Remove BIOS and Supervisor Password from Lenovo ThinkPad Laptops

How to remove BIOS passwords from a Lenovo ThinkPad?

We get a lot of laptops here which come in with a nice bios password. A lot of resellers will not take the effort to understand that wherever there is a password, there is also a way to remove it.

Most Lenovo ThinkPad laptops have a security chip which can be shorted to remove every password on the laptops hardware. This includes the BIOS and supervisor password. If there is a password on the hard drive then this method will not work.

Shorting the security chip from a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop.

Be careful whenever you short something on a laptop. We have done it many times and it always goes as expected but we do not guaranty that this method will work and thereby we don’t take any responsibility for eventual damage.

That said, let’s move on and show you how it’s done.

You can remove the BIOS and supervisor password by shorting the security chip. This can be done simply by putting a conductor (like a small screwdriver) on the SDA and SCL pins of the security chip during the bootup process.

Remember to ALWAYS remove the BIOS battery.

First you will have to disassemble the laptop until you get to the motherboard. For this you need a set of tools like this
If you are not sure how to disassemble your laptop then there are a lot of Youtube video’s out there that show how. Just search for your model and disassembly. So for example Lenovo thinkpad t520 dissasambly.
For the Lenovo ThinkPad T430 we made a tutorial because before you know it you have the entire laptop torn apart while this is not necessary. You can read it at the end of this page. 

Before you start have a look on the list below of models we have tested this method on and know it will work. I added the images of the chips so you know how to locate them.

When you found the chip you are ready do the following steps to remove the password:

1.        Make sure there is no power source on the laptop. Remove the battery, it’s power supply and the BIOS battery.
2.        Take a good position so you can press F1 to enter the BIOS while holding a small flat screwdriver on the SDA and SCL pins. If this is not possible then ask someone to help you.
3.        Put in the charger of the laptop and press the power button. It might be possible you don’t have to press the power button and the laptop comes on by itself.
4.        As soon as the backlight comes up put the flathead screwdriver on the SDA and SCL pins of the security chip and press them on tightly. Keep holding them on.
5.        Now press F1 to enter the BIOS. You should here a beep and if everything went well you should be able to access the BIOS.
6.        While holding the screwdriver onto the SDA and SCL pins remove the passwords. Enter in a new password and just keep pressing enter so you have empty fields.
   Then disable all the passwords in the BIOS.
7.        Now press F10 to save the BIOS and reboot the system. As soon as it start rebooting release the screwdriver from the pins.
8.        Congratulations! You have just removed the password.

If this method didn’t work then its probably because the timing of step 4 wasn’t correct. Keep trying a couple of times until you get it right. 

Lenovo ThinkPad T430 security chip

 

 Lenovo ThinkPad T520 security chip

 Lenovo ThinkPad T530 security chip

 

 

Lenovo ThinkPad T430 Disassemble 

You can remove the BIOS password on your own but it's a little tricky, here is how.