[REQUEST] Gateway NE722 Series Virtualization / AMD-V

[broken107]

I'd like to enable hardware virtualization in the BIOS.
Manufacturer : Gateway
Manufacturer Model : NE72207U
Manufacturer's Page : http://www.gateway.com/gw/en/US/content/....Y33AA.003

Bios Revision : Insyde Corp. V1.04, 7/1/2013 SMBIOS Version 2.7
Bios Link : http://global-download.gateway.com/GDFil...Y&SC=PA_6G

   

[walluswallus]

Any chance of getting an unlocked bios for the ne722?

[jamazurak]

Any chance of getting an unlocked bios for the ne722?

I'm not sure about unlocked BIOS but some hidden options e.g. virtualization support can be enabled.  
At this moment I still possess this notebook (since maybe 2013). Many years ago I solved the issue with AMD virtualization support which is disabled by default. Of course, this option is hidden in the BIOS. BTW the BIOS version is 1.07. I solved this issue and forgot about it, but when I changed the battery, I reset the BIOS to its default values and disabled the virtualization so I had to remember what I did before.
I doubt if this issue is still relevant as the notebook is really old, and even Acer sold out the Gateway brand. But if you need the solution, you need to do some steps. You can also change some other settings that are hidden in the BIOS.
DISCLAIMER: everything you do is at your own risk!
As the starting point, excellent documentation (and handy utilities) can be found here - UEFI Var Tool.
First, the BIOS file should be obtained. You can get the notebook's firmware and unpack it using 7-Zip. In my case, version 1.07 was used (the notebook was flashed earlier with it). You should unpack the ZIP archive, and then unpack the .exe file, and get an <name>.fd firmware file.
Then a utility UEFITool should be used to find the BIOS settings block. Open .fd file with the utility and find something like "SetupUtility", then save an appropriate EFI to the file as described in the documentation above.
Next, process the EFI file with IFRExtractor utility, with the "verbose" option. You will get a set of text files. Here you can find a lot of options that can be changed in the BIOS.
From the text files, remember the "SystemConfig" VarStore GUID (in my case - A04A27F4-DF00-4D42-B552-39511302113D).
Finally, you can process text files with the SlimIFR.js utility (note that node is required to execute this file). The result is a plain text file with a list of available UEFI variables, e.g.

Code:

SystemConfig:0x0079              Security: (Empty) [0x00 - 0x00]
SystemConfig:0x0080              Security: User Access Level [0x02 - View Only, 0x03 - Limited, 0x04 - Full]
SystemConfig:0x0081              Security: (Empty) [0x00 - 0x00]
SystemConfig:0x00A1              Security: Password on Boot: [0x02 - Enabled, 0x01 - Disabled]
SystemConfig:0x00AA              Security: (Empty) [0x00 - 0x00]

Now, you can use the UVT utility to set the needed UEFI variables. You need to prepare a USB flash drive, or card and a USB card reader, with UEFI console (remember to insert it into the USB 2.0 port, not the USB 3.0 port). Then you should allow to run it in BIOS by setting the Administrator password, and allowing it to run the needed files (in my case BOOTX64.EFI and UVT.EFI which are already written to the SD card).
Reboot / power on your notebook, press F12 to select a boot device, and run the UEFI console.
You can run UVT utility directly from the UEFI shell. As UVT documentation said, you should use the syntax uvt VarName:Offset[=value] to get[/set] the needed value. WARNING: don't remember to try doing anything in simulation mode (-s option). Also, setting the wrong value to the wrong area potentially can brick your device!
In my case, "SystemConfig:0x00F0" didn't work as the "SystemConfig" variable couldn't be found.
So I got the variables using UEFI shell utility dmpstore with the GUID obtained earlier:

Code:

dmpstore -guid A04A27F4-DF00-4D42-B552-39511302113D

and got 2 variables for the system config - "Setup" and "Custom". Check for the data section size - it should be the same as VarStore size (same row with the VarStore GUID).
I changed the variable value that I needed (in my case - SVM for virtualization) in both sections (Setup:0x00F0, Custom:0x00F0), and then rebooted the notebook. Voila! Now the virtualization is enabled again.
All needed utilities can be downloaded from the above UVT GitHub page links.

---