[QUESTION] Modding an AMI bios to bypass the dGPU completely

[misty]

Hi, I have an old DELL Inspiron 5423 notebook that has a discrete Radeon GPU. I was having issues with video and booting that pointed at this Radeon Chip as the problem. I looked for the schematics to do a discrete to UMA conversion but I didn´t really have the tools to do it so I just removed the power supply to the Radeon chip (as some had suggested to me) and it worked!

Now the issue is the that motherboard thinks there´s a problem with the dGPU and makes 5 annoying beeps in sequence after booting and it doesn´t stop, ever, even in Windows.

I was thinking if it´s possible to remove either the dGpu from the bios somehow or trick the dGpu side of the bios to think there´s no problem with the dGpu to avoid the beeps.

I have modded the bios of this notebook before but only to enable the advanced menu. I was wondering if someone ever did something like this before?

To answer my own question, yes this is possible. After modding the bios to enable the advanced menus and going to the Northbridge sub-menu configuration there´s an option to disable the PEG completely, doing that cuts off the power by software to the Radeon chip (although that was already done by hardware in my case) and the notebook thinks everything is alright again.

[infinitybegins]

To answer my own question, yes this is possible. After modding the bios to enable the advanced menus and going to the Northbridge sub-menu configuration there´s an option to disable the PEG completely, doing that cuts off the power by software to the Radeon chip (although that was already done by hardware in my case) and the notebook thinks everything is alright again.

i am having same issue .... i have this dell 5423 and gpu is either fried or having memory issue distored display but intel is working fine , can you provide me this bios so i can use advance feature disable the peg,, ??

[misty]

Hi, I'll attach the bios, you have to use afuwin to flash it, don't use fpt. The version I'm sharing is the last one (A16). If you disable the PEG it will also disable the wifi portion of the wireless card, the Bluetooth will work fine because it uses the USB bus but the wifi uses the pcie lane. If the computer is working fine and you have the tools try to do the uma conversion.

[infinitybegins]

Hi, I'll attach the bios, you have to use afuwin to flash it, don't use fpt. The version I'm sharing is the last one (A16). If you disable the PEG it will also disable the wifi portion of the wireless card, the Bluetooth will work fine because it uses the USB bus but the wifi uses the pcie lane. If the computer is working fine and you have the tools try to do the uma conversion.

yes atttach the bios file 
and which version of afuwin should i use to flash the bios?

[misty]

I'm sorry, it was supposed to be in the previous post, I'm attaching the file again, as for the afuwin x64 version I think it was 3.05.04 but I'm not completely sure.
  A16MODEDMENU.rom.zip (Size: 2.64 MB / Downloads: 4)

[infinitybegins]

I'm sorry, it was supposed to be in the previous post, I'm attaching the file again, as for the afuwin x64 version I think it was 3.05.04 but I'm not completely sure.

i tried with afuwin this error comming up even if i uncheck bios id "1e Error : secure flash function is not supported on this file "
please let me know how to overcome that .. and when flashing this custom rom should i check program all blocks???

[misty]

The bios file I shared is the same bios you can download from the Dell website but with the advanced menus unlocked. If you get an error you either have a locked bios region or there's a problem with your afuwin. Try using the /GAN option to flash it, remember that's the bios region, so there's no ME and that's why the filesize is ~6mb and not 8mb.

[infinitybegins]

The bios file I shared is the same bios you can download from the Dell website but with the advanced menus unlocked. If you get an error you either have a locked bios region or there's a problem with your afuwin. Try using the /GAN option to flash it, remember that's the bios region, so there's no ME and that's why the filesize is ~6mb and not 8mb.

should i click program all blocks i am using afuwin version???

[misty]

The bios file I shared is the same bios you can download from the Dell website but with the advanced menus unlocked. If you get an error you either have a locked bios region or there's a problem with your afuwin. Try using the /GAN option to flash it, remember that's the bios region, so there's no ME and that's why the filesize is ~6mb and not 8mb.

should i click program all blocks i am using afuwin version???

I don't remember to be honest, I think I used the default settings, this was a while ago, sorry. If you don't know what you are doing or have an external programmer for the bios chip I'd recommend not flashing anything and just take the computer to a technician.

[infinitybegins]

bios update was success i mange to get a good display on the screen without external moniter
every thing seem to be working but there is one
issue beeps 6 7 coming from laptop speaker
how to overcome that???