Thinkpads Forum

My finger print reader is broken, and I used to give it my finger to enter BIOS. Of course I am buying a new reader soon, so I'll enter the BIOS.

But the question is this --- is there like an option in the BIOS to use only finger print to enter BIOS? Because I tried all the passwords I have ever used, and none of them work to enter the BIOS. I have like 5 passwords, 1 password I always use for windows, another one for my secondary windows account and e-mail, and one specific one for BIOS, always!

Remove the palmrest with the FPR, then try booting again.
Unless Windows asks for a password, you should be good to go.
Hit F1 at cold boot to see if you can get into the BIOS.

Well, I disconnected the cable to palm rest as you suggested, and tried booting and entering BIOS. Absolute nada, asks me for password, and I tried again all the passwords I ever used, and nothing.

Not sure if removing password on Windows will do anything -- will it??

Might be able to just press enter to get into bios but you wont be able to change the boot order unless you know the password.

No, ENTER don't work to view settings.


What I want to know is this --- did I forgot password? --or-- did I change some settings in bios that encrypt password and require finger print only?


And also, after I get my finger print reader fixed, and go into bios using finger print, will I be able to change bios password?

It will always take a typed-in password, whether the fingerprint reader is present or not. On a W520, the password is ALWAYS encrypted. There is no option for clear text. The PW can be up to 64 characters. Unfortunately, it sounds like you forgot yours.

Just one thought:

Over 4 years ago when I bought my US keyboard W500, I set it up with a supervisor password in the bios, which was set up by default for "pass-phrase". I chose a password without any spaces but with some non-numerical/non-alphabetical characters, set it up, and wrote it down.

I don't remember exactly what happened--4 years ago!--but the next time wanted to use the supervisor access to the BIOS, the machine refused my written down password--I really panicked at that point since I knew that problem required an expensive planar replacement.

In any case, I kept putting in every conceivable variation of the supervisor password I had written down and none of them seemed to work.

What I did not realize was that after a certain unspecified number of successive failed password attempts, the "anti-hammer" behaviour of the W500 BIOS was active. This means that all further attempts to enter BIOS passwords will fail for a *variable* *adaptive* length of time which seems to get longer the more attempts are made (exponential?!?). In my case, it was thanks to this forum that I found out about this anti-hammer behaviour.

I didn't attempt to start the machine for two or three days and when I did, I carefully tried my written down supervisor password without and without the non-numeric and non-alphabetical characters. The latter choice worked!

I went to the BIOS supervisor password screen and tried inputting setting up the two alternative passwords: the non-numerical/non-alphabetical characters were swallowed up without being shown in the password field, something which I hadn't noticed the first time I tried.

So henceforward I made it a rule to use only the alphabet and numbers for BIOS passwords.

Mind you, this was an early version of the W500 BIOS. I've since updated it to the current level, but I haven't deviated from my rule about BIOS passwords.

So, my advice to you: don't power up your machine for 3-4 days (leave the battery/mains power connected), then try variations on your supervisor password just using the ASCII letters and numbers (cancel the fingerprint dialog with the ESC key). If you've also set power-on and/or harddisk passwords that don't seem to work, try the same strategy. Remember to go slowly, I've no idea what the criteria are for the BIOS anti-hammer behaviour to start.

There are a large number of people frequenting this forum that have far more ThinkPad product knowledge and experience than I have (I've only ever owned just one ThinKPad), so take my advice with a large lump of salt!

Passphrase was an option on W500. There is no option on W520 - all have passphrase