I Broke This CPU on Purpose... Let me Explain - Lenovo ThinkCenter Locked-down CPU
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 พ.ค. 2024
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We got a Lenovo ThinkCenter that will lock down any CPU installed in it.. we think. The information is very poor so we need to try it for ourselves.
Watch ServeTheHome's video on PSB: • Yikes! Lenovo is vendo...
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CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
1:07 SmartDeploy
1:20 Bent Pin Repair
1:53 Is our Ryzen 5 5650G locked down?
3:35 Do only Pro CPUs get locked down?
4:50 What is PSB?
7:00 Will our Ryzen 5 5600G get locked?
8:11 Is there a way to reverse PSB?
9:56 Why we're mad at Lenovo
11:38 Graphus
12:12 Outro - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
From STH (@ServeTheHomeVideo) :
Thanks for the shout-out LTT team. We just tested an HP AMD Ryzen Pro machine and both Pro and non-Pro chips were not AMD PSB locked. We now have a process to continue checking for PSB usage as we work through the 1L commercial desktop PCs: www.servethehome.com/hp-amd-ryzen-pro-psb-status-tested-via-a-hp-elitedesk-805-g6-mini-asus-gigabyte/
Amazing that it works when you do it :-)
Good job!
To be sure, never buy prebuilds from large corporations . If you don't know how to do it yourself, small hardware stores would do it for you for a small fee, or even no fee if you buy parts from them.
STH
how about installing a 3 cent switch that will change a bios chip from rw to ro ??? on a mainboard ???
Gonna be fun when people start selling locked CPUs on Ebay...
Tested working!
_*On the original Lenovo machine_
Some people put that on their descriptions. Dell does that.
happened to my friend... I took the cpu into the microtech lab/cleanroom of my uni and even my profs had no clue what to do
or newegg :)
More E waste!! Yeah!
Lenovo: "Imma destroy your CPU!"
Linus: "fine, I'll do it myself"
Lenovo: "Wait, what?"
Lol
Lol
Lenovo is a company that I dont trust after 2 bad experiences
Then goes to un-brick it only to blow the fuse on it 6 minutes later.........
This will absolutely screw over the second hand market in a few years when these systems reach eol, or the motherboards die.
You buy a "working" CPU off of someone who doesn't know this exists. You just sold them a paper weight unknowingly. This feature makes total sense on a SOC or soldered CPU, as in my mind there wouldn't be a reason to swap boards or cpus around. But with a socketed CPU that is the entire freaking point of having the CPU and motherboard be separated. The board dies, chip lives. That's typically how things go. Until now.
I don't like this method of security, the amount of ewaste this will inevitably create is... Depressing.
The chip still "lives", just on an identical replacement motherboard....or at least same manufacturer.
Sad because the seller would know they sold a working CPU to the buyer but may be completely unaware of the PSB feature and unknowingly sold a locked CPU. Then the seller thinks the buyer is trying to scam them when they ask for a return/refund because they have a CPU that's completely useless to them. This security feature made it a living hell and a risk for the seller to sell or buyer to buy.
No way in hell I'm buying Ryzen CPUs without a return policy or PayPal now.
@@QuackZack If you buy new or from a site like Amazon (or presumably Newegg) it shouldn't be too much of an issue from a consumer perspective since new chips won't be locked and Amazon has a pretty good return policy (with some exceptions but as far as I know abnormal return policies are always noted before purchase).
It doesn't even make sense for SOC's or Soldered CPU's! You're limiting repairability!
This "security feature" only protects the manufacturers sales by basically killing the used market for those cpus...
...and all that via the illusion of "security". Honestly reminds me of internet censoring and surveillance laws being passed with the killer argument of "think of the children!!!1" to win over all the dumb f*cks (of which there are plenty) who don't get that children aren't a priority at all. Money and control is.
This feature wasn't really made with consumers in mind, it was mainly for governments and major companies who wanted this feature for their machines. Which makes it all the more ludicrous that Lenovo uses it on consumer hardware and doesn't even disclose that fact.
Well taking that step worked quite well in software, it was only a matter of time that some hardware manufacturer would jump on the bandwagon.
@@CanIHasThisName If it wasn't for consumers, why is it in consumer processors to begin with?
@@canaconn2388 I dont think you can really blame amd for this, the way theyve build their entire zen linup is basically "we have one core design which we can fit in whatever configuration we want" its pretty likely that its way more efficient for them to just have one CCD design for everything than run a different design for server/pro. Hell it could even be that they DO have different designs but server/pro demand was lower than consumer demand so they threw server ccds on consumer chips.
Also the feature is on consumer chips, but it ISNT on consumer mainboards. Which is why it was a complete nonissue for 6 years until lenovo decided to be retarded.
If Lenovo's mission was for a tech savvy person to never ever recommend them to anyone, then I must say they succeeded.
my Lenovo ideapad laptop is a piece of shit and I will never spend money on them ever again, let alone recommend them to someone
@@gabrielaharries8149 What? The Ideapad 5 and 5 Pro are amazing laptops! Probably the most highly praised laptops by reviewers of these last 2 years. You were either very unlucky or just chose a crappy low end model.
As an enterprise IT person, I don't recommend Lenovo and we don't use Lenovo systems for 1 big reason, their support is garbage. If something breaks, you're better off going to Best Buy to get it fixed. Dell and HP have leagues better support and won't leave you hanging.
Linus, it’s time to run (or tweak) that bot comment script again, we got a live one in here that’s lazily imitating your channel lol.
@@swecreations it is definitely not a low end model as it was expensive as shit for what it is, I've had it now for about three years and during the first year it had a bunch of problems (hdd failed, cpu constantly overheating), and it's not just the insides, the build quality is horrendous (the crappy aluminum or whatever it's made of is so easy to break and one of the hinges is completely pulverized so I can't even close it without completely detaching the keyboard from the rest of it). Before it I had a Samsung laptop for 7 years that was much less money and insanely better quality and it was made out of plastic, I dropped it tens of times and spilled beer on it, and it was fine never had a problem with it. So I think I know at least something about how shitty it is
I hate how close Desktops are getting to being about as upgradeable as a Laptop...
My HP PC was designed to be unupgradeable besides adding a stick of RAM. Of course it was made for offices, came with a ton of bloatware, and had no internal speakers. Made in December 2014, ofc
And laptops are turning into smartphones.
You will own nothing, and be happy.
And that's why you build it yourself.
@@otherssingpuree1779 framework laptop is gonna be my final brand of laptop unless someone does the same thing better
Just a quick tip: The best 'tool' I've come across for fixing bent pins is a mechanical pencil with a metal tip. Pull the lead out, slide pencil tip directly over pin. Surrounds the pin and gives you a longer arm for finer control over how much you're bending the pin back. Makes it super easy to align the pins, and there's next to no risk of affecting neighboring pins as well.
That's Ingenious, I've be done it before but you need to be really careful
a very thin knife also works really well
So, could these end up on ebay or whatever, appearing correct and valid, but be completely bogus once you receive it? A seller could request it back, plug it in and claim its a problem with the user?
Exactly
Yes, they could. One issue there is does the seller even know that its locked to that manufacturer?
Definitely piquing Newegg's interest here
That’s probably the biggest part of this… thing.
@@flazryuful absolutely, it'll be impossible to know who is scamming and who just doesn't know
All of these vendor locked CPUs, go straight to the garbage when they are done. Lenovo and others are creating an E-Waste nightmare. There is no second-hand Market anymore for used servers, and used server CPUs, because many of them become vendor locked and unable to be used outside of their original motherboard. This was the intended effect, force people to buy new. This kind of thing should be illegal.
The dual fuse thing that STH talked about should be implemented
Yes - while I don't pretend to understand all the complexities, I smell BS when the exploit would need direct physical access. The only meaningful security at that stage is about controlling human access to the server room or office space - so it sounds very much like a way for CPU manufacturers to kill off any resale value and force new sales by convincing their buyers to be more 'secure' automagically. Or maybe someone can explain how you store sensitive data on a CPU? Like I said maybe I'm missing the point here?
@@julian.morgan The point of PSB is to make sure there is a chain of trust between them flashing a bios and it getting to you. It burns the refuse to make the CPU only trust other motherboards with the same signing key.
It may be useful for server environments or more secret data but I do not see the point of it in office/workstation environments.
If they are in the server room, you can have minorly meaningful security with encryption and other mitigations but this is for someone who is trying to get the server before/in shipping.
@@julian.morgan As Linus was saying, for servers it makes sense. A common thing for a company to do is to buy servers, set them up and send them to a Datacenter. This is a place that, while the idea is to trust them, could technically replace parts in your server without you knowing.
That being said, I wonder what happens when a motherboard dies. Now you have to replace both like a soldered on CPU in a Laptop.
@@julian.morgan its pointless for a simple reason, sure its an aditional layer but... its on par with having a wooden shield.... inside an aircraft carrier.. IF whatever hit u managed to penetrate the armor of the ship.. ur puny shield is irrelevant, so if u have a security breach into ur server rooms... well... you're basically fucked, but hey.. drm cpus yay
1) By enabling the feature by default; Lenovo in effect reduces the value of the CPU. In doing so WITHOUT clearly notifying the consumer, Lenovo is in essence advertising a CPU that is not what they are selling.
2) This adds ZERO security. If the lock can be bypassed by simply putting in an unlocked CPU; no additional security is achieved by breaking the CPU.
Combine this with the CPU's buitin TPM and full disk encryption(with keys stored on said TPM). It provides a good bit of data security. No one cares if the PC can be made to work the data is what any business is trying to protect.
its not about the cpu, its about the uefi (which you would know if you watched the video), its to prevent the pc from booting if the uefi is compromised.
@@jordanwardle11 you might want to rewatch. Once this is set it is on the CPU. You can't use the BIOS to determine if the BOIS can be trusted.
@@unicaller1 when youre trying to protect something, allowing anything to self check and go "alls good here" is a serious flaw in ANY system. there is a cryptographic key in the bios that gets checked by the cpu and if it doesnt match? no boot.
@@jordanwardle11 The PC boots if they swap in a fresh CPU. All this does is stop the CPU from being used in a different motherboard. This does nothing for data security, it only limits resale value/market for used CPU's and forces end consumers to trash old CPU's if they decide to later upgrade.
7:19 You can also see "Secure Roll Back prevention" which is actually pretty similar. It locks a CPU from being able to boot in a BIOS with older security firmware in it. This is done for the same reason: If a BIOS has an exploit, being able to roll back to that BIOS could re-open that exploit after it's been patched in a newer BIOS. The cost here of course is that if another motherboard doesn't have that newer firmware available or the newer firmware were to be buggy, there'd be no way to change back to the older BIOS with that CPU.
Cool... still waiting for a real world Spectre/Meltdown exploit. This is security theater, and the goal is to increase sales on new stuff. Because 10 year old processors still work perfectly fine and sales are dropping.
I work full time at a computer recycler. Selling used CPUs out of retired business workstations is a huge part of business. This stuff worries me. You're 100% correct, mother earth will pay for it.
Laptop motherboards are now prohibitively expensive because everything is soldered. So of course they end up in the trash because people can buy a whole new motherboard with all the rest of the shit (screen, case, keyboard, yknow, the laptop) attached to it for the same price. And everyone's sooo big on "green" nowadays. What a load of bs.
@@bserge9777
Gaslight, Gatekeep, Guilt Trip, and… Greenwash!
The way of living in 2022 and more!
What's the best cpu you've ever had go through your work place ???
@@danb2936 one that was recycled, probably 8th gen i7’s.
@@CalebVorwerk bet they bring a good price in 😁😁😁
Imagine if a cpu with this feature gets returned to amazon or newegg, its going to create even more of a mess.
Imagine doing it maliciously. get stuff off newegg/amazon, pbs lock it, return it, saying it doesn't work. no bent pins? not your fault. amd's gonna have a blast with all these returns.
@@ylandry0783 perhaps it will force them to rethink this feature.
They will just put it back on the shelf then sell to amother.
LGA bent pin motherboards anybody.
@@ylandry0783even better is to just buy a cheap Lenovo locked cpu or system and then return that cpu because it doesn't work and keep the working one from Amazon.
@SuperWhisk some people got celeron D's with ryzen stickers on top as open box items, so they are definitely not checking everything
AMD probably gave Lenovo further volume discount if PSB was enabled, as it meant these processors wouldn't end up on the 2nd hand market.
Bingo
I expect a large volume customer could request they ship without it enabled. I know we used to request our systems ship without Intel ME, consider it a security hazard.
My employer banned Lenovo products in the procurement process a few years back due to security concerns. I think Ivy Bridge was the last gen we saw from them.
The horse crap these companies get away with in the name of "security" is infuriating.
"Security" for their bottom line.
It is certainly security, just not only, Lenovo could just sign the bios of for example a HP system and that would work
At least we're all happy about Windows 11 requiring TPM though! /s
@@__-fl5rn that is a actual security feature
@@rogervanbommel1086 tpm only stores security keys, not very sure
Linus's day was made when he learned the video was breaking things on purpose lol
He broke it accedently and they just started a new video
He was born for this.
Just _drop_ that CPU in there
When you give apps your phone number then you get your cpu locked.
The sooner a CPU or system gets tossed in the trash, the sooner the manufactures get to sell a new one. And us Canadians even get the bonus of paying environmental fees to the EPRA for the whole crooked deal...
Cool that you bring this up. I saw the same in a Serve The Home video, and this has to be spread out to the tech audience and home users like GN's Newegg scandal.
This has the stink of corporate antitrust all over it. I'd say all the third party motherboard manufacturers should make a concerted effort to create a PSB bypass boot mode. Or just take Lenovo to court for the boot keys...
A bypass wouldn't work since the CPU itself will require an encryption key. Court may very well happen since Lenovo isn't advertising the function and is selling to consumers that don't know better.
@@grn1 There's a few potential ways to hack. One depends on if there's a master fuse. Someone might decrypt Lenovo firmware, sniff the data bus boot code, reset glitch hack the CPU...
@@randysmith7094 From what I've understood of it you'd have to get the key from the MoBo that did the locking then create a custom BIOS for the target MoBo to use said key. Lenovo seems to be using one key for all of their systems but it's absolutely possible for others to lock down the CPU to one particular system in which case you'd have to get the key from the exact system that did the locking rather than just a certain model. Brute forcing could potentially work but that's a lot of processing power and would have to be done on a case by case basis with specialized hardware and software (can't use the processor to unlock itself) so it would absolutely be cost prohibitive. If AMD did include a master key or fuse that would defeat the point (assuming this actually protects anyone in the first place).
Sure
You're telling me the company that has been caught installing root kits into their system twice is also doing other stupid anti consumer practices. Who would have thought
The newer IT nerds are still praising Supermicro on forums.
Not withstanding that every competent IT server farm dropped Supermicro like a plague potato five years ago.
The used parts market for these chips is going to be dangerous as hell
You be nuts to buy one used. It's worthless.
@@markdoldon8852 that's the thing nobody would unless the seller was scummy and didn't say or buried it deep in the description
Absolutely, and that's 100% AMD's fault. Nothing to do with lenovo. And i doubt it's an accident that they implode the second hand market.
You know what else might be dangerous? Bad actors could potentially write malware that deliberately disables good CPUs.
@@equalmc276 It's a legit feature that AMD's business customers want for security purposes. Lenovo's the one taking things too far by forcing it on desktops. Louis Rossman has done a pretty good video about the situation.
this has nothing to do with security, it's to do with part prices going up, vendors get cheaper parts and so sometimes it can be cheaper to buy a prebuilt, take the part out, and resell the rest, this makes that impossible, it's a nasty practice locking these down to force people to buy parts at higher prices
This happened to me with my Thinkcentre i7 4790. Bought a new motherboard and it never worked together. Tried a different CPU and that worked fine. After all these years I have answers. Thank you!
Adding Lenovo to the list of companies to NOT recommend to friends/family/coworkers
Only thing I would recommend are thinkpads from before thry completely fucked the design.
the old thinkpads were good, but...
Only good lenovo products are Lenovo Gaming Laptops Legion series. Which are arguably one of the best
way ahead of ya lol
Man I already didn't like them.
This is going to be a huge pain when they start coming out in huge waves on the second hand market. Imagine spending all that money for a nice new Ryzen 5000 series only for it to not work in your computer. Also gotta add, in a world that's moving towards a less eWaste future and right to repair, Lenovo should get sued for locking CPUs to it's own motherboards.
No, because the security feature has many valid reasons to exist.
But it needs to be be better implemented. It should not be bricking the CPU, it should instead be making it so that it can no longer be used in a secure system, but fine for normal every day use.
@@truckywuckyuwu yup. For example knocking out the protection could knock our the TPM data (thereby triggering bitlockers recovery mode and warn the user, similar to intrusion detection on several cases
@@truckywuckyuwu I guess I don't understand the feature...it's a CPU. Is it to prevent a hacker from putting code within the CPU itself?
@@truckywuckyuwu Can you list the reasons? Just curious.
@@truckywuckyuwu I imagine it was one of those things they built into the architecture in the days of yore, when re-purposing shitty enterprise APUs would have been met with a "but why?" The development of 5000 series chips ended long before covid was even a twinkle in our throats. I think if they had known that three years later people would be scrambling for any silicon they could get their hands on, they might have tried a little harder to create a solution like you suggested.
Good to learn about this PSB deal...never heard of it. Good to know I'm not the only person dealing with bent pins on a CPU. Thanks for the knowledge.
Love that they focused in on Linus missing the case a few times while trying to put his hand on it.
Great job editors.
I work at a Lenovo dealership and they haven't told us any of this, none of my co-workers or bosses knew, I was the first one to bring it up after I started hearing about it a few weeks ago. The only thing I can say is that I've never needed to salvage a CPU so it hasn't been a problem for me. My job is mostly upgrading hard drives to SSD's, fixing errors in Windows and doing PDI's.
@@marcogenovesi8570 We're more like the "middle men" to selling and repairing Lenovo products, whatever goes on at the factory before it gets shipped to us is out of our hands.
The only customers this affects are downstream from you in the used market. The only people it would impact would be the people who bought a used workstation with the idea of salvaging parts.
I'm not saying it's a good thing or anything. It's just your customers aren't affected.
@@marcogenovesi8570 People don't want to accept that they're just cogs, but the truth is, 99% of all humans are just meaningless to the 1%
I've salvaged CPUs (and other parts) from plenty older (couple years) Lenovo systems over the years, the vast majority of those having bad proprietary PSUs you can't get replacements for without exceeding the whole PCs value or dead motherboards for no apparent reason that will not turn on whatsover or they'll turn on but not POST or even attempt to (POST code reader FFFF). This PSB BS turns the most valuable part (if not monetary then from a "still very usable" standpoint) into complete e-waste, because what are you gonna do with it? Stick it in another Lenovo sh*tbox that'll have a dead proprietary PSU or mobo in no time? And all of this for the illusion of security?!
This is the kind of info that needs to be spread quite literally everywhere. As someone who bought an old lenovo to scrap and use as the base of a first budget gaming pc, this is super important to know. Great to know to avoid lenovo indefinitely
Agreed. Everyone is up in arms over a security feature like this.. but just knowing that these cpu's can be bricked in this way will make people think twice when purchasing on the second-hand market.. which is both a good and bad thing. It should exist but limit it to exclusive parts... should not be able to happen with a consumer part.. or "off the shelf".
This is the kind of thing that in any civilized country would result in someone going to prison, or at the very least the company having its charter revoked and being unmade. Secretly stealing and crippling people's expensive parts just because it was plugged in is just so far beyond the pale that a message needs to be sent. Something so severe no company dares to try this again.
Lenovo should already be on the avoid list after Superfish.
Avoid all brands... Bunch of a-holes. They were super happy with soldered CPUs and now got another way of screwing over the second hand market, because fck poor people, fck the environment, fck any future chip shortage, they got their money so fck you, too. Never again will I buy HP, Dell, Lenovo (not to mention Apple), any of their prebuilt garbage. Pay a bit more for freedom and control over *my* hardware.
@@bserge9777 Just need Framework to come through in the laptop market.
Lenovo has been doing this at least 15 years back, I bought an old T61 Thinkpad with locked BIOS that was used in a corporation, however this can be undone by shorting the correct pins on the EEPROM chip. Similar hack could be used on a CPU security chip, however this is practically almost impossible to do since we cannot access the chip without breaking the CPU, and even then we would need microcsopic rools to attempt the shorting hack. It's understandable that corporations would like to protect their BIOS access on their workstations or encript and lock data storage, however locking the CPU makes no sense, there is no data stored there, there is nothing to compromise by using the CPU on another system
Your locked Ryzen 5 now needs a Rest Glitch Hack to boot on another board. This "security" sounds a lot like Xbox 360 security, where the CPU has an efuse key paired to the encrypted firmware. Maybe some cool motherboard company or hackers will release a "glitch chip" or glitch feature to boot up locked CPUs... and dump the vendor keys.
all you need is a good ol cpu key from Reset Glitch Hack. some random guys on hacking forum hope 'll do it
As soon as I heard about this, I pretty much blacklisted Lenovo from my recommendations to friends/family just needing a simple home computer... I may not be their customer, and most of the viewers here may not be their customers - but when our less tech savvy relatives/friends ask for recommendations, it's important to press home that Lenovo is shoveling even more e-waste than we see with the likes of Dell/HP/etc. with their proprietary motherboard sizes.
Their "budget" laptop have intentionally bad plastic hinge socket on $200-$900 since 2013 especially their ideapad line-up(my experience). Just look at their forum /yt video anything related to it's hinges being suddenly break from normal usages. Of course they'll decline given warranty despite the obvious flaw
I don't doubt Dell would use the exact same tactic. They already do for their Epyc poweredge servers.
I bought an Epyc 7742 last year from a second hand company based in Scotland which had a vendor lock to Dell servers (which wasn't on their website at the time). After a bit of back and forth, i got my money back after they confirmed the vendor lock and changed their website to specify that the CPU's were locked to Dell branded servers.
Dell wasted both my time, and the companies time with PSB. So i have 0 doubts with Dell's history that they would do the exact same thing on consumer platforms.
From what I know, HP Proliant servers also have secure boot but they do not utilise PSB (at least by default).
Um I'm confused as to why this was the straw that broke the camel's back ?
Lenovo has shipped PCs they compromised to the US government, then shipped malware/spyware with a number of different generations of their machines at the consumer level. Not only did they ship the malware but it also left some other security holes and they have shipped some really stupid bios settings with some of their machines too...trusting a company that will happily take your money then ship you a machine THEY compromised ...
I see this as preventing IT departments from repairing devices with cannibalized parts out of other systems that have failed for another reason. Lenovo would certainly benefit from forcing the purchase of new hardware or support.
The 3 I’ve worked for have all been “replace the entire system with a spare and add the old one to the recycle pile”
The most hardware level work I’ve done is pull hdd for shredding
People would not buy Lenovo again then lol
@@GewelReal i dont think so bc ppl also still buy apple crap even when they know that apple is anti consumer as hell
@@billy101456 I have seem the same thing at my old job, ended up with a bunch of dell 9010s (I knew the guy that delt with them and he just told me to turn in the hard drives), spend a handful of money on basic harddrives and donated them to students (they had to pay the $30 to activate them unfortunately, couldn't afford that much money) who needed a computer for school, and a handful to my old school to lend to students in the same situation. I'd prefer to not generate the e waste on a simple issue. Most would drive failures, few ram sticks here and there, and two with bad CPUs became parts machines for the others.
But it's maddening to see it, and this wasn't a super large scale, ended up with 21 systems over all and mostly because an office got upgraded.
Sound very similar to what that fruit tech company does
Oh lord I had to fix pins on my first build. I picked up the cpu and the over hang of my fingers pushed in some outside pins. Spent a while eyeballing them using a debit card to realign the pins. It worked and the cpu served me well for like 10 years. Now it's in a friend of mines pc for his kids to use for school work. Still handles games decently.
That is why I still build my personal desktop, workstations, and homelab servers. Xeon Haswell(v3) and Broadwell(v4) still are pretty good for me, I just using 2011-3. Just thinking to plan to buy a new desktop on 2024 with DDR5 + Pci Express 5(or 6, since is ready).
I made a big mistake when getting Lenovo. Nothing told me that my model did not allow GPUs before I got one . Actually all the research I did told me it could. I had to hack the bios and enable a lot of system features that was locked out of the user lever. I can now use pci net cards and sound cards now to.
I also want to thanks the LTT forums again. Solid help from a nice community and didn't laugh at me or tell me to hit the road like the other forums I asked for help at.
Cheers all.
curious as to what model you had problems with
So i was the one who brought this to the attention of ServeTheHome, LouisRossmann, and eventually LTT, and i did not see the twist ending of ALL AMD CPUs supporting vendor locking.
I was initially very upset because where i work, we resell our older(but not too old) crap boxes, with god tier i7/R7 processors to the local community, and most of these people will swap a processor more fitting of the hardware into our truely crap boxes, and then our great CPUs into a more fitting motherboard, but now they cant do that, and this will cause a huge headache for us.
At this point i manage hundreds of these ticking time bombs of resale nightmare.
There is no reason the PSB has to be permanent, but disabling PSB should prevent it from working on PSB motherboard again.
Because, if you can disable PSB on the motherboard, then there should be a way to disable PSB on the processor, also disabling PSB on the motherboard should be permanent as well because at that point the chain of trust has been broken just like it it was disabled on the processor.
Note that on my personal lenovo M75Q gen2 with PSB, i tested 3000G and 4000G non-pro processors, and they did not seem to support vendor locking, but 3000G and 4000G pro series did ask to be locked
It was always a lottery buying IBM laptops, because they could password protect the bios and it was a pain to bypass, and most eBay sellers didn’t have the first clue on how to check this before auctioning it
Shouldn't it be possible to extract whatever data is stored in the motherboard and transfer it to another motherboard though?
Reselling is such a noble act. Where I come from, they go to the landfill.
@@deoxal7947 depends if it's stored on a separate eeprom.
2:48 I think I had something around that Wattage dimension like 20 years ago for the last time. When building my Barton 2500+ rig in 2003, I installed a 400W Zalman and never had anything less afterwards... oh well.
8:06 The editor OTOH is feeling just fine, in fact he is having way too much fun! :D
Why did you have to say 2003 was 20 years ago? I feel oooold.
@@katarjin OK, it's just 19 years, still ooold, but not as oooold ;)
Replace old with experienced ^^
The best way I have found to fix bent CPU pins is a Pentel mechanical pencil .5 or .7. The tip is the proper dimension to fit over the bent pin with the control to get it right where you need to.
"right to repair" laws need to be revamped ASAP
not gonna happen asap
@@ndwxxd not gonna happen at all. You can fix these systems just fine with off the shelf parts.
What you CAN'T do is resell these chips.
@@ultimategrr4480 Sure you can, the mobo just has to go with it. Or it has to be sold as wall art.
They will argue that you can buy new parts (from them of course) and re-lock them to fix any issue, since the original cpu is already not reparable and it's unlikely most people would bother to fix a motherboard. It's viciously clever.
They create a whole new locked market where repair shops are just really drop off for a massive recycling company to swap half the system for an inflated price.
...hmmm sounds familiar actually, there's an unfriendly brand that does just that with great financial success^^
@@firesurfer Wait for someone to make a hack that unlocks the CPU
Only Linus can break a CPU on accident before making a video on how he broke a CPU on purpose. God, I love LTT.
Also, good job Alex. Lol
Get a room 🤣
He broke it "on accident" you say. Are you sure he didn't do it "by purpose"?
@@robbleeker4777 I got one, rent free in ya head.
An easy way to straighten bent CPU pins is with a syringe needle. Find one that just fits between the pins. Slide the needle in at the base of the pins then carefully lift it out sideways. A few strokes like that down every row will have pins straight enough to get into the socket. Clamping the socket finishes the straightening. Using a knife puts a lot of stress right at the bases of the pins which can break them off instead of straightening them. One way to spot bent pins is to reflect light off the ends of them. You should see uniform brightness on all the pin ends. One that's darker or brighter than the others is bent.
Well tanks for video break down so i know what kinda pc vendor i wanna use now
To intel's credit (as flawed as the ME has been), the ARM chip they use for ME (which are their lockable component like the PSB) are on the chipset instead of the cpu itself, and since the chipset is soldered to the board, it doesnt really impact the reusability of the CPU, but AMD wanted a CPU that could operate as a SoC (without a chipset) so they had to put it on the CPU.
That's...actually a viable explanation for why they didn't go Intel's route, interesting.
Lenovo is really turning to shit. They had some amazing laptops, still do honestly, and their gaming PCs are a pretty solid offering compared to Dell and HP, but if Lenovo goes back to using proprietary hardware instead of making their hardware more standardized, I will be very disappointed. I got a Lenovo mainboard for my testbench. Great board - any RAM and any GPU I throw in works flawlessly, 0 compatibility issues whatsoever (which at least to me happen regularly with non-OEM boards like Asus and Gigabyte), but their front panel and USB connectors are proprietary. WHY?!
Lenovo = IBM
They've been shit for years outside of thinkpads, and even thinkpads have been going down the drain.
"their front panel and USB connectors are proprietary" wait, WHAT?!?
Build quality of their laptop is shit now days, not what it used to be
Honestly though from an enterprise level, Lenovo is SO much better than Dell or HP, especially when it comes to things like customer service/support/onsite tech scheduling. Can't speak for the consumer division though
thank you linus & team! love your videos, esp. when you tell us how to reduce e-waste! 😁
This is the type of sh!t is that kept Apple out of the business arena in the early 90's. Proprietary hardware is a nightmare for any IT department.
This just seems like a vulnerability waiting to happen. So if you have a non-blown cpu, a malicious actor can blow the fuse with arbitrary vendor code and brick your machine?
I have a 5600g
Well that is quite unlikely bc that gives 0 benefits to the hacker
Stealing this for my final year dissertation
@@paniniman6524 ransom threat. a "pay me whatever or i blow up your pc" sorta thing
@@paniniman6524 So? There's plenty of other things that hackers do that don't "benefit" them
You forgot to mention one huge security risk that pisses me off: The possibility that malware gets enough access to permanently burn garbage into the AMD PSB fuses, rendering the chip useless as it will not validate with any key.
If a hacker has bios level access like that then you're already fucked so it doesn't matter.
@@willj4243 No, it's not the same thing. Not by a long shot.
If a hacker gains BIOS level access, I can grab an SPI controller and reflash the bios. Good as new (granted, requires quite the technical skill but there's even youtube videos about it, or you can send it to someone who knows how to do it).
I can also buy a new MB which is much cheaper than a CPU, and problem solved.
However if an AMD CPU gets their fused blown up, it's now an unrepairable brick. Not even AMD can repair it. It's worth as much the materials in it; but it was very costly to buy.
If they have that level access they can probably also send enough voltage through the CPU to kill it anyway but it's still a scary idea
On Intel anyway, you can program the fusing in another way to disable BootGuard (same thing as PSB basically) for the platform permanently. Likely AMD has similar. As a consumer you miiight be able to do this to your CPU, and thus defend it from ever getting PSB enabled if you didn’t want it. Also, side note, because these are one time programmable fuses, OEMs enabling PSB, actually protects you from malware that might try to write garbage to them.
@@darksylinc As someone else said, if someone has that level of access to your system and wishes to cause hardware damage, they could simply fry the CPU instead with less effort. You're worrying about the wrong part of such an attack.
A simple workaround all the issues would be a visible indicator on the CPU itself, as soon as the fuse it triggered. Kind of like ballot box tape.
I just fixed an old FX 8350 with a lot more bent pins than that. I used a mechanical pencil with the lead removed and a box cutter blade. Worked like a charm. 😁
this is a serious problem. the cpus need to be physically marked somehow as being lockable.
people are going to resell them not even knowing they're locked
You seem to be missing the fact the ALL current AMD CPUs have this feature... Just Lenovo was the bunch of idiots that decided to use it on consumer boxes...
I don't care if this is fOr SeCuRiTy, this absolutely WILL get implemented without such a clear notification by OEMs and I hate it.
And I hate even more that it's activated by default without choice or clarification.
For servers? Ok
It definitely shouldn't be auto enabled on a consumer desktop. But to be fair, it doesn't auto enable for a new CPU that you installed
@@Jaker788 Yeah, but you don't get a choice to use the PC WITHOUT enabling it, making any Lenovo office/work PC in the future a no-buy and any AMD (for now) CPU used in it to be instant e-waste.
Thank you for covering this, great video!
Years ago I was swapping my FX-8350 over to a AiO, and when I pulled the air cooler off it ripped the GPU right out of the socket (I was used to intel), and then when I tried to pull it off, it fell from standing height and landed on the tile floor. I picked it up and didn't have any bent pins somehow. I slapped it back in and used it for six more years.
One thing I can see customers of workstations might want this feature is in leasing situations, a lot of places that lease workstations to customers for use in professional environment. At the end of the contract you send the machines back, this is one way to prevent the leasee from swapping parts out.
That is probably the only reasonable explanation.
Except Intel has a version of this that saves the key to the board instead of the CPU, leaving the CPU useable.
The real question is - how is this legal to include by default without letting the consumer know in any way?
If this is by some miracle actually legal, the right to repair movement should definitely attempt to stop this and leave it up to the consumer's choice.
probably isnt legal if you sued them bet this gets reversed or they put fat warning labels on them before selling
It's probably buried in a agreement/tos somewhere.
@@dotJata I was about to say, it's probably in the TOS and since we all agree to them without actually reading them - only 'We' as consumers are to blame for this shit.
@@dotJata I don't think you need to sign those when buying it though, do you? Also even then you could argue that it's highly obfuscated information about a major functionality issue. And then there's ofc the environmental standpoint from which this could be regulated
I was genuinely thinking of taking the cpu out of my thinkcenter 10m8 and using it in an upgraded rig yesterday
When AMD released the 3rd gen Ryzen, some motherboards needed bios updates to be compatible, but if you bought a 400 series compatible motherboard, and a 3rd gen chip, you would need an older one to update the bios.
And would ship you an athlon 200ge to update the bios.
It would be really cool of AMD to have some sort of unlocking service, like I ship in the chip and then they undo the vendor lock.
Or maybe just a hardware jumper would be nice.
If something gets broken in an LTT video, it has to be made by Linus.
If anyone else breaks something it comes out their own pockets that's why.
And fixed by Alex...
I have already subscribed to you 😊😊😊
We call this, the Linus touch. 😉🤣
Lenovo seems to want more e-waste and a bigger chip shortage on the used market!
It's similar to planned obsolescence, without actually bricking the motherboard.
AMD is responsible in the first place, for creating such a possibility through PSP.
@@nicholassmerk It's a Lenovo, the mobo will die for no discernible reason whatsoever anyway at some point in the next year or two. And if it's not the mobo, then it's the crappy proprietary PSU that dies and replacements will cost more than the entire PC is worth. But hey at least you can still salvage the one part that's usually worth the most in a wrecked/totaled PC right? oops... no usable CPU/APU for you
@@sovo1212 -if you watch the video from minute 6:28 to 6:32 you would register that
Linus says, both AMD and Intel do a similar thing with there CPUs, which means
that in conclusion Lenovo is still the culprit here, because they are the only ones
who light the fuse which AMD and or Intel have laid! And if you think about it
it's even simpler to tell, say you have a nuke with a big fat red button to fire it, who
is responsible for causing trouble using it in the first place? The person that placed
the big red start button or the moron who actually pushes it???
@@Hassan_2030 Both AMD and Intel are equally guilty then. The point is PSP is crap for the end user, regardless of what Lenovo does.
So crazy that Lenovo also developed that one-off AR Star Wars lights are training game too, idk what it was called to save the life of me but I know I have it somewhere
5:52 freeze RAM and read the bits off it? That deserves a Linus Tech Tip video!
I can see a lawsuit for Lenovo coming out of this. Hope they're ready for that.
This is so why we need the right to repair laws to pass.. Would make it so much easier for consumers to stomp their foot down on these e-waste practices.
And I hope PSP to be pwned ASAP.
#RightToRepair
This is going to be one heck of a public class action suit.
@@marcosolo6491 That's because our government is too busy trying to pass laws with several thousand pages of BS so they can sneak in an under the table cut. None of our law makers or politicians give a crap about anyone but themselves and their pockets.
"Want a new computer with your old CPU? Gotta buy our shit again LUL!" -Lenovo
What a great way to make more e-waste.
I have already subscribed to you 😊😊😊
Their shit? They don't sell CPUs they sell prebuilt computers. No one is buying tiny prebuilt computers with the express intention of putting them in a bigger desktop, it's just not a sound business decision. These are bought because someone needs a small desktop for regular professional applications like word processing and this will do fine for a long long time. Where it does get annoying obviously is if someone was intending on buying these aftermarket years for a low end gaming rig obviously but it wouldn't suddenly be a useless computer.
I don't understand this virtue signaling of ewaste with this situation. It'd be much more wasteful to take the cpu out of the computer for another rig and tossing the rest. The bigger problem in my mind is that it's not clearly labeled as a feature of the product, not that they're using the feature of the amd cpus.
@@BrianMcKee I bought a small prebuilt to take the cpu. Thats where my current cpu came from
@@potatoes5829 Might I ask why? No offense but it usually doesn't make sense to do from a cost perspective.
Probably a twitch folk, using LUL.
LULW
Omg, i bought a oem ryzen 5 pro 4650ge for my build, i don't have all the pieces to test the cpu yet, but this video got me apprehensive
There are some motherboards out there that have this cpu in the compatibility list, is that a good sign?
Yay! It's been a while since I've seen a Linus Drop Tips video.
Nice... Looking forward to locked CPUs appearing on ebay or alliexpress in a few years and customers buying ewaste👍
And then they blame the customer and then they don't refund it
@Killer_bunny yep I can imagine having something like "PSB enabled" in the description somewhere and then blaming the buyer for not knowing what it is...
"you get rid of this annoying popup by agreeing to our terms" great job lenovo
I have already subscribed to you 😊😊
Not to mention how many people just click "yes" without reading dialogue boxes. The amount of times I've gotten "hey my computer is acting weird, it pops up some error code. I don't know what error, I just click okay"
That only pops up if PBS is enabled, though. If you don't want to lock your CPU, go back to the BIOS and disable PBS. It's stupid that it's on by default tho.
No, you can also get rid of it by disabling PSB in the bios, as it clearly stated. And then use any unlocked CPU normally.
Lenovo is being shitty by shipping pre-locked CPUs in consumer systems, but that popup isn't a bad thing - hear me out; it only shows up specifically when PSB is enabled and you're booting a still-unlocked CPU (meaning PSB won't work), it tells you exactly how to deal with that with two different options, and then still gives you the option to finish booting without locking the processor or disabling PSB at the bios level.
The only bad part about it is people will click "yes" without reading things - instead of yes/no, it really should have buttons labeled something like "Lock CPU," "Disable PSB," and "Boot without locking platform" instead.
Samsung does the same thing. :/ Even though you are allowed to deny Android updates, you will get notifications until you say yes. It really should be illegal for companies to force updates on people.
One of the biggest banks in my country deploy these Lenovo machines at all the branches as terminals and they're at the core of all their on-site infrastructure. I had wondered why, but now it makes sense why they may have chosen to go with this solution.
I watched Patrick from STH go in depth about this. It’s well worth the watch as it’s rather interesting
Lenovo: we keep getting caught installing keyloggers in new computers- ive got an idea, how about we make more e waste to increase the profits we losing from keyloger partners
The comments should be filled with RIP
The other way I think is to change the BIOS with a modified version on the non OEM mainboard to enable the boot process on the AMD locked CPU. Is like the core unlocker feature on olders Phenoms processors.
Considering all the stuff going on with right-to-repair in the consumer electronics space Lenovo sure picked a hell of a time to deploy this feature
I really hope this practice stops right in its tracks. Don't buy Lenovo. This is ridiculous.
AMD is responsible in the first place, for creating such a possibility through PSP.
Linus: i wont break it
Lenovo: fine. Ill do it myself
You don't need 2 locks but it would need 2 keys to fix. Allow it to be disabled but only when the host system is in bios this way you couldn't use direct writes from within the OS. With this you could also put the actual instruction into protected mode so that it can only be called from bios, this could be made stronger by making the instruction unable to be called directly and requires a wrapped instruction (one that sets some bit in protected area and then calls the instruction) that lives in an area that is protected by a key. This way there would be zero way for someone to unprotect it and the only way it could be done from there would be when the machine in verifiably in bios. This wouldn't need any hardware changes to existing motherboards (but obviously it would need a chip revision) and system side at most it would require a bios update to add the option to the user and make the actual call.
As an early 80s kid that wanted everything beyond the 2000s with great anticipation and excitement, this has now entered my painfully long and heavy list of "not that".
We really went the wrong way in a profound manner during the mid 2010s, in almost all regards, globally.
Unfortunately we are part of the problem or more so people who don't understand computers and how the market goes and just want something to work out of the box without doing some research or even asking a friend or two who have more knowledge to recommend to make an informed purchase . For christ sake hp did the same thing with there toner cartridges you can use a the cartridge only on the one printer you bought .Thank god that people complained and they made it an option that can be turned off witch is still BS it shouldn't be there in the first place
10:37 that's a tamper seal! That's actually genius! I'd like to see a physical change to the chip, though. Maybe blowing the fuse also breaks a bit of dye that colours the pins black,
And it needs to get removed from non-pro version entirely.
And every machine that has this enabled needs to ship with a special sticker on it. Every system or motherboard that can enable this needs to ship with a sticker that you can add yourself if you decide to lock it. The feature is fair enough, how Lenovo goes about it is not.
When serve the home did the original video on it I was soo glad it was them that badly ran into it first. Given that they has had this experience before with server chips they didn't just throw more CPS's at the problem and waste lots of them.
9:30 If you cannot easily verify the actual key fused into the CPU, that doesn't actually help a bit. You could be running hacked BIOS with PSB enabled and the fused key is actually owned by the attacker. The feature would just prevent ever removing the hacked BIOS from the system.
In addition, it doesn't make sense to break the CPU if used in another system. You could allow another system to keep using the CPU but complain about the fused key not matching the BIOS.
You were so close not calling the UEFI firmware a BIOS. I am glad to see improvements. Lets get it all the way.
Correct
After buying a new Lenovo laptop recently, I have no doubt that this is done solely to lock-down the customer and prevent them from reusing old hardware. My Lenovo laptop uses Torx screws to hold the bottom plate on, so the average user can't open up the laptop. The ram is also soldered on, even though it's a 14 inch laptop with plenty of room for at least 1 SODIMM slot. Lenovo doesn't give a shit about customers and it seems like they're testing the waters with their vendor wide lock before they move to a model-specific CPU lock. Never again will I buy from Lenovo.
Edit: I should mention that I actually prefer Torx screws. I hate Phillips-head screws with passion. And yes, I know that torx screwdrivers are readily available, but almost everyone has a phillips head screwdriver around, but not everyone has Torx. Also, on the inside Lenovo is using phillips-head, so they didn't chose Torx because of its advantages.
What do you mean the average user can't open it? It's debatable on if it's to keep users out, but torx is a pretty common screw these days and easy to obtain, also after getting used to it, it's legit so much better, there isn't any guess work on size, it fits or doesn't thusly I have never stripped a torx screw either, I'm genuinely sold on torx now.
Soldered ram is BS though, but other OEMs also do it all the time on modern laptops as well, you kinda have to go out of your way to look for modern laptops with replaceable ram/ssds/batteries.
Torx is the way to go
Torx is a brand name, they're star screws
Dude, you can buy Torx screwdrivers at any tool or hardware store. TORX isn't remotely anti tamper
Most if not all vendors use Torx screws now. They are superior to Phillips in every way. Using Torx security screws would be a little more questionable but even those are pretty easy to find for an average consumer.
Now, Apple with their pentalobular screws are a perfect example of anti-consumer...
I was expecting only the pro CPUs to have this feature.
5650G is one of the highest end consumer CPus.
When i originally broke this story to ServeTheHome i had tested 3000G and 4000G non Pro and they did not ask to be locked, this must be an addition to the 5000G, I need to get my hands on a 5600X and a Lenovo with a PCIe slot so i can test if all 5000 series and later support it, or only the 5000G processors
Me too ... this means that getting a second hand CPU is more risky in the future...
@Jose Sousa and I think this is the whole point of bringing PSB to desktop systems. If you cannot buy used CPUs or you can, but they turn out useless, you'll most likely buy a new CPU, which is $$$ for the companies.
@@peters.7428 No it isn't, the Ryzen 9 5950X is. The 5650G may be part of the newest generation, but it isn't the high end.
Many a time that ive straightened bent pins on the cpu! A few intels and amd's in the past, including recently my mates new ryzen chip!!
watch as CPU detection routines just start to shotgun the fuses to all FFs and then try to verify with that key, for the CPU to then magically work again
I used to love Lenovo PC's, first rig being an old ThinkCentre that eventually got upgraded with time as it used standard parts.. now they are competing with Dell and HP for who can screw over the end user the most
They seem to be treating it like it's a race. Whoever screws the customer harder and more often wins!
If the vendor code is known I wonder if Hex editing bios with that code and flashing a modified bios would allow the cpu to be used in other boards?
It sounded like the entire firmware would be signed, and the CPU verifies that signature, changing the BIOS to work with a different board would invalidate the signature.
It's described as a signature. The way digital signatures typically work is they calculate the hash value of the code and then encrypt the result using a private encryption key held by the vendor. This can only be decrypted with a corresponding public key. To validate the signature the platform first tries to decrypt it using the known public key. If it works this proves it was signed by Lenovo. The system then calculates a hash of the current code and if this matches the decrypted value it proves the code hasn't been tampered with since Lenovo signed it. If you were to transplant part of it the overall hash value would be different so you'd need to re-sign it using Lenovo's private key or it wouldn't validate.
@@DoctorWhom so then no bios updates like ever? that sounds terrible.
I'd be surprised if someone wouldn't be able to break this. They say in technology there is no permanent security.
@@matrixfull i mean, quantum computing will certainly break this, and if it is RSA and N is small it is certainly breakable, and it may be possible to copy the same bios and use it on a different system, or the vendor could sign the bios of a different platform
Lenovo has always had some of the hardest bios passwords to clear too... sometimes requiring physical, well timed shorting of contacts with the laptop half disassembled during boot...
Top tips for straightening cpu pin. Add yours in the replies.
Mine is use a sowing needle to fit between the pins and slowly lift the sowing pin to lift them on each side. Works alot better for me than the tweezer approach
AMD shouldn't be shipping this "feature" on any consumer CPUs.
It's not AMD's fault. They genuinely have it there for security purposes. Lenovo should ship the PC with it disabled and allow It's usage if the customer/admin wants.
@@loganwightman1325 there is an AMD fault there. AMD made and 5600G APU, that should have PRO functionality like PBS fused off from factory. That is not the case, PBS is not only there, but also capable of bricking CPU (or APU).
The cpu fuse thing is one of the most anti consumer things iv seen in tech for a while
And now think about the "security feature" TPM2 from win11 together with this feature especially with win11 having BIOS access and being able to change bios parameters.
This would also be good for Schools, Libraries and Charitible origanizations with poor security systems.
I remember in highschool kids would take half the ram out of 1 system and move it to another, or swap the core2quad systems with a core2duo from home/another class.
Putting a notice on the heat sync that the CPU won't work in another motherboard and will fry itself is a great theft-swap preventative. Stops people from swapping out a Ryzen 3 1300.
It's ironic. The ryzen 3000 line had a security problem in that a rootkit could be made permanent by installing itself in the board motherboard firmware. This meant that you'd have to replace the motherboard when cleaning up a rootkit if you wanted to be certain it was gone (or at least de/re solder the bios storage chip). Now we have a "solution" to that which masquerades as a dead CPU, and cannot be verified to work so doesn't really solve the initial issue. The one minor improvement is it means when you are trying to restore the compromised bios you can be somewhat certain you have it back in its stock state if the cpu posts... more likely is you replace the CPU that randomly quit working, put a new one in, and let the rootkit *pretend* to vendor lock it (or vendor lock it with its own key).
The sad thing is it's *so close* to being an actual solution. The problem is the CPU cannot communicate the nature of the problem, given that the motherboard cannot be trusted to relay the message to the user. There are plenty of potential solutions to let the end user talk directly to the CPU. The obvious choice would be a TTL serial header that would be mapped direct from the CPU pins to accessible pins on the motherboard, so when you get a CPU fault you can connect to those pins and see if the CPU is really dead, or just wanting to talk directly. At the very least, reporting a different trouble code for "cpu refuses to work" vs "cpu not found" would be a start.
As someone with a low income most of my PC's have been built with used parts
This is will hurt the used market greatly. A CPU can be sold as working but who knows if it will in a different brand board
AMD's implementation of PSB is the bigger problem. Should not vendor lock a CPU on a motherboad that lacks PSB
Ages ago. Nice to see the video is still up :P
Reminds me of the 70' 80's 90's and Early Wipe out of a Market, that they Could keep running..I will use the old Negative Den CPU's of 10 years ago..