I bought a new HP Envy 16 2 months ago which started asking me for an administrator password before entering the bios after an error 2 weeks ago. I did not set up a bios password.
What happened in detail:
2 weeks ago, the notebook got stuck on a black screen after booting. After a few tries and after letting it stay at the black screen for 1 or 2 minutes, it showed me an error stating that the bios had been reset. I don't remember the exact wording but I remember that it also showed the ID "Bios 500" alongside the message.
After that, the notebook started to boot correctly again and Windows is fully functional but some of my bios settings had been reset at this incident and I can't enter the bios anymore as it asks for an administrator password which I never set. Before that error, I was able to access the bios without any password.
I already contacted HP support. After trying a few things (install latest bios & drivers + a complete fresh installation of Windows) they told me that they can't help me with this and HP is not responsible for this issue but that it is some kind of Windows thing (which makes no sense). They told me that they can only offer me to replace the entire mainboard at my (!) expense even though the notebook is under full warranty (2 months old...).
I'm pretty sure that this is not legal, however, before bringing a lawyer into this, I wanted to ask here if there is some way for me to "hard reset" the bios e.g. by removing some CMOS battery etc.
I'm rather comfortable opening up the notebook and tinker with the hardware as long as there's no risk to harm the warranty (i.e. no soldering etc.).
Thanks for the help!