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From: TEMNGT23@ysub.ysu.edu (Lou Anschuetz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.misc,misc.consumers
Subject: Everex BIOS Password
Message-ID: <91163.205448TEMNGT23@ysub.ysu.edu>
Date: 13 Jun 91 00:54:48 GMT
Organization: Youngstown State University VM system (YSUB)
Lines: 33

Our university has been buying exclusively Everex PCs for about the
last three years.  Our lastest shipment for student PC labs came with
quite a surprise.  The new Setup routine lets you set a password on
the hardware.  The only way to remove this password is to take the
battery out of the machine and wait until the setup information is
lost.  As you can imagine, putting these machines in an unsupervised
student lab will soon lead to each and every one having a password
on it.  Argh!

I immediately contacted a sales rep at Everex (a Mr. Joe Herndon (sp?))
who reported that their industrial customers demanded this feature
and that they weren't about to change it for their educational
customers.  Well, as a first response we have cancelled all future
orders for Everex machines until/unless the problem is fixed.  The
State of Ohio will also be removing them from our state pricing
contract unless the problem is fixed (this will likely happen on
June 19, 1991).

In the interim, I and our purchasing department felt that other
folks may wish to be made aware of Everex' new BIOS routine and
the complication it may cause others where more than one person
needs to have access to the machine.  While I am sure this may even
be a desireable feature in some industrial settings, it is certainly
problematic in other settings.

As the situation changes we will post additional information.  You
may contact via email for further info, or is there is sufficient
interest, I will post more extensive information here.

Lou Anschuetz
Associate Director for Academic Consulting
(soon to be an expert at battery pulling  :-)
temngt23@ysu.edu