Intel SE7501WV2 User Manual

Password on 
boot  

Power 
On/Reset 

User 
Password 
set and 
password 
on boot 
enabled 
and 
Secure 
Boot 
Disabled in 
setup 

• 

System halts for user 
Password before scanning 
option ROMs. The system is 
not in secure mode. 

• 

No mouse or keyboard input 
is accepted except the 
password. 

User 
Password 

• 

Front Panel switches are re-
enabled. 

• 

PS/2 Keyboard and PS/2 
mouse inputs are accepted. 

• 

The system boots normally. 
Boot sequence is determined 
by setup options. 

Fixed disk 
boot sector 

Power 
On/Reset 

Set feature 
to Write 
Protect in 
Setup 

Will write protect the master boot 
record of the IDE hard drives only 
if the system boots from a floppy. 
The BIOS will also write protect 
the boot sector of the drive C: if it 
is an IDE drive. 

Set feature 
to Normal in 
Setup 

Hard drive will behave normally. 

 

The BIOS uses passwords to prevent unauthorized tampering with the system. Once secure 
mode is entered, access to the system is allowed only after the correct password(s) has been 
entered. Both the user and administrator passwords are supported by the BIOS. The 
Administrator password must be set prior to setting the User password. The maximum length of 
the password is seven characters. The password can have only alphanumeric characters (a-z, 
A-Z, 0-9). The user and administrator passwords are not case sensitive. 

Once set, a password can be cleared by changing it to a null string. Entering the user password 
allows the user to modify the time, date, language, user password, secure mode timer, and 
secure mode hot-key setup fields. Other setup fields can be modified only if the administrator 
password is entered. The user password also allows the system to boot if secure boot is 
enabled. If only one password is set, this password is required to enter Setup. The 
Administrator has control over all fields in the setup including the ability to clear the user 
password.  

If the user enters three wrong passwords in a row during the boot sequence, the system will be 
placed into a halt state. This feature makes it difficult to break the password by “trial and error” 
method. When entering a password, the backspace key is accepted as a character of the 
password. Entering the backspace key will result in a wrong password. In addition, when 
entering a password, the numeric keys are not equal to the numeric keypad keys. For example, 
if the password contains a ‘0’ entered from the numeric keys, and the user enters ‘0’ from the 
numeric keypad, the result will be an incorrect password. 

The Emergency Management Port password is only utilized by the BMC, this password does 
not effect the BIOS security in any way, nor does the BIOS security engine provide any 
validation services for this password. Emergency Management Port security is handled primarily 
through the BMC and Emergency Management Port utilities.