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

[kasar]

ok, here it is

http://www.mediafire.com/?iakz6aqfarg4qp3

it contains the old good modded firmware with the descriptor unlocked, and also the corrupted bios, so you can compare them.

I'm reprograming the chip with the good backup with descriptor unlocked, lets cross fingers ^^

[kasar]

while conecting everything , it apeared to be fixed for a minute..., machine booted fine, and showed the dell splash screen

but after saving the adjustments to the bios and rebooting, it didnt started anymore,after use the power button the machine powered off after 1 second everytime I tried power it on.

tried asembly disasembly again, disconect stuff, many other combinations.

nothing worked.

desoldered the chip for third time and conected to the flasher, now it even acts weird with the short wires ...

man, I killed it.... not sure if just the chip, the entire motherboard or the entire laptop ... yes, a 600 € laptop I needed so badly to do daily tasks, and now it is just a pile of scrach :/

I failed so hard with this.....

dont even have money for a new motherboard replacement, so I lost the machine, and several hours of my life with frustuation.

I give up with this bios stuff

sorry guys, but I cant continue with this :/

[TimeWalker]

Oh wow ... sorry.
Told ya to get some sleep first.
I think you can order just the chip online?

http://alibaba.com/product-gs/454870857/...5Q32B.html

Sent from my LG-P500 using Tapatalk 2

[Yaks]

My salute to you kasar, you were very brave to have reached that point!

Very sad to hear you've bricked the laptop while trying to further our knowledge. I would happily donate some euros for your replacement if you have a PayPal account?

Yaks

[TimeWalker]

@kasar
If the chips acts weird then you have probably toasted it.

There's a seller from Netherlands (so pretty close by you and wouldn't take long to ship as it would from HK) on eBay who sells preprogrammed chips.
He doesn't seem to sell for Dell computers .. but he does sell for Asus G7x series which has the same SPI. I have asked him whether he is able to flash a backup which you have at hand. I've yet to hear from him .. but it would end up being something around 13 Quid for the job + the chip itself, so only thing left for you would be to solder it in place (of course if the mobo is still intact).

Could throw some funds towards this as well.

[Florin9doi]

it's not possible to overclock non-X and non-K sandy bridge.

[TimeWalker]

@Florin9doi
It's not possible to change the multiplier, but you can adjust BCLK.

@kasar
The person doesn't seem as knowledgeable as they sound .. so I'm kind of loosing faith there. I had to explain the chip structure to them ...
Here's an alternative of 5 pcs of the chip for just under 7 bucks... will take some time to arrive though
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/190668544992?s...1438.l2649

@all
I've found where does the ITE IT8158E EC firmware goes ..
In the F33E367F-41D2-4201-9CB7-AFA63DCCEEC9_x_x RAW you get from the OEM updater.. offset (0x400000h - 0x420FFFh) ... starts with ITE Tech. Inc. But this firmware is a deep dark forest to which we have no ways to venture because there are virtually 0 datasheets for this chip and it hadn't been reversed. But I hope to crank up the T case at which the fan kicks in.. or at least for a way to locate the thermal table to which 15z bios changelogs are referring.

A05:
4.Thermal table is updated to Rev. 1.7d

A11:
3.Update thermal table v1.7f

This proves that the capsule is extracted and stripped into dedicated regions (BIOS and EC by default, if other regions are checked in WinFlash it strips appropriate ranges as well) when PFlash.efi uses it. Because the part of the RAW BIOS can't fit onto the IC chip .. it goes straight to ITE chip.

Mine says to be: (offset 0x1010h in the EC firmware)
A13: V02-14 For PHOENIX EC Version P1A38
A11: V02-14 For PHOENIX EC Version P1A37
A04: V02-14 For PHOENIX EC Version P1A27

[jkbuha]

Morning all - sorry for no replies but boy was it a rough night... I've seen enough Gangnam style to last me a lifetime.

@kasar - respect mate and really sorry to hear about your woes. I want to make sure we're all here for each other in bad times as well as good. All - Let's set up a PayPal fund to continue towards the replacement of your defective components. Hopefully this should be enough to get your laptop back to life!

I'm still picking up the pieces of what was left from yesterday so will get back to you once I'm back home to set this up properly. In the meantime just take a rest from all of this and be reassured that we've got your back

Sent from my HTC One X

[Yaks]

Depending on how generous we can be you may have enough for a new L502x or even an L521x

[TimeWalker]

Anyone have freedos to try ?
Stumbled upon this:

>ftp64.exe -i

Intel ® Flash Programming Tool. Version: 8.0.4.1441
Copyright © 2007 - 2012, Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.

Platform: Intel® HM77 Express Chipset
Reading HSFSTS register... Flash Descriptor: Valid

--- Flash Devices Found ---
MX25L1605A ID:0xC22015 Size: 2048KB (16384Kb)
MX25L3205A(D) ID:0xC22016 Size: 4096KB (32768Kb)

--- Flash Image Information --
Signature: VALID
Number of Flash Components: 2
Component 1 - 2048KB (16384Kb)
Component 2 - 4096KB (32768Kb)
Regions:
Descriptor - Base: 0x000000, Limit: 0x000FFF
BIOS - Base: 0x200000, Limit: 0x5FFFFF
ME - Base: 0x001000, Limit: 0x1FFFFF
GbE - Not present
PDR - Not present
Master Region Access:
CPU/BIOS - ID: 0x0000, Read: 0x0B, Write: 0x0A
ME - ID: 0x0000, Read: 0x0D, Write: 0x0C
GbE - ID: 0x0118, Read: 0x08, Write: 0x08

Total Accessable SPI Memory: 6144KB, Total Installed SPI Memory : 6144KB

Full dump using -d (6Mb from both chips) looks promising. Dumps obtained by -bios, -me and -desc are identical to the respective parts of the full -d dump.
I had to use meset.exe under DOS to get read access to the first chip, it grands access until next restart.

Got this tool from Clevo official BIOS update .. they state the following .. moral hazard has mentioned it previously in his "lets unlock OC" thread.

How to flash whole ROM that include ME:

1. Make sure plugin AC adaptor.
2. Run MeSet.EXE under pure DOS, the system will auto cold boot.
3. Run FlashMe.bat under pure DOS.

So one would assume that running this utility temporally grands host access to locked regions?