(UEFI) Dell XPS 15z L511z modded BIOS - and HOWTO

[jkbuha]

Morning all

@kasar - I believe all the initial donors have had their money sent back from pledgie, but if someone still hasn't received their funds yet please get in touch so I'll raise a ticket with pledgie/paypal. Anyone who has sent the monies directly to capitainkasar will have sent them directly to you as well

And yes - because you reminded me - thanks again TheWiz for your support to this topic!

[kasar]

@jkbuha

ah ok thanks for the info
oh, and I also want to say big thanks to thewiz and all the other people who helped ^_^


ok, lets focus on OC.

aparently you was able to OC OSX by using clover (and improved results/stability with the new intel vbios probably)

however, while checking windows users (most of people I think), we still stuck.

some of the posible options I can see are

* hacking clover to make it boot windows 7 (I dont have almost experience with clover, and i dont know where I have to start with)
* PlatformSetup.efi/PlatformSetupAdvancedDxe.efi hacking (we found some overclocking strings there, however you mentionated they dont are linked to anything (maybe they are linked to other module? or idk, its a fact those strings are at the bios, and I am sure they had its mision, we would need to fix things to repair the feature))
* alter the default FSB/BCLK, I know this is risky, and crappy, but when there arent other posible solutions, it may be the only solution.

like I said, I am VERY interested on reaching OC capabilities on our UEFI machines, so I am up to test with anything.

[kasar]

ok, decided to investigate a little more

found following strings

(DellMfgBoardDxe.efi)

Press Fn-X to return the system to normal running mode
MANUFACTURING MODE: LEVEL

also started to read again this whole topic, I'm almost sure we are missing something....

like this post at the page Nº 30

@kasar - I have suppress code occurrences in two more modules:
166CD554-8AAE-4617-8FDD-A2E3A5AFD89E_1_1056.ROM: 2
4A538818-5AE0-4EB2-B2EB-488B23657022_0_4.ROM: 15

can you tell me what is the module name and size of your 166CD554-8AAE-4617-8FDD-A2E3A5AFD89E_1_1056 module, so I can locate it and pach at my l502x?

if you can, upload them too so I can watch them more closely

I remember we skiped that step because it was dangerous since we didnt had recovery mode, but now we have, and I have also the sockets & programer things, so I will take the risk

[chris89]

When I use SLIC21 file for my hp I get this error and my bios says vista so i guess I have SLIC 2.0 so do I really need SLIC 2.1 for windows 7? I installed windows 7 and used activator and it was fine so whats the point to having SLIC 2.1? Just to see in the BIOS it says original OS Windwos 7 rather than Windows VISTA? It seems pointless to me. Anyway my hp pavilion's vga bios is OPROM1.ROM which I opened and modded in Nibitor for my 7150m. I just can't figure out how to get it to be included in the reintegration process. The HP.BIN SLIC21 file modifies the BIOSCOD4.ROM and adds 2 extra bytes which causes the error so with NO SLIC options i get no such error or if I just uncheck no slic and ask prior to modification I just click no on BIOSCOD4.rom and it works. I suppose the BIOSCOD4.rom is important for the proper functionality of SLIC21? I put the modded OPROM1.ROM in the DUMP folder replacing the original and everytime I create with NO SLIC it reintegrates successfully. Then I delete the old dump folder, open the new slic bios file and then open the OPROM1.ROM from the new dump the file is no different from the original. So I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Do I need to worry about anything else? I modded the vga bios in nibitor and it's exactly the same size and everything so should it flash fine without worrying about hex bits matching etc? If someone can take a lot at these files maybe you could help me and Explain how you were able to reintegrate possibly using SLIC21 and successfully integrating the new MODDED vga bios .rom thanks guys

http://www.mediafire.com/?2q0akvxi9atzkeh

[kasar]

well, like I told you at the other topic, something is wrong with that BIOS, I didnt have any issue reintegraring files on other BIOSES, just on yours.

one of my theories is that your BIOS just have no extra space at all to do mods, and also, by tweaking that option it doesnt get error, but probably because it seems that you arent reintegrating the file at all.

to be honest I dont know how I can help you there,take in mind we are also editing the new uefi bioses here, and wheile opening your bios with the tool itt ask "Phoenix BIOS" instead "EFI /insyde BIOS" (the ones we are modding at this topic)

edit: with the phoenix tool 2.12, it seems to let you select HP at the manufacturer, try testing with that version, however I also tried with 2.12 version and didnt had luck while trying to reintegrate files at your bios, maybe you have more luck anyway ^^

[jkbuha]

morning mate - here are the replies to your query:

166CD... is the SystemSetupSecurityDxe.efi so its basically what you patched on your own xps15 to enable the security settings menu. So I dont think that there are any more hidden menus that can be unlocked from patching the modules. All the rest is triggered via hardware state conditions (ie: module queries a certain register, which then queries the ME) so unfortunately it looks like patching ME7/8 is our best shot.

[kasar]

oh, I see ^^
yeah, those two ocurrences enabled the min and max password lenghts options.

what about the 4A538818-5AE0-4EB2-B2EB-488B23657022_0_4.ROM file? you said you found like 15 ocurrences there.

[jkbuha]

That's the weird rom file. It has an id and index of 0, no module name and is about 8MB in size. I think it contains all the modules by default and phoenixtool unzips it as a main module (it's the largest file in the directory).


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[kasar]

yeah, I found it also on my BIOS

it is named 4A538818-5AE0-4EB2-B2EB-488B23657022_0_4.ROM in my case, the file size is 7.681 Kb

however I didnt had any ocurrence on mine, (I tried from one from a already modded bios)

[jkbuha]

Then that explains it - this module is the hypermodule which contains all the modules compressed into one. Try searching with an unmodded one and you'll find at least 10 results.