Bought a used R500 from an eBay seller who neglected to mention the BIOS (v. 1.15) was locked. I did not have the administrator BIOS password but could enter CR to access the settings, most of which were disabled. There were only a few I would have liked to change. Seller also had loaded Win10Pro which rendered the machine practically useless . It was a low-end Vista / Celeron machine from the factory.

I decided to upgrade RAM, SSD and proc and upgrade the BIOS to 3.15. As I had read that the machine could brick if too many unauthorized BIOS access attempts were made, I asked on the Lenovo community whether these changes were reasonable. It was suggested that disconnecting the CMOS backup battery might remove the BIOS lock, although I read elsewhere that a locked BIOS could only be circumvented by replacing the mobo if the PW is unknown.

I made the BIOS upgrade first: Although still displaying the "locked" symbol, entering CR allowed me to access BIOS settings as before the upgrade and the machine would still boot - to Win10. Encouraged I replaced the 2Gb RAM with 8 GB, the 250 Gb HD with a 500 Gb SSD and the Celeron proc with a P8700. After reassembly I powered the machine and immediately attempted to enter BIOS. There were two error messages; one about configuration and one about date / time. The "lock" symbol appeared as before but this time entering CR did not grant access to the settings.

Instead an "X" appeared. Tried again twice: two more Xs, after which a symbol of a hand with a slash through the symbol appeared. No more entry was accepted; I could only power down. Apparently I have wasted one of my attempts. Word from Lenovo is that without the Admin PW your only recourse is to return the machine to an authorized service for replacement of the board. I'm pretty sure I could buy another machine for the cost of repairs, and that's assuming a spare board exists.

The BIOS is not socketed but I have heard of people re-programming the BIOS either on-board or after de-soldering it. The possibility exists however that there is another "gotcha" waiting down that path. So I am posting here asking for advice from anyone who has knowledge of this area. Bad idea, or possible?

Thanks for your advice.
-CH-