory reset the whole BIOS” option?
Couldn’t find such option. I find a “load default settings” thing, but the passwords are unaffected by that. I tried updating the BIOS but the passwords are still intact.
I wonder if there’s a tool that can reset the BIOS from the OS.
Have you tried doing a full BIOS update? As in, download from the manufacturer. I wonder if that would overwrite the passwords.
I downloaded the BIOS on a USB drive, I went into the BIOS menu and updated it. The version number is now different, but the passwords remain. 🤷♂️
You could try to dump the EEPROM and get a hold of the user password or override it by reprogramming it.
If it’s an EEPROM it can also be reset electronically by accessing the pins soldered onto the bord, but I don’t know any details about that.
