@@daveweinstein5044 if the password isn't disclosed in auction details, then the item is not as described and ebay will let you return it regardless of the seller's policy.
Key Lesson Leaned: Don't buy anything from HP Inc. No mini PC's, laptops, or printers. Don't spend a dime with them. Don't reward bad behavior. Every vendor using bogus "security" arguments needs to go on the Do Not Buy list.
HP laptops, 3 dead in 3 years, were already on my no-go list, now the rest of HP just got added. Their BS with their printers. They've really gone down the drain.
Let's be honest. I have owned a few HP printers and know a lot of peoploe that used to own them. Nobody was happy with those printers. Amazingly whenever someone switched to Brother printers, they stopped complayning... I did a switch as well (about 12 years ago) and my printer just works, so boring... ;)
I agree it’s ridiculous. I tried to upgrade my Wi-Fi card to a better Wi-Fi card and the bios auto disabled it for security reasons and I’m like what the f&$k and to be clear this was an HP ProBook from 2012
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Because the only customer that matters to HP is the one who buys it brand new. HP has no economic incentive to care about any downstream market. The only way to put pressure on HP is if we can convince it's bad for the first owner, e.g. it increases the TCO for the first-hand owner if people are paying less for second-hand units.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo There's no BIOS password cracker? I ran into this on a used Dell laptop that I got from eBay. Entering the computer's info into a website calculated the unlock code and I was able to de-protect the BIOS.
Dirty little secret about HP ... all you have to do is call HP corp main number and ask for Office of Environment Affairs (or something like that) and complain that without help from HP, this will become e-waste and (this is the thing) ... point out that is completely inconsistent with the most recent "Sustainable Impact Report" (that is the official name of it). HP makes a big deal about such things (they are ESG-obsessed) and if you complain enuf, you will get relief!!! Btw, this works with most major tech firms that produce hard goods - like when you get stuck like here on the BIOS Password.
honestly, call your attorney and send them a cease and desist letter. once you're talking with their legal department you can negotiate PAID use of your content (and perhaps even use it as a way to direct more traffic to the STH website and youtube channel).
This pisses me off, multi-brazillion dollar corp is using some youtuber guy(who's remarkably better than them at supporting and presenting their own products) vids with no permission. This has to be handled.
Not a fan of governments getting involved unless they have to, but I really feel like some sort of "E-Waste" legislation is required here. Make companies like HP submit "e-waste' prevention documentation for each product, get fined for every action that increases e-waste potential and flat out ban this "you must send in the hardware" behavior.
no need for these specialized laws when you can have logical law structure that deals with general consumer goods life cycle as a whole and actually apply the law. These additional laws do nothing but bring extra jobs and money to government, making it larger at every turn
@@Cenot4ph For what it's worth, it doesn't much matter to me how it gets done, but something needs done. I agree with you that a more general purpose "total life cycle" regulation would be fantastic. Lots of things are easy/cheap to manufacture, but very costly (environmental, health, etc) when they are thrown in the trash heap and right now manufacturers does not have to care about the end of a products life.
Required source code/schematic/documentation release at EOL or bankruptcy would be fantastic as well, but I likely stand a better chance of winning the lottery twice than anything like that coming to law.
HP stopped allowing you to reset the BIOS password on your own computers as far back as 2019 and probably even before that. I have an old ProBook that has a BIOS password on it and HP said they would have to replace the motherboard at my expense. They also wouldn't tell me how much it was going to cost until I sent it in. The line about it being a security issue is also rather entertaining, I'm sure HP has not hardened their motherboard against someone just direct connecting to the BIOS chip and flashing it.
@@falsemcnuggethope It's not even a 2nd hand market target. Nothing stops companies from removing their bios passwords. HP doesn't set them. Plus, companies should remove their bios passwords as a matter of security, as an attacker could crack/decode it and use it to attack live inventory still used by the company.
Ya, that is what I had to do for mine flashing was a pain. I have also seen where people remove the bios chip and resolder one that they bought off ebay.
@Patrick, try pulling the CMOS battery and let it sit for an hour. Pop it back in and it should reset to defaults. This is how I got around SecureBoot shenaniganry on a SFF 800 G4 last week.
I was going to suggest the same thing.... But if one hour doesn't work, just leave it unplugged until the next day without the CMOS battery and remember to drain the system at the beginning of this process. Advice from and ex HP employee.
Thanks for the valuable heads up. The concept of ownership is really messed up here. If I can’t reset my own BIOS password, they shouldn’t be selling these systems to retail consumers. They should just limit sales to enterprises where such restrictions are ok. However, your suggestion makes sense as well. Throwing away encryption keys and rendering existing data unreadable is an elegant solution.
Really and truly I feel like in the next 5 years personal computers will be brute-forcing these levels of encryption and / or copying all of the raw information and generating a key. Also, I'm pretty sure they did sell this computer to an enterprise or a company outfitting an enterprise and either the deal fell through or they ordered more computers than they needed and put them on eBay to try to recoup their losses. It's clear this "feature" what the enterprise customers demand, but I wish he would have went through the process of sending it in and having it reset, considering everyone is doing this moving forward it would be nice to know how the process was and how much it cost. A $5 service charge with a one-day turnaround and $10 shipping each way isn't really a showstopper. Put a $500 service charge and a 8-week turn around is a different story entirely.
Just few days ago I got the HP Pro 400 G9 mini, with the same CPU (12th gen i5), I maxed-out the RAM to 64 GB and replaced the SSD with 1 TB drive. It's an absolute beast for home ESXi and the single-thread performance is stellar.
I had this same problem with an HP Elitedesk 705 G4 that I bought off eBay for my homelab. HP refused any help besides letting me buy a new motherboard. So I had to go a little overboard, I went and purchased a clip on SOIC8 programmer. I was able to find a BIOS version that I could figure out how to remove the secure header and then I flashed it directly to the chip. Took a bit of research but it did feel like a huge accomplishment getting the password free bios on there.
Bought this device, not our first version of the mini and of course it exceeded expectations yet again. We had tried a competitor's (geekom 12G version, which was cheaper and seemed to have all the right stuff, but it was SOOO loud that we quickly returned it. Just not workable at home or at work when machine is crazy loud. Got the HP I5-13500 which was faster than the I7-12500 at about 70% the price. Very, very quiet, nearly imperceptible sound at 2 feet. So fast and so nice to place on the desk out of the way. All the right things, DDR5 + 512GB fast SSD. Went out and bought Samsung 990 Pro 2TB and believe it or not, not as fast as the SSD that comes with this device standard. Just a great setup and will serve our dev teams for good while. Going out and buying a bunch more after this successful test.
I recently installed Linux Mint on an old Elitebook a friend had bought off eBay for far too much money. The previous owner had removed the wifi module, so I found a 'compatible' one (according to HP's service manual) and installed it only to find that the BIOS deactivated the module on start up according to a BIOS level whitelist that HP alter depending on country of sale. IOW the module I got would have worked fine if the laptop had been configured for sale in the USA, but not in the UK !! It's this kind of pointless anti-consumer control freakery that guarantees I'll never buy anything from HP or similar companies myself, while I'll vote with my wallet to support companies who unilaterally (without class action lawsuits driving their marketing BS) just do the right thing by their customers and the planet.
I picked up a plug and play MINI ACEPC with windows 10 in 4k for 350 dollars off amazon. I have never done a thing to it and it runs fast and I put a printer, Microsoft Xbox Series X Console on it with my big 49 inch screen Samsung. I had it for 6 years and it hardy ever get's turns off. runs great and it will for years to come.
We don’t use any HP minI PCs but we deploy hundreds of Elitebook and ZBook laptops. HP support has always been mediocre at best, always fighting you tooth and nail. Meanwhile we had an issue with a Optiplex Micro we used in a conference room and Dell came through with replacement parts no questions asked.
Back in my consulting days I had a laptop I called "HP6" because it was the sixth one in six months. One did not make it down the hall from picking it up at the IT helpdesk counter.
Dell support has always treated me well... But we got tied of calling them often. We went almost exclusively Lenovo about 15 years ago and it's been great.
I'm curious as to if the Reset capability still exists, but isn't exposed. Perhaps they just omitted the header? I would trace back the lines on the older one and see where they go... see if the same or similar IC exists on the new, and apply the reset condition at the chip.
I bought 13 of those in 2022 for Zoom Room PCs in conference rooms. 18 months later, at the end of 2023, they were obsolete. The system requirements skyrocketed for Zoom Rooms with the release of 5.17 and all of them had to be replaced. They run WAY better in Windows 10 than 11, FYI. But that kind of goes without saying for anything that isn't a 13th generation or later Intel CPU. For a basic desktop, they're just fine.
I love the Project TinyMiniMicro videos! Ever since I saw one of them a couple of years ago, I have been steaming through my quest to downsize my computers. After about a year, I now have three HP EliteDesk's, with more in the planning! This 800 G9 you have might be great for the Proxmox cluster I want to set up. I have a full size desktop with an i5-12400 with Proxmox (moving my OpenMediaVault zfs zraid2 to bigger drives and turning that OMV into a Proxmox node) that is plenty for what I need it for now, but I want to do some experimenting. Having more Cores has been something I have been wanting to play around with for a long time, and these used EliteDesks fit the budget perfectly!
I just wish we had chipmaker support for using salvaged chips and making our own motherboards at a small scale, and for recovering materials from dead boards. (It would also be neat if they stopped lasering the ECC capability out of the consumer chips.) But the oligopoly is too powerful.
When I worked for a big vendor (not HP/HPE), if someone brought their laptop in because they needed the PoP or supervisor password reset/removed, I know the service team would check the s/n to see whether it was reported as stolen. The feature has merit to protect corporate and/or private data. That said, if HP Support were able to verify you and the unit, I'm a bit surprised that they couldn't then use the utility to clear it? After having taken a liberty with your videos (congrats BTW and thank you!), surprised they didn't go a little further to help you guys?
That makes sense though you do have to balance the security with the convenience for the end user. The part when they stopped offering the utility is bad having to have it most likely is good but how much is needed to get one is bad. I get the need for physical security in a corporate environment but HP didn't do it correctly. A correct way in my mind to do it correctly would be to require another part like a security key that you plug into the board when needing admin access instead of having it be a utility nor a jumper. Have the UEFI have the code to read the security key on it for when it is used and have a port on the board for it to go into. If they are claiming "security reasons" i cannot think of a better way to do physical security for the UEFI then this. As they are already in possession of the physical device it isn't to much to ask the repair guy to plug in a security key into it. It will mean remote unlock and remote reset password will not be a thing but it will be more secure.
But say you buy one off eBay, or Amazon, and you showed proof of purchase, but how do they know it wasn't stolen by the seller, or the seller was fencing? Motorola is the same way with their radios. They track of stolen, and lost radios.
13:00 So, i suspected this might be a direction these companies were headed when Lenovo started fusing those AMD PSB fuses at the factory, anything to generate e-waste so you have to buy a service or replacement
HP, IBM, and other computers coming off the commercial lease are designed so all options require the contract provider to authorise changes (for money). They are not a good value for that reason.
Now I'm waiting for the 805 Ryzen version to see what the RDNA gfx chip can do with it (yes I'm not expecting much, but it's leaps ahead of Intel's on chip stuff).
IMO, unless you're just serving videos and music off NAS or things like that, then having bonded network cables is much better so it can be real used for real powerhouse work from your PC.
Would be nice to get a high quality shot of the motherboard out there so someone can reverse engineer a way to flash the bios using a flash programmer.
My bet is that there's a small flash chip on the board that if you simply zeroed it out (or changed a few bits so the checksum didn't match), the BIOS would load defaults. This is what removing the jumper originally did when it used battery backed CMOS RAM; hence, the term "clear CMOS". An appropriate device could be made out of a $4 Raspberry Pi Pico and some wire.
Don't we all? More to the point, I'd love to have chipmaker and chassis maker support to make a motherboard with, say, a Xeon CPU, that could fit into a laptop chassis I currently have which is out of warranty.
Luckily I have a JD from the largest law school in California so I have several friends that practice in the space. But always try to resolve it outside of that process.
I have a G2 HP EliteDesk mini that I have yet to commission. It's bare bones and needs a CPU, Power Brick, RAM plus a drive and I think I will sell it or give it away. I have multiple Dell Micros and I really don't know how I ended up buying this particular brand. Rather than invest my time and money in HP I think I should stick with Dell for now.
The reason they chose to do this with the BIOS password is simple. HP is dumb. A piece of supporting evidence. I once received from HP a box of the size usually used to pack a 1U server. It was abnormally light, though. I opened the box, and instead of finding a server with styrofoam packing surrounds, I found a solid wall of styrofoam peanuts. Upon digging through the peanuts, I found the single item contained in the box. It was a single piece of paper with a license code on it. It was centered precisely in the box, ensconced among the styrofoam peanuts.
I recently got an older G2 and it also had a bios admin pwd...which was removed asap using the normal blue plug shorting procedure. If that workaround hadn't been there it'd have been sitting with a basically useless machine because I needed to change a whole lot of things in the bios....like getting the latest bios to make sure there's no malware in the old one..... Then I locked it up again - with my own settings - to make sure no malware gets to change things without my knowing.
You just need proof that you bought it, the serial number, and the system needs an accurate clock. They can send you a file you put on a USB drive and it will allow password bypass for a limited time and you can set or clear the administrator password. The trick is getting to someone that knows and is willing to do that. I used to work on HP Laptops and Mini's just like this, G5 mini/laptop and newer AMD and Intel CPU, HP started doing this method. I dont have access to that account any more so I can't do it. If you know someone that does field service for HP, they can get the tool to wipe and re-load the motherboard bios and the motherboard config from the specification codes on the case label.
Wow, talk about burying the lede. Really hope you can dig deeper into this. Is Dell doing this? Lenovo? Is this the beginning of the end for buying used mini PCs off eBay?
The Optiplex Micro 7000 from last year has DDR4 if you want a slightly cheaper option. I've been running it as my main development station for a good six months and it has been very reliable & also quieter than a laptop. Has brilliant Linux support out of the box, fwupd support, none of the HP nonsense.
It is WILD to me that the 7000 Micro had both DDR4 and DDR5 options. Usually, vendors would make DDR4 a lower-end unit (e.g. the OptiPlex 5000 series.) When we reviewed the Dell OptiPlex 7000 Micro it was a DDR5 device. ua-cam.com/video/AQuYhUvQIPQ/v-deo.html Linux support on all of these 1L PCs is very good since they use essentially the same core parts.
I was given a small form factor PC almost identical in size and shape to the one you're talking about. It puts out a lot of heat above and below it when I push the performance just a little bit too much. I have it sitting on a metal C-channel bracket that affords plenty of air flow between it and my desktop. It raises the mini PC about 2.75 inches off the table. It also features 18 1 inch holes in that bracket. With a metal tray beneath it I can place its power brick.
I'd be interested in seeing HP develop a semi-external GPU box (separate box but permanent to the host system, not a true eGPU in the typical sense) of the same dimensions, with a link between the boxes; I assume PCIe x8, I know the chips are capable of 20 total lanes off CPU directly, but I'm not sure how the system itself is configured, and I know there's an 8-lane OCulink though I'm not sure of compatibility with PCIe 5.0. This would keep the system box at a preferred power level with managed cooling, while the GPU box is kept at its own power level with managed cooling, both within the same footprint so that systems can still be tessellated as originally implemented, with a total singular system being ~2L. With a GPU setup like this, discrete power, more overhead, etc., this kind of double-TinyMiniMacro could be very interesting, especially if it's able to break out of mobile-spec into desktop-spec; also an argument for a return of a MXM-like spec, I know Dell had (and still has?) an MXM-successor, and I know Framework is doing something similar with the same, though altered pinout, connector that is going to be (now is?) open hardware. Though my only concern is cooling, a radial-in radial-out really isn't the most efficient way to move air, for the dimensions I wonder if a cross-flow fan would be better, though Frore Systems AirJet coolers might be an absolute powerhouse with this kind of formfactor once their products are more widely available. If the cards fall right, this could be an actual Mac Mini killer.
You can test generic passwords like password and admin because the more recent hp desktops require setting a password for changing some settings. I know i've done it on many hp systems
Still with a 1 gig NIC built in . Ugh. Can't unlock the BIOS, hard nope-it's mine. I'm finding Minisforum and Beelink are making smaller mini PCs that show better performance for a much better price point-and 2.5 NIC standard. While I have several G6s and a G8 I'm not pursuing these any more.
imagien dual 2.5G with one port being POE+ of course you'd be limited in clock speeds, but the higher core count processors are still pretty darn good at 12w
if HP can reset it then there has to be an easy way to do it - ie: there's got to be test points on the mobo somewhere and you can short the pins there to restore to factory defaults. it's not a security issue, it's a CASH GRAB
Lenovo does the same thing. No way to recover/remove the bios password. I bought a second hand Lenovo laptop that had the same issue, low usage hours and locked bios with over 3 years onsite warranty. Warranty transfered just fine. But I can't change the OS, or make any other system changes bios access.
Impressive that it can house a laptop GPU. Personally, I picked up one of the Dell 7050 micro units sporting a 7700T (supposedly as good or better performance than the 8600T) for a $100. Can't wait for these newer generations to get even cheaper!
I still prefer the Lenovo M920q and P320 tiny's as I run Intel X520 and Chelsio 10GB SFP+ cards in them with no funky issues, they work great as little XCP-ng hosts. Got mine for under $200 each and they are rock solid little servers.
I bought this and it is amazing. I looked every where for these add-ons (ex. 2 USB, VGA, etc.) for this configurable ports, but I couldn't find any, any help??
Commenting on @Maestro_Longaniza: "The G4 HP minis were the last generation to offer the physical jumper to reset the bios. G5 and on, have this new "security" feature. ... Now I always check the bios first. Use the "ESC" key to access the HP bios..." This comment is perhaps the most informative of all that I have read in this thread, but can you please clarify the last part about "checking the BIOS" first. Does that you mean that you can access/change the HP BIOS admin password BEFORE attempting to make any hardware changes (which would otherwise lock you out)? Or is this video implying that used post-G4 HP minis are effectively bricks (if they can't be upgraded, as intended)??? If that were true, I find it strange that this issue hasn't already been widely publicized before now -- given that there are so many second-hand units on the market. Maybe I'm missing something?
Enterprise units with vpro are like that, even lenovo. The thing is if you buy this as a regular user, the vpro will be disabled. But if you buy it from an enterprise (or used on some marketplace), you'll have to deal with these type of problems.
I've been watching your reviews but it's hard for making comparison decisions.. for gaming would a minisforum hx90 ryzen 9 5900x (Amd Radeon graphics )be better than a 800 g8 15 11500t (GTX 1660 super) or anyone who can answer please help me make the right decision without being biased.
so in the end what are we saying... if I buy one of units used , which I want to do, I may be stuck with hp security issues while trying to upgrade. are they trying to kill the used market for these pc's ??
hi patrick, i have got a question that probably only you can answer, regarding the Lenovo Tiny VI Vertical Stand , I saw it in 1 of your video before! I just wonder can the HP mini and Dell micro fit into it perfectly?
I have an older MSI laptop at work (GE70 2PE if Im not mistaken) that a coworker somehow set a bios password on and even though its from around 2015-2016ish, they did the same thing HP has started doing where removing the cmos battery doesnt do anything and theres no jumper to reset it either :(
I was looking to move on from my Lenovo Thinkcenter m700, and was really excited to about this new HP elite mini. I was intending to buy one with the optional Nvidia 3050, but there is conflicting information as to if it is an actual TI or Max-Q variant and what wattage is runs on. These all seem to run about $1500, instead I found a Lenovo p360 ultra i9 with 64gb ddr4 and A5000 for $1900. 2x the size but hugely increased performance for $400.
How do you actually install this hp 10gb nic? On my mini 900 g9 the spot it goes in is label as “serial port (select products only)” and it looks like a little plate with two small holes that you can push out… only problem is it doesn’t just push out easily. In the text somewhere you said you show how to install this thing and I can’t seem to find that video. Can you please show us how to install it? Or point me to somewhere that explains it. Not even HPs user guide seems to explain it.
Thanks for warning me to never buy anything that's come from HP. When you started this video I was thinking that this might be a nice system but by the end.....
@ServeTheHome What if the BIOS/UEFI chip was phycially replaced? Would this solve the admin password issue? I do wonder what chip it uses. Does HP provideo a utilitiy to flash the firmware? 🤔
HP used to be a great innovative company in the 1980's. They made lots of scientific and medical instruments, in addition to computers. The when Fiorina and others took over and acquired Compaq and Palm, it was all down hill. It became a marketing and distribution company, inventing nothing.
bios passwords that can't be skirted around have been pretty standard across the whole industry for quite awhile now? why is this a surprise./ only being mentioned now? The days of pulling the cmos battery or shorting some pins to reset it haven't been a reality in biz PCs in 10+ years easily.
Doesn't this machine use a standard Intel security chip? Isn't there a way to put one of those into reset mode? Perhaps using an in-circuit programmer clip or something the like?
I have stopped buying these new 1L pc's and I just use a ITX Erying i5 12500 board in a small generic case. No proprietary lock out, nothing weird, it just works hardware.
That lockout on the BIOS is a show-stopper. Many thanks for this video.
perhaps this could be avoided by insisting on getting the admin password along with the PC? no password, no sale.
@@daveweinstein5044 if the password isn't disclosed in auction details, then the item is not as described and ebay will let you return it regardless of the seller's policy.
@@daveweinstein5044 Good luck getting that from a third party reseller.
Yeah i had a older one, took a few mins of finding and reading the manual where and how to change the jumper and i had full control.
Key Lesson Leaned: Don't buy anything from HP Inc. No mini PC's, laptops, or printers. Don't spend a dime with them. Don't reward bad behavior. Every vendor using bogus "security" arguments needs to go on the Do Not Buy list.
Demanding a ransom for accessing your own device.
HP laptops, 3 dead in 3 years, were already on my no-go list, now the rest of HP just got added. Their BS with their printers. They've really gone down the drain.
Been avoiding them for at least 5 years now. Sad. They used to be an amazing company.
Let's be honest. I have owned a few HP printers and know a lot of peoploe that used to own them.
Nobody was happy with those printers.
Amazingly whenever someone switched to Brother printers, they stopped complayning... I did a switch as well (about 12 years ago) and my printer just works, so boring... ;)
I agree it’s ridiculous. I tried to upgrade my Wi-Fi card to a better Wi-Fi card and the bios auto disabled it for security reasons and I’m like what the f&$k and to be clear this was an HP ProBook from 2012
Nothing like a slap in the face from HP. Absolutely silly policies.
Amazing nobody talks about this.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Because the only customer that matters to HP is the one who buys it brand new. HP has no economic incentive to care about any downstream market. The only way to put pressure on HP is if we can convince it's bad for the first owner, e.g. it increases the TCO for the first-hand owner if people are paying less for second-hand units.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo Louis Rossmann talks about these kinds of issues all the time. It is certainly not unique to HP.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo There's no BIOS password cracker? I ran into this on a used Dell laptop that I got from eBay. Entering the computer's info into a website calculated the unlock code and I was able to de-protect the BIOS.
@@aarong9378 link?
Dirty little secret about HP ... all you have to do is call HP corp main number and ask for Office of Environment Affairs (or something like that) and complain that without help from HP, this will become e-waste and (this is the thing) ... point out that is completely inconsistent with the most recent "Sustainable Impact Report" (that is the official name of it). HP makes a big deal about such things (they are ESG-obsessed) and if you complain enuf, you will get relief!!! Btw, this works with most major tech firms that produce hard goods - like when you get stuck like here on the BIOS Password.
Interesting.
So HP stole your copyrighted work and locked you out of your computer unless you pay a ransom. Nice bunch of criminals those HP guys.
honestly, call your attorney and send them a cease and desist letter. once you're talking with their legal department you can negotiate PAID use of your content (and perhaps even use it as a way to direct more traffic to the STH website and youtube channel).
This pisses me off, multi-brazillion dollar corp is using some youtuber guy(who's remarkably better than them at supporting and presenting their own products) vids with no permission. This has to be handled.
Epic comment
Not a fan of governments getting involved unless they have to, but I really feel like some sort of "E-Waste" legislation is required here. Make companies like HP submit "e-waste' prevention documentation for each product, get fined for every action that increases e-waste potential and flat out ban this "you must send in the hardware" behavior.
no need for these specialized laws when you can have logical law structure that deals with general consumer goods life cycle as a whole and actually apply the law.
These additional laws do nothing but bring extra jobs and money to government, making it larger at every turn
@@Cenot4ph For what it's worth, it doesn't much matter to me how it gets done, but something needs done. I agree with you that a more general purpose "total life cycle" regulation would be fantastic. Lots of things are easy/cheap to manufacture, but very costly (environmental, health, etc) when they are thrown in the trash heap and right now manufacturers does not have to care about the end of a products life.
Required source code/schematic/documentation release at EOL or bankruptcy would be fantastic as well, but I likely stand a better chance of winning the lottery twice than anything like that coming to law.
This should be included in right-to-repair legislation.
Translation "Not a fan of government getting involved unless it helps me"
HP stopped allowing you to reset the BIOS password on your own computers as far back as 2019 and probably even before that. I have an old ProBook that has a BIOS password on it and HP said they would have to replace the motherboard at my expense. They also wouldn't tell me how much it was going to cost until I sent it in. The line about it being a security issue is also rather entertaining, I'm sure HP has not hardened their motherboard against someone just direct connecting to the BIOS chip and flashing it.
It's ultimately a low-effort anti-theft thing (though thieves will still sell bios locked laptops)
@@BOXabaca you mean anti second hand market thing
It like you are only renting the model.
@@falsemcnuggethope It's not even a 2nd hand market target.
Nothing stops companies from removing their bios passwords. HP doesn't set them.
Plus, companies should remove their bios passwords as a matter of security, as an attacker could crack/decode it and use it to attack live inventory still used by the company.
Ya, that is what I had to do for mine flashing was a pain. I have also seen where people remove the bios chip and resolder one that they bought off ebay.
@Patrick, try pulling the CMOS battery and let it sit for an hour. Pop it back in and it should reset to defaults. This is how I got around SecureBoot shenaniganry on a SFF 800 G4 last week.
Will give it a try. We did a 30 min battery pull.
@@ServeTheHomeVideo ...and the result...?
It depends if HP set up the key in non-volatile memory (which it sounds like they did).
I was going to suggest the same thing....
But if one hour doesn't work, just leave it unplugged until the next day without the CMOS battery and remember to drain the system at the beginning of this process.
Advice from and ex HP employee.
Thanks for the valuable heads up. The concept of ownership is really messed up here. If I can’t reset my own BIOS password, they shouldn’t be selling these systems to retail consumers. They should just limit sales to enterprises where such restrictions are ok. However, your suggestion makes sense as well. Throwing away encryption keys and rendering existing data unreadable is an elegant solution.
Really and truly I feel like in the next 5 years personal computers will be brute-forcing these levels of encryption and / or copying all of the raw information and generating a key.
Also, I'm pretty sure they did sell this computer to an enterprise or a company outfitting an enterprise and either the deal fell through or they ordered more computers than they needed and put them on eBay to try to recoup their losses.
It's clear this "feature" what the enterprise customers demand, but I wish he would have went through the process of sending it in and having it reset, considering everyone is doing this moving forward it would be nice to know how the process was and how much it cost. A $5 service charge with a one-day turnaround and $10 shipping each way isn't really a showstopper. Put a $500 service charge and a 8-week turn around is a different story entirely.
Just few days ago I got the HP Pro 400 G9 mini, with the same CPU (12th gen i5), I maxed-out the RAM to 64 GB and replaced the SSD with 1 TB drive. It's an absolute beast for home ESXi and the single-thread performance is stellar.
Super awesome!
What is the noise situation when using it for normal, everyday work?
We show that in the power and noise section. Very good.
I had this same problem with an HP Elitedesk 705 G4 that I bought off eBay for my homelab. HP refused any help besides letting me buy a new motherboard. So I had to go a little overboard, I went and purchased a clip on SOIC8 programmer. I was able to find a BIOS version that I could figure out how to remove the secure header and then I flashed it directly to the chip. Took a bit of research but it did feel like a huge accomplishment getting the password free bios on there.
That is what I recommend as well. A motherboard replacement is way overboard and HP should be able to reflash the IC, but just don't want to.
Bought this device, not our first version of the mini and of course it exceeded expectations yet again. We had tried a competitor's (geekom 12G version, which was cheaper and seemed to have all the right stuff, but it was SOOO loud that we quickly returned it. Just not workable at home or at work when machine is crazy loud. Got the HP I5-13500 which was faster than the I7-12500 at about 70% the price. Very, very quiet, nearly imperceptible sound at 2 feet. So fast and so nice to place on the desk out of the way. All the right things, DDR5 + 512GB fast SSD. Went out and bought Samsung 990 Pro 2TB and believe it or not, not as fast as the SSD that comes with this device standard. Just a great setup and will serve our dev teams for good while. Going out and buying a bunch more after this successful test.
You should include security issues getting these second hand too. There's some bloody nasty malware out there.
Totally, but that is some of the risk with second hand that the buyer assumes, hence why it is discounted price wise to new hardware.
I recently installed Linux Mint on an old Elitebook a friend had bought off eBay for far too much money. The previous owner had removed the wifi module, so I found a 'compatible' one (according to HP's service manual) and installed it only to find that the BIOS deactivated the module on start up according to a BIOS level whitelist that HP alter depending on country of sale. IOW the module I got would have worked fine if the laptop had been configured for sale in the USA, but not in the UK !!
It's this kind of pointless anti-consumer control freakery that guarantees I'll never buy anything from HP or similar companies myself, while I'll vote with my wallet to support companies who unilaterally (without class action lawsuits driving their marketing BS) just do the right thing by their customers and the planet.
Legal WiFi frequencies vary by country, so it might not be as nefarious as you think.
I picked up a plug and play MINI ACEPC with windows 10 in 4k for 350 dollars off amazon. I have never done a thing to it and it runs fast and I put a printer, Microsoft Xbox Series X Console on it with my big 49 inch screen Samsung. I had it for 6 years and it hardy ever get's turns off. runs great and it will for years to come.
We don’t use any HP minI PCs but we deploy hundreds of Elitebook and ZBook laptops. HP support has always been mediocre at best, always fighting you tooth and nail. Meanwhile we had an issue with a Optiplex Micro we used in a conference room and Dell came through with replacement parts no questions asked.
Back in my consulting days I had a laptop I called "HP6" because it was the sixth one in six months. One did not make it down the hall from picking it up at the IT helpdesk counter.
Dell support has always treated me well... But we got tied of calling them often. We went almost exclusively Lenovo about 15 years ago and it's been great.
That is insane, some real key lessons learned right there.
Maybe MSI can get you the keys 🕺
Nice one.
I'm curious as to if the Reset capability still exists, but isn't exposed. Perhaps they just omitted the header? I would trace back the lines on the older one and see where they go... see if the same or similar IC exists on the new, and apply the reset condition at the chip.
Because of this series I have bought a 6th gen i5 HP 600 G3 Mini, might not be the fastest. But it works well as a homeserver.
Got a 800 G2 for the same reason. Works like a charm. With a very useful blue plug...thank you very much!
@@kevinrtres same
I bought 13 of those in 2022 for Zoom Room PCs in conference rooms. 18 months later, at the end of 2023, they were obsolete. The system requirements skyrocketed for Zoom Rooms with the release of 5.17 and all of them had to be replaced. They run WAY better in Windows 10 than 11, FYI. But that kind of goes without saying for anything that isn't a 13th generation or later Intel CPU. For a basic desktop, they're just fine.
We have one of those HP Teams boxes and something similar happened except they cannot run Win 11 due to being older CPUs
I love the Project TinyMiniMicro videos!
Ever since I saw one of them a couple of years ago, I have been steaming through my quest to downsize my computers. After about a year, I now have three HP EliteDesk's, with more in the planning!
This 800 G9 you have might be great for the Proxmox cluster I want to set up. I have a full size desktop with an i5-12400 with Proxmox (moving my OpenMediaVault zfs zraid2 to bigger drives and turning that OMV into a Proxmox node) that is plenty for what I need it for now, but I want to do some experimenting. Having more Cores has been something I have been wanting to play around with for a long time, and these used EliteDesks fit the budget perfectly!
Amazing compact machine for programming! Silent and Powerful at the same time, plus plenty of options for an upgrade!
...if you don't need to make BIOS changes...
I just wish we had chipmaker support for using salvaged chips and making our own motherboards at a small scale, and for recovering materials from dead boards. (It would also be neat if they stopped lasering the ECC capability out of the consumer chips.) But the oligopoly is too powerful.
Greed is everything for humans 😢 we try to take with us stuff after we die.
When I worked for a big vendor (not HP/HPE), if someone brought their laptop in because they needed the PoP or supervisor password reset/removed, I know the service team would check the s/n to see whether it was reported as stolen. The feature has merit to protect corporate and/or private data. That said, if HP Support were able to verify you and the unit, I'm a bit surprised that they couldn't then use the utility to clear it? After having taken a liberty with your videos (congrats BTW and thank you!), surprised they didn't go a little further to help you guys?
They can clear it by generating a MPM unlock key
That makes sense though you do have to balance the security with the convenience for the end user. The part when they stopped offering the utility is bad having to have it most likely is good but how much is needed to get one is bad. I get the need for physical security in a corporate environment but HP didn't do it correctly. A correct way in my mind to do it correctly would be to require another part like a security key that you plug into the board when needing admin access instead of having it be a utility nor a jumper. Have the UEFI have the code to read the security key on it for when it is used and have a port on the board for it to go into. If they are claiming "security reasons" i cannot think of a better way to do physical security for the UEFI then this. As they are already in possession of the physical device it isn't to much to ask the repair guy to plug in a security key into it. It will mean remote unlock and remote reset password will not be a thing but it will be more secure.
But say you buy one off eBay, or Amazon, and you showed proof of purchase, but how do they know it wasn't stolen by the seller, or the seller was fencing? Motorola is the same way with their radios. They track of stolen, and lost radios.
Got one of these, its awesome! Now I just need a tinyminimicro nas for my 4x 4TB 2.5" ssds. 10GB RJ45, low power low noise... go
I have an idea.
13:00 So, i suspected this might be a direction these companies were headed when Lenovo started fusing those AMD PSB fuses at the factory, anything to generate e-waste so you have to buy a service or replacement
HP, IBM, and other computers coming off the commercial lease are designed so all options require the contract provider to authorise changes (for money). They are not a good value for that reason.
Great video! Thank you for highlighting why I should avoid buying HP products.
I love this channel because of the power consumption tests
Good feedback. We added that format last year.
Now I'm waiting for the 805 Ryzen version to see what the RDNA gfx chip can do with it (yes I'm not expecting much, but it's leaps ahead of Intel's on chip stuff).
With HP - It is all about revenue. Screw the customer. I gave up on them a long time ago.
It could be cool pairing this with EGPU via Thunderbolt.
Since you've got two m.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 slots, probably be cheaper (and maybe even more performant) just to attach a GDC Beast 🤷♂️
I would love to see someone offer something like this with support for external sas shelves. Would make a great, small NAS box.
Some of them have a pcie x8 slot and you could put an LSI HBA in there
IMO, unless you're just serving videos and music off NAS or things like that, then having bonded network cables is much better so it can be real used for real powerhouse work from your PC.
Would be nice to get a high quality shot of the motherboard out there so someone can reverse engineer a way to flash the bios using a flash programmer.
My bet is that there's a small flash chip on the board that if you simply zeroed it out (or changed a few bits so the checksum didn't match), the BIOS would load defaults. This is what removing the jumper originally did when it used battery backed CMOS RAM; hence, the term "clear CMOS".
An appropriate device could be made out of a $4 Raspberry Pi Pico and some wire.
This is HP - You should have learnt the lessons from their Printer business - Awful company.
It was once a great company but unfortunately the Indians are running it to the ground
I wish there was a Xeon-based 1l PC with ECC RAM.
Don't we all?
More to the point, I'd love to have chipmaker and chassis maker support to make a motherboard with, say, a Xeon CPU, that could fit into a laptop chassis I currently have which is out of warranty.
We all need someone like Patrick in our lives who get so excited about tech.
Hehe, the price direct from HP can be said to be "a little more" than $515 for sure :D
It sounds like you need to get with a copyright attorney and put some pressure on HP about your images.
Luckily I have a JD from the largest law school in California so I have several friends that practice in the space. But always try to resolve it outside of that process.
Copyright strike
I have a G2 HP EliteDesk mini that I have yet to commission. It's bare bones and needs
a CPU, Power Brick, RAM plus a drive and I think I will sell it or give it away.
I have multiple Dell Micros and I really don't know how I ended up buying this particular
brand. Rather than invest my time and money in HP I think I should stick with Dell for now.
The reason they chose to do this with the BIOS password is simple. HP is dumb.
A piece of supporting evidence. I once received from HP a box of the size usually used to pack a 1U server. It was abnormally light, though. I opened the box, and instead of finding a server with styrofoam packing surrounds, I found a solid wall of styrofoam peanuts. Upon digging through the peanuts, I found the single item contained in the box. It was a single piece of paper with a license code on it. It was centered precisely in the box, ensconced among the styrofoam peanuts.
I recently got an older G2 and it also had a bios admin pwd...which was removed asap using the normal blue plug shorting procedure. If that workaround hadn't been there it'd have been sitting with a basically useless machine because I needed to change a whole lot of things in the bios....like getting the latest bios to make sure there's no malware in the old one.....
Then I locked it up again - with my own settings - to make sure no malware gets to change things without my knowing.
You just need proof that you bought it, the serial number, and the system needs an accurate clock. They can send you a file you put on a USB drive and it will allow password bypass for a limited time and you can set or clear the administrator password.
The trick is getting to someone that knows and is willing to do that. I used to work on HP Laptops and Mini's just like this, G5 mini/laptop and newer AMD and Intel CPU, HP started doing this method.
I dont have access to that account any more so I can't do it.
If you know someone that does field service for HP, they can get the tool to wipe and re-load the motherboard bios and the motherboard config from the specification codes on the case label.
Great job Patrick!
Wow, talk about burying the lede. Really hope you can dig deeper into this. Is Dell doing this? Lenovo? Is this the beginning of the end for buying used mini PCs off eBay?
The Optiplex Micro 7000 from last year has DDR4 if you want a slightly cheaper option. I've been running it as my main development station for a good six months and it has been very reliable & also quieter than a laptop. Has brilliant Linux support out of the box, fwupd support, none of the HP nonsense.
It is WILD to me that the 7000 Micro had both DDR4 and DDR5 options. Usually, vendors would make DDR4 a lower-end unit (e.g. the OptiPlex 5000 series.) When we reviewed the Dell OptiPlex 7000 Micro it was a DDR5 device. ua-cam.com/video/AQuYhUvQIPQ/v-deo.html
Linux support on all of these 1L PCs is very good since they use essentially the same core parts.
I was given a small form factor PC almost identical in size and shape to the one you're talking about. It puts out a lot of heat above and below it when I push the performance just a little bit too much. I have it sitting on a metal C-channel bracket that affords plenty of air flow between it and my desktop. It raises the mini PC about 2.75 inches off the table. It also features 18 1 inch holes in that bracket. With a metal tray beneath it I can place its power brick.
Did you give HP a copyright strike?
This is enough cases it would have taken down their channel.
I'd be interested in seeing HP develop a semi-external GPU box (separate box but permanent to the host system, not a true eGPU in the typical sense) of the same dimensions, with a link between the boxes; I assume PCIe x8, I know the chips are capable of 20 total lanes off CPU directly, but I'm not sure how the system itself is configured, and I know there's an 8-lane OCulink though I'm not sure of compatibility with PCIe 5.0. This would keep the system box at a preferred power level with managed cooling, while the GPU box is kept at its own power level with managed cooling, both within the same footprint so that systems can still be tessellated as originally implemented, with a total singular system being ~2L. With a GPU setup like this, discrete power, more overhead, etc., this kind of double-TinyMiniMacro could be very interesting, especially if it's able to break out of mobile-spec into desktop-spec; also an argument for a return of a MXM-like spec, I know Dell had (and still has?) an MXM-successor, and I know Framework is doing something similar with the same, though altered pinout, connector that is going to be (now is?) open hardware. Though my only concern is cooling, a radial-in radial-out really isn't the most efficient way to move air, for the dimensions I wonder if a cross-flow fan would be better, though Frore Systems AirJet coolers might be an absolute powerhouse with this kind of formfactor once their products are more widely available. If the cards fall right, this could be an actual Mac Mini killer.
You can test generic passwords like password and admin because the more recent hp desktops require setting a password for changing some settings. I know i've done it on many hp systems
There are also tools to generate master passwords from the system serial number however these systems may be too new to have one yet
Still with a 1 gig NIC built in . Ugh. Can't unlock the BIOS, hard nope-it's mine. I'm finding Minisforum and Beelink are making smaller mini PCs that show better performance for a much better price point-and 2.5 NIC standard. While I have several G6s and a G8 I'm not pursuing these any more.
We have been buying the 2.5GbE NICs for these for $20-25 on eBay and the 10Gbase-T Flex IO V2 NICs for $129.
imagien dual 2.5G with one port being POE+ of course you'd be limited in clock speeds, but the higher core count processors are still pretty darn good at 12w
if HP can reset it then there has to be an easy way to do it - ie: there's got to be test points on the mobo somewhere and you can short the pins there to restore to factory defaults. it's not a security issue, it's a CASH GRAB
you should DMCA-takedown the HP videos that stole your copyrighted work
is there a 5.1 surround sound card for it
Use a HDMI debedder. Pass through HDMI with 8 analogue channels. Or for wireless get an Axiim Link WiSA transmitter for 11 channels, USB powered.
Can we install bios software same with normal motherboards
Lenovo does the same thing. No way to recover/remove the bios password. I bought a second hand Lenovo laptop that had the same issue, low usage hours and locked bios with over 3 years onsite warranty.
Warranty transfered just fine. But I can't change the OS, or make any other system changes bios access.
Impressive that it can house a laptop GPU.
Personally, I picked up one of the Dell 7050 micro units sporting a 7700T (supposedly as good or better performance than the 8600T) for a $100. Can't wait for these newer generations to get even cheaper!
I still prefer the Lenovo M920q and P320 tiny's as I run Intel X520 and Chelsio 10GB SFP+ cards in them with no funky issues, they work great as little XCP-ng hosts. Got mine for under $200 each and they are rock solid little servers.
I bought this and it is amazing. I looked every where for these add-ons (ex. 2 USB, VGA, etc.) for this configurable ports, but I couldn't find any, any help??
Commenting on @Maestro_Longaniza: "The G4 HP minis were the last generation to offer the physical jumper to reset the bios. G5 and on, have this new "security" feature. ... Now I always check the bios first. Use the "ESC" key to access the HP bios..." This comment is perhaps the most informative of all that I have read in this thread, but can you please clarify the last part about "checking the BIOS" first. Does that you mean that you can access/change the HP BIOS admin password BEFORE attempting to make any hardware changes (which would otherwise lock you out)? Or is this video implying that used post-G4 HP minis are effectively bricks (if they can't be upgraded, as intended)??? If that were true, I find it strange that this issue hasn't already been widely publicized before now -- given that there are so many second-hand units on the market. Maybe I'm missing something?
13:50 I think HP is great fan of STH , that's why they are using STH's THUMNAIL....!!!😂🤣
I want a 1l with dual 10gbe or dual sfp+ for pfsense
HP yet again proving why you should not buy from them.
HP saw what Apple was doing and said, 'hold my beer'.
And, sue HP for copyright violations!
Enterprise units with vpro are like that, even lenovo. The thing is if you buy this as a regular user, the vpro will be disabled. But if you buy it from an enterprise (or used on some marketplace), you'll have to deal with these type of problems.
usually removing the cmos battery from the board clears it together with the bios password
I've been watching your reviews but it's hard for making comparison decisions.. for gaming would a minisforum hx90 ryzen 9 5900x (Amd Radeon graphics )be better than a 800 g8 15 11500t (GTX 1660 super) or anyone who can answer please help me make the right decision without being biased.
I would get the GTX 1660 for games
so in the end what are we saying... if I buy one of units used , which I want to do, I may be stuck with hp security issues while trying to upgrade. are they trying to kill the used market for these pc's ??
Probably the black market. Unfortunately, most admins with large groups to get rid of are usually lazy.
pretty sure HP Support is just an outsourced group somewhere in Asia. Big companies gonna do big company things.
hi patrick, i have got a question that probably only you can answer, regarding the Lenovo Tiny VI Vertical Stand , I saw it in 1 of your video before!
I just wonder can the HP mini and Dell micro fit into it perfectly?
Not really perfectly.
I have an older MSI laptop at work (GE70 2PE if Im not mistaken) that a coworker somehow set a bios password on and even though its from around 2015-2016ish, they did the same thing HP has started doing where removing the cmos battery doesnt do anything and theres no jumper to reset it either :(
over the years I have never had an HP that didn't have a cooling issue.
I can’t believe Hewlett-Packard stole your image.
How utterly ridiculous and environmentally irresponsible to not be able to reset the BIOS password! :(
I was looking to move on from my Lenovo Thinkcenter m700, and was really excited to about this new HP elite mini. I was intending to buy one with the optional Nvidia 3050, but there is conflicting information as to if it is an actual TI or Max-Q variant and what wattage is runs on. These all seem to run about $1500, instead I found a Lenovo p360 ultra i9 with 64gb ddr4 and A5000 for $1900. 2x the size but hugely increased performance for $400.
No USB 2 is annoying for home automation. As 2.4GHz transmitters for various wireless protocols get interference from USB3.
How do you actually install this hp 10gb nic? On my mini 900 g9 the spot it goes in is label as “serial port (select products only)” and it looks like a little plate with two small holes that you can push out… only problem is it doesn’t just push out easily. In the text somewhere you said you show how to install this thing and I can’t seem to find that video. Can you please show us how to install it? Or point me to somewhere that explains it. Not even HPs user guide seems to explain it.
We showed it being installed in the upgrade guide as well: ua-cam.com/video/HylKpDmwaFA/v-deo.html
If you really want to reset it, you could load the bios raw straight to the IC as if you bricked it with power loss during a flash.
how many years before it craps itself and it is really hard to repair cuz its size
There are a lot of people running 7+ year old EliteDesk Minis. There are also tons of them for spares
Does this mean that you can't replace or deactivate the secure boot at all?
We would need to get access to the BIOS.
Can we install two 4Tb nvme ssd like on the Elite mini 600 g9?
Just realized.... Why dont desktops come with sfp28 or w.e. on them?! I know technically more cost, but like thats i feature id pay for
It is a LOT more cost. More than the CPU, memory, and RAM in this system combined.
Thanks for warning me to never buy anything that's come from HP. When you started this video I was thinking that this might be a nice system but by the end.....
@ServeTheHome What if the BIOS/UEFI chip was phycially replaced? Would this solve the admin password issue? I do wonder what chip it uses. Does HP provideo a utilitiy to flash the firmware? 🤔
HP used to be a great innovative company in the 1980's. They made lots of scientific and medical instruments, in addition to computers. The when Fiorina and others took over and acquired Compaq and Palm, it was all down hill. It became a marketing and distribution company, inventing nothing.
It became a campain support
May be you could directly re-flash the bios with stock firmware?
bios passwords that can't be skirted around have been pretty standard across the whole industry for quite awhile now? why is this a surprise./ only being mentioned now? The days of pulling the cmos battery or shorting some pins to reset it haven't been a reality in biz PCs in 10+ years easily.
Much less than that. We looked at this in the EliteDesk 800 G3/G4 where there was the reset jumper. EliteDesk is the biz PC line for HP.
Whats the GPU ?
Is there any update on the secure boot issue? I would love to buy this unit for a ESXI cluster.
Doesn't this machine use a standard Intel security chip? Isn't there a way to put one of those into reset mode? Perhaps using an in-circuit programmer clip or something the like?
Would taking out the cmos battery fix the lockout as it would reset everything?
We tried. It did not
@@ServeTheHomeVideo that is really stupid of hp, they screwed up big time of this one. Good to know that does not work though.
What a nice attitude, I would be really pissed is someone else used my materials, ESPECIALLY if it was bit Corp like HP.
Any way to get 4 screens going. I’m ready to upgrade my Elitedesk.
It supports usb-c power but would it work with a dock? Sorry if you mentioned it and I missed it
Absolutely hate HP and their draconian password thing. I am not sure I would ever purchase one just because of that.
Stuff like the lockout makes me to just stick with small custom builds rather than mini-pc vendor form.
I have stopped buying these new 1L pc's and I just use a ITX Erying i5 12500 board in a small generic case. No proprietary lock out, nothing weird, it just works hardware.
will it accept two 32 GB Kingston 5600 ? How noisy is it ?