Dell Vostro 3450 Advanced Options unlocking in progress

[TimeWalker]

They changed something in S3 SAVE/RESUME mosules, and probably altered DSDT just a little to fix broken WMI codes/notifications through EC queries. Nothing exciting, really.

Sent from my LG-P500 using Tapatalk 2

[dragonmon]

Amazing guys! Perfect as it should be. I used to mod SLIC 2.1 into BIOS, that's all, no trying more. This laptop is very hot even if you clean it and use the ARCTIC MX4 solution. Idle temp is about >=55 for the whole package CPU. I tried to mod the heatsink of VGA but nothing has change. You guys unlock the BIOS, that's awesome, I now can disable the HT and even the Turbo, modify the x (by default my i5 2430M is 24x), it's quiet cooler but still very hot at all. On the other side, changing the memory of Intel Graphics 3000 helps improve performance, it's very good either.
Now Dell has released the new BIOS and drivers for windows 8, but I can only access to the new VGA driver and Quickset, nothing strange.

There's a question, in the Thermal configuration, when I turn on the thermal device sensor, I can't boot in to Windows 8, I got stuck with the logo. In some lap such as Alienware 18X1, I found the driver called Intel Display Saving, I try this, and this shows the driver for thermal PCH, CPU... Hope you can give me an explanation. My DDR3 is only 1333 MHz, what a pity that I can not use 1600 MHz.

Very excited for the next Modded A13 BIOS, Thanks buddy!!!!!!!

[TimeWalker]

well then .. here we go again.
1. The WinFlash utility has been updated (I believe the version now matches what XPS users had)
2. There still 0x23 microcode inside A13 bios
3a. The sleep/wake problem persists for OSX users
3b. Cooler behavior has definitely been altered, it now tends to spin somewhat constantly at a lower RPM rate, those temps lowered by at least 5C.
4. There's a bloody snow storm at my place so I cant get to the store to pick up blank DVDs and burn my copy of Windows 8 (to do a fresh install) so I'm unable to test the Hibernate-related issues for it.
5. The link for the 'official' download is the following: ftp://ftp1.dell.com/FOLDER00952500M/1/3450A13.exe
6. Here is a modded bios for you enthusiasts out there ... http://www.mediafire.com/?komxo57si198ltn
- Native Speedstep (for OSX users .. but doesn't break anything for Windows users, so won't heart)
- All the unlockable menus have been unlocked in the Advanced and Security tabs
- Microcode has been updated to 0x28 as per Intel (thanks for the guide, jkbuha!)
- The "Below is reserved for RD, not DELLOIL request" string has been removed from the Advanced tab.
The usual deal ... winflash.exe /BIOS /EC /SA /SV /BBL "BIOS1.WPH"
7. My Search query is still kicking to find the other drivers from the Dell's FTP mess.

[HairyCube]

Just flashed the modified BIOS... Nothing new, just as I expected. Switchable Graphics and Intel ME options are still broken. I'm not going to use Windows 8, so it's a pretty much useless update for me.
I hate Dell.

[TimeWalker]

Can not not back you up on this lol.
It's just a minor incremental thing to fix what was broken .. also why skip a version, this got me thinking if they modified something under the covers ..
I was given an opportunity of upgrading to Windows 8 dirt cheap, so I thought I better not miss it.. 14.99$ is't a terribly bad price for an upgrade.
Anyways.. I'm sticking with A04 I bet it won't have hibernate issues on Windows 8, QuickSet might be trouble tough.

[dragonmon]

Buddy, How could I use the winflash tool? "Specify new BIOS", what must I choose? Is this file "FvRecovery.fd", sorry, I'm sure at all.

[TimeWalker]

open up command prompt (cmd.exe),
cd to the folder where winflash.exe is
winflash.exe /BIOS /EC /SA /SV /BBL "BIOS1.WPH"

[dragonmon]

open up command prompt (cmd.exe),
cd to the folder where winflash.exe is
winflash.exe /BIOS /EC /SA /SV /BBL "BIOS1.WPH"

Well, it said: "Please select a correct BIOS image!"..... Can I use the old method that replaces the BIOS.WPH in temp folder with the modded one?

[TimeWalker]

You may have misspelled the WPH file name. Surely you can use the method you are accustomed to.

[dragonmon]

Ok, The old method, but flhave to flash BIOS twice to show the unlock menus. It seems that as the A11? I myself didn't suffer any stuff with this "sleep" in windows 8 since the Consumer Preview. Windows 8 to me is just an update of windows 7. Temp still remains as the same. The Heatsink is too bad. Comparing to the old Vostro 1088, it has 2 heatsinks, one for VGA and chipset, one for CPU, it's temp is always 4x in idle. The new 3460 has 2 heatsinks too but smaller.