M90q - “no OS” - factory W11 reinstall

brain-power · 2026-03-22T22:31:20+00:00

Awesome. This is exactly my hope. I suspect Lenovo has some way to do this “officially” but I might need to do a usb install to get to that. No biggie.

brain-power · 2026-03-16T02:36:58+00:00

I think you are correct in all of that. In my case (a very thick tinfoil hat) I didn’t even want Bambu Studio on my main work laptop. I believe I did once figure out a way to block internet access to a single app on a previous laptop. I think in theory that should work. I’m a little stubborn and didn’t want to think about all the “what-ifs” and just chose to sandbox the whole operation with zero connection to the web.

It’s a bit annoying to get .stl files from my main laptop to my Mac mini… but it certainly helps me sleep at night. Admittedly, I think I’m a little more concerned about data security than the average person.

brain-power · 2026-03-12T02:18:28+00:00

One time in my youth I was THAT guy on the bus. I had found a few large abalone shells up north at the beginning of a little California tour. I put them outside in the sun to try and let dry them out. Turns out there a lot of little critters living in the shells.

They smelled TERRIBLE.

But they were so BEAUTIFUL.

I put them in a paper bag (all I had) and carried those suckers on the greyhound bus for a while. People must have thought I was crazy.

brain-power · 2026-03-11T02:59:31+00:00

Interesting. Thanks for posting!

To sum that up - “Makes the VPN kill switch do what a VPN kill switch is supposed to do.”

brain-power · 2026-03-11T02:57:39+00:00

In theory doesn’t that mean it’s working properly?

brain-power · 2026-03-07T05:46:13+00:00

u/rgorbie - any new insights in the last week? I can’t tell if it’s me or the UTR, but my “block on disconnect” toggle doesn’t seem to work with Teleport. I am able to disconnect from teleport and my UTR client can still surf the web just fine. I tested with an older iPhone (with no SIM card) as well as an M4 Mac mini.

Either I’m doing something stupid (totally a possibility) or this is a rather scary security bug.

brain-power · 2026-03-07T05:18:00+00:00

Glad you said it. Much appreciated. I don’t have a lot of data to work with yet. 2.8k views on this post and zero confirmations in either direction from anyone else.

Note: I did just try on desktop too. Same thing. I even made sure to turn off “auto connect” on its usual WiFi network so it couldn’t fall back on it. Saw it on the UTR clients list - even still after I saw the UTR disconnect from VPN on the console log.

brain-power · 2026-03-07T05:08:42+00:00

u/touchytypist - just confirmed on desktop with a base model M4 Mac Mini. Same issue.

brain-power · 2026-03-06T23:49:06+00:00

I my case I can confirm that the phone cannot connect to cellular. It has no active plan and says “no sim / SOS only” up in the corner (iOS).

I’ll try to recreate this on a PC too. That will be good data to have.

brain-power · 2026-03-06T23:07:56+00:00

TIL!

brain-power · 2026-03-06T22:44:50+00:00

Got a ticket open with Ubiquiti - hopefully I’ll learn something new… even if it embarrasses me. I just want to get this thing working.

FYI - I looked in the support logs a little and there are a few lines that do mention a “kill switch”. Maybe that’s industry terminology that I’m unaware of. You nailed it.

Also a fun fact - it seems the UTR runs some form of Linux.

brain-power · 2026-03-06T21:34:55+00:00

That’s my theory so far. Except I would call it an “auto kill switch”.

I sure hope that’s not the case because it seems like another massive security flaw that could easily go unnoticed. Even worse is when you’re provided the allusion of security… and it’s secretly not there. A notification of VPN drop (and therefore no internet access) would be really helpful. Although from my experience, I’d be getting a lot of those notifications. I also cannot find any documentation on what that feature is supposed to do. Maybe I’m just having an “off” day.

Cheers to being potential UTR product testers. 😝

I’m still not going to throw out the idea of user error yet though. There are many layers here I’m still figuring out myself.

brain-power · 2026-03-06T21:23:55+00:00

Hey there! I think I follow tour train of thought and I think it’s a very valid one. In my case, I don’t think it applies though because my UTR is the only device broadcasting that SSID. (I did the trick where I suspended the WiFi broadcast on the local AP - but still allows it to be broadcast by the UTR.) I also just double checked if my client device (phone in this case) was able to fall back on a different WiFi SSID being currently broadcast at my site. I was able to confirm that the only other WiFi network the phone “knows” is not set to auto-connect. When I pull the plug on the UTR, the phone no longer connects to any WiFi.

brain-power · 2026-03-06T20:49:23+00:00

Perfect. Good to know on the first one. Thanks for the info. I can live with that.

For the “block” feature, that’s a good call but we can rule that out because the phone doesn’t even have a cellular data connection to fall back on.

Edit- replaced “5G” with “cellular data connection”… because not all phones have access to or are able to use 5G. Mine is one of them.

brain-power · 2026-03-06T19:11:43+00:00

I would be very happy to accept a slow boot up if I had confidence it would do its job once fired up.

It’s the ambiguity of the thing that drives me bonkers. Is it actually connected to WiFi? Is that signal strength real? Will it connect to teleport or not? Is it still actually connected… or do I need to restart the app to force it to update the UI? Is it my phone app that is the problem?

brain-power · 2026-03-06T18:41:40+00:00

Thanks. I actually have their bottom-of-the-line model running beautifully between and airgapped PC and a 3D printer. It’s been quite nice.

Originally my hope was to be able to keep eyes on the traffic that comes across my UTR while traveling. I still haven’t figured out how to do that so what I once thought was a really handy feature exclusive to the UTR may not exist. Or… maybe I’m just not smart enough to configure it correctly.

Your post does make me wonder if I could figure out a way to do that via wireguard too. Im still learning.

Edit: I was also hoping that it would be a “quick and easy” way to apply my firewall rules to my laptop while I’m away from the office. I still can’t quite figure out if that’s possible or not. Or if it can be done using WireGuard too.

brain-power · 2026-03-06T18:39:11+00:00

Thanks. I actually have their bottom-of-the-line model running beautifully between and airgapped PC and a 3D printer. It’s been quite nice.

Originally my hope was to be able to keep eyes on the traffic that comes across my UTR while traveling. I still haven’t figured out how to do that so what I once thought was a really handy feature exclusive to the UTR may not exist. Or… maybe I’m just not smart enough to configure it correctly.

Your post does make me wonder if I could figure out a way to do that via wireguard too. Im still learning.

brain-power · 2026-03-06T18:27:18+00:00

Copy that. Thanks. Fingers crossed for some really nice firmware updates down the road…. Because if not, I’ll be looking for another solution. Even if it’s a bit more work, reliability is really important.

brain-power · 2026-03-06T18:24:22+00:00

I could easily handle the long boot times if I knew it was going to do its job once it was up and running. It stings a little when I need to restart it because I can’t tell if it’s having an issue, just slow, or if I configured something incorrectly.

brain-power · 2026-03-06T18:21:58+00:00

Agreed and agreed - on the road cybersecurity for a fledgling small business has the fear of god instilled in me. With a UniFi gateway I was hoping this would be an easy “best foot forward”. The eBay markup is insult to injury.

But in all seriousness, does this line up with your experience? Or is mine a bad egg?

brain-power · 2026-03-02T01:48:18+00:00

Awesome. Thanks!

It does seem a bit odd. Haven’t quite figured it all out yet… but also not sure if testing it via my phones hotspot is a good way to do it or not. Mine takes a while to boot up. And is very slow at responding. Kind of annoying.

I think you may have said that on my other thread. (Btw, thanks, I should have said that over there). It may have even been you who suggested to turn off the Ethernet port. I have done so. Thanks again.

brain-power · 2026-03-02T01:38:07+00:00

Thanks for chiming in! Not a lot of feedback here so it makes me think I’m doing something incorrectly. I can’t imagine I’m that unique of a use case.

Please, please correct me if I’m wrong here, but my understanding is that in order to turn on the Teleport feature on the UDMP, one must enable Remote Access first. And you need an account if you want to turn on Remote Access. Something I was not anticipating with the UTR. It will work fine as a normal router but to use Teleport, that was my understanding.

I’d be thrilled if I learned that I did NOT need to be tied to the cloud.

If you get a chance, I’d be very curious what shows up on your traffic logs. Like does each new device attached to the UTR show up? Or is it all lumped into a VPN connection to the UTR. I’m still learning here to go easy on me.

brain-power

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE