Lenovo Vendor Locking AMD Ryzen Cover
Lenovo Vendor Locking AMD Ryzen Cover

Since it is a holiday weekend in the US, we have a quick story today. As you may have read previously on STH, Lenovo is vendor locking AMD Ryzen CPUs in its systems. This is something we have seen previously on SP3 CPUs (even Threadripper Pro ones), but we ran into factory vendor-locked CPUs as part of our Project TinyMiniMicro series on Socket AM4.

Lenovo Vendor Locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB the Video

Here is the video on Lenovo vendor-locking AMD Ryzen CPUs using the AMD PSB, or platform secure boot feature:

We always suggest watching this in its own window, tab, or YouTube app for the best viewing experience.

One thing added compared to the Lenovo Vendor Locking Ryzen-based Systems with AMD PSB piece a few days ago is my suggestion for how PSB should work in the future:

  • AMD ships chips with fuses not blown
  • Vendor sets PSB to ensure no post-factory tampering from the factory to the customer
  • Have the ability to de-PSB CPU (perhaps by blowing all field-programmable fuses)
  • A CPU that has gone through the de-PSB process cannot be used again with the PSB feature but can be used