And if you see a T470 with a "Password not set" screen? That machine has a story. It has been freed.
This is the "secret" method Lenovo techs use in the field. It requires disassembling the laptop down to the bare motherboard, finding the J7 test point, and bridging two microscopic pads with a pair of tweezers at exactly the 4-second mark after pressing power. lenovo t470 bios password reset
In the world of IT asset disposition and second-hand laptop deals, the Lenovo ThinkPad T470 occupies a golden mean. It’s modern enough to run Windows 11, yet old enough to be a bargain. But there is a ghost that haunts the used ThinkPad market: The Supervisor Password. And if you see a T470 with a "Password not set" screen
If you try to brute force it, the system imposes exponentially increasing lockout timers. If you try to use a logic analyzer to sniff the SPI bus, you realize the data is encrypted with a key unique to the motherboard. This is the "secret" method Lenovo techs use in the field
Furthermore, on T470s with vPro (the i5-7300U or i7-7600U models), the AMT password is stored in the Management Engine's non-volatile memory. Clearing the BIOS does not clear AMT. You need a separate, nearly impossible to obtain, Intel engineering tool to reset that. The Lenovo T470 BIOS password is a fascinating piece of engineering. It is not "unbreakable," but it requires either a time machine (to use the old backdoor), a steady hand with a soldering iron, or a $50 donation to a Ukrainian firmware hacker on a Telegram channel.