Overclocking a Dell Studio XPS 9100

[lev]

The first rule of thumb is that a donor MUST have the same chipset as the motherboard in question. Once you gather a list of same chipset boards, you then can separate them by Award and AMI and their BIOS sizes. Finally, go ahead and look at the specifics, and scrutinize every single detail in comparison to the motherboard in question.

Sooo... I'm trying to do the "impossible"...

I have a Dell Studio XPS 9100. I became interested in overclocking this baby when I saw it has a fairly standard looking AMI BIOS.

I did a dump of the BIOS & opened it up with AMIBCP v3.37



Looking at the ID string & comparing too www.wimsbios.com/aminumbers.jsp it doesnt seem to match the format they have. Is there a better way to determine the actual board manufacturer ?



Very interesting to see Dell left in some "DEBUG" options. I enabled those & flashed & have some nice additional info, but no options for overclocking.

After looking at this site and seeing you guys have some success, I thought I would run this past you. So the first thing you mention in looking at another bios is finding the same chipset...

I ran biosagentplus & was told I have Intel 3405 rev 19. (Is the Rev level critically important?)





So options would be:
X58A-UD3R
X58A-UD7
X58A-UD9
Rampage III Extreme
P6X58D PREMIUM

Asus's BIOSs are only 2048 KB - Dell is 4096 KB
Megabyte uses award BIOSs

What's the next step? Thanks.

[1234s282]

Just look for any hidden settings using amibcp!

Admin

[lev]

Sure, that would be great. I was hoping to find a page like this (from P6X58D-PREMIUM):



Unfortunately, there are no Frequency / Voltage options in the Dell ROM. So how do I get access to those settings? Can you help with the other questions in the previous post? Thanks!

http://bios-mods.com/BIOS/AMI/Dell/UBB-D...00-A02.rar

[1234s282]

In short , you cant - time for a new motherboard if you want those settings.

On the other hand , its interesting that those DEBUG options have been left and are not set to hidden. Try pressing Ctrl F1 , Ctrl F9 or Ctrl Home whilst in the bios because this key combination sometimes unlocks hiddens ettings (Like this mysterious DEBUG Menu)

Admin

[lev]

I tried these Ctrl keys, but nothing noticable happened (what have you seen before? New options on the main menu?)

As far as the debug in the Dell ROM, it was not enabled by default. I found it & enabled it with AMIBCP.

So, I'm not ready to jump to a new motherboard... you think no way flashing a similar BIOS would work?

I know asking for all those menu options is a bit greedy. What about adding a few key overclock options...

Reading on The Rebels Haven, they seem to have some methods for adding items. Could a few core overclocking functions could be extracted from the ASUS bios? Would ami_1b_splitter be granular enough or would it require something like bios_extract ?

[1234s282]

Wer arent too strong in the area of adding new options im afraid.

We could possibly attempt to find a retail Foxconn motherboard (because thats who makes motherboards for Dell) where you could TRY and attempt to flash the retail boards bios but honestly that would be takinga huge risk!

After you enabled the DEBUG options , do they appear? Have you tried flashing the modded bios???

Admin

[lev]

Yeah, I flashed it. The BIOS works fine & the new options work as well. The dump I attached is what I'm running.

[1234s282]

got you!

Some screenshots of the new settings would be nice then we can make a new confirmed post

Admin

[lev]

got you!

Some screenshots of the new settings would be nice then we can make a new confirmed post

Admin

Here ya go