Dell Vostro 3450 Advanced Options unlocking in progress

[TimeWalker]

hmmm.. I may have indeed scre_wed that up lol sorry, I admit I've rushed a bit ...
@HairyCube you can patch the VBIOS into A13 yourself and share it, it is uploaded in the archive along with 2 BIOS versions.

Edit: can't be 2098! Don't trust AIDA, look for the actual version from Intel's GFX Control panel, AIDA reads wrong number (and actually these numbers are there because settings were carried over from 2098, hence you see this string). The version is read from before the string - it says 2158.

[HairyCube]

No problem TW! But the VBIOS file included in the archive is also 2098...
EDIT: Well, if you look at the file, you can find a string saying "Intel®Sandybridge Mobile PCI Accelerated SVGA BIOS Build Number: 2098 PC 14.34 12/10/2010" so I don't think it's AIDA's problem...

[TimeWalker]

When you port over settings this string gets preserved...

Code:

PAGE Message Options
STRING $Signon Intel(R)Sandybridge Mobile PCI Accelerated SVGA BIOS\r\nBuild Number: 2098 PC 14.34  12/10/2010  03:33:28\r\nDECOMPILATION OR DISASSEMBLY PROHIBITED\r\n
$Msg_Enable 00
$Cls_After_Signon 00

The actual versioning number comes BEFORE this string.

2158Intel®Sandybridge Mobile PCI Accelerated SVGA BIOS
Build Number: 2098 PC 14.34 12/10/2010 03:33:28
DECOMPILATION OR DISASSEMBLY PROHIBITED

[HairyCube]

Ah, okay. Sorry, no problem then The new VBIOS seems to be working fine. Brightness controls work too. Thanks.

[TimeWalker]

In Ubuntu UEFI while running kacpimon, it successfully finds "Dell WMI hotkeys" event source to monitor.
Pressing Fn+F2 results in:

Code:

Input Layer: Type: 4 Code: 4 Value: 57352 (which is 0xE008 message)
netlink event PNP0C14: 00 000000d0 00000000 (PNP0C14 is WMI or how its called in DSDT - AMW0 device, 0xD0 is notification to it ie Notify (AMW0, 0xD0))
Input Layer: Type: 1 Code: 238 Value: 1
Input Layer: Sync
Input Layer: Type: 1 Code: 238 Value: 0
Input Layer: Sync

So it picks up whats written in DSDT, determines what has to be done and performs rftoggle event after handling the message.. I did an acpidump and acpixtract, then decompiled it via iasl - DSDT remains the same as the stock one, so theres no on the fly patching involved with it. This only means that UEFI driver and DSDT are in fact correct and can produce a working action in regards to this combination. What seems to be screwed up in Windows case are QuickSet driver ... but! Why the heck it won't work in OSX then ?

If I boot with a legacy bootloader it works absolutely fine, with UEFI bootloader it hangs the moment I hit Fn+F2. And while for Windows, especially 8, this is not a huge problem - you can toggle BT and Wi-Fi separately from Windows Charm bar on the right (or even better - mobility center), in OSX theres no way to disable BT if you have an Atheros combo module installed, like I do.

[remytran]

Sorry TW, the new one works fine! Thks buudy, hope u can figure out how to handle the Fn+F2, Really want to use windows on uefi mode!

[TimeWalker]

Doesn't look promising ...

Results generated by fwts: Version V0.25.06precise1 (Tue Sep 4 12:56:28 CST 2012).

Some of this work - Copyright © 1999 - 2010, Intel Corp. All rights reserved.
Some of this work - Copyright © 2010 - 2012, Canonical.

This test run on 28/01/13 at 15:12:16 on host Linux ubuntu 3.2.0-23-generic #36-Ubuntu SMP Tue Apr 10 20:39:51 UTC 2012
x86_64.

Running tests: wmi.

Extract and analyse Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Test 1 of 2: Check Windows Management Instrumentation in DSDT
Found WMI Event, Notifier ID: 0xd0, GUID: 9DBB5994-A997-11DA-B012-B622A1EF5492, Instance 0x01
PASSED: Test 1, GUID 9DBB5994-A997-11DA-B012-B622A1EF5492 is handled by driver dell-wmi (Vendor: Dell).

heh .. yeah, this comes from Linux kernel..
#define DELL_EVENT_GUID "9DBB5994-A997-11DA-B012-B622A1EF5492"

Code:

/* This is actually for all radios. Although physically a
         * switch, the notification does not provide an indication of
         * state and so it should be reported as a key */
        {KE_KEY, 0xe008, KEY_WLAN},

http://pastebin.com/zmng4tDe

[ygor.almeida]

Hi guys,

How do i flash this new version 2158 mods.rar ??

I´m currently using the old A13 mod bios, posted in this topics.

I´ve tried the winflash A13 modded wph file, but it loads the cap, but it says cannot run it because the plataform i'm flashing A10 is the same as the one i want to flash.
Do i need to force anything ??
Should i run the A13 or A04 - what its the best version for a fully UEFI for Windows 7 or 8 ... Linux Debian 6 or 7 and maybe OSX 10.8.2 setup ??

thx for help !!!

Btw, is it possible to mod this bios to unlock WIFI CARDS I hate the one that comes with notebook, would like to change it.

[HairyCube]

So... I managed to flash a modified SSDT
Since we can't recompile it properly, I made a hex comparison between A04 and A11 SSDTs and found the place where it sets SFUN to 0x03 (A04) and 1 (A11). In the A04 SSDT, I changed it to 0x02 just to see what would happen.
After changing the value, I had to run acpibin.exe to fix the checksum of the modified aml file.
After this, flashing worked fine and I was able to boot Windows.
It seems that setting SFUN to 0x02 disables application-based switchable graphics mode and leaves the fixed mode intact. As you can see in the screenshot, the "Switchable Graphics Method" tab is now gone.

Setting it to 0 kills switchable graphics functionality altogether but the AMD card becomes unusable.
I'm going to try a few more values and report back.

I´ve tried the winflash A13 modded wph file, but it loads the cap, but it says cannot run it because the plataform i'm flashing A10 is the same as the one i want to flash.
Do i need to force anything ??

You can force flashing of the same version by running winflash.exe /BIOS /EC /SA /SV /BBL "BIOS1.WPH"
Full UEFI support for Windows on this laptop is messed up, I wouldn't recommend using it at all. For Mac OS X, TW recommends A04.

[TimeWalker]

Good to know. Please keep us posted. Ironically, I have reverted to a stock, non-modified A13 BIOS for now .. it's just this BIOS is a complete mess anyway. I'm desperate to find what they call "Queen changes for EC" which were introduced as of A10 in XPS15 to reduce fan noise. I have repasted my CPU with Arctic ceramique, replaced hidden hdd with ssd but fan still behaves like shayte.