Bios password ignored

[petben]

We have around 80 x 7 year old HP DC7800 desktops, a student has just found out that if you enter any bios password 5 times it will go into the bios. Brilliant.

 

I know they’re old but like lots of schools, that’s what we’re stuck with for a bit.

 

Latest bios update applied.

 

Any ideas?

[HorridHenry]

Can you get rid of post and splash screens or make them so quick that pupils won't see the available options?

 

In my experience though when pupils do manage to go into bios they don't really know what to do.

 

Apart from that. New pc's I'm afraid. If they're that old doubtful HP will offer any support.

[Steve21]

Unless they've changed it it enters the bios but every option is greyed out as effectively it's a guest login so can't be changed, that's how it is on a lot of bios setups.

 

Did you check to see if anything can be done? If not does it matter if they can view things?

 

Steve

[MrEprise]

I can't quite remember where it is, but there is an option called "Setup Browse Mode" which does as @Steve21 described and is enabled by default. Disable this and after 5 attempts, the computer usually will just halt and wait for it to be restarted.

[AXE]

There's year old laptops that do that also. Even let you set a HDD password.

[speckytecky]

We had a similar issue with seven year old Toshiba Sat Pro C660 D's. BIOS Supervisors password set and working fine but some 'clever' little Herbert managed to get past it and add a HD password. Effectively making the MB toast without the HD password. Tried swapping out the HD and running a fresh install but still the old clunker now nags for a HD password.

[AXE]

A bit of searching and I was able to generate a master password to unlock the drive; only worked if an admin bios password had previously been set though.