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

[jkbuha]

All

I've set up the donations site to give to kasar's defunct motherboard.

Please go to this website and give generously. Any amount is appreciated!

http://pledgie.com/campaigns/18729

I'll put this up on the main page as well as the notebook forum.

Thanks
jkbuha

---

@TW - I tried meset this week, pc didn't reboot at all when I ran it.
My suspicion is that the Clevo notebooks have a way of rebooting into unprotected mode, hopefully I'm wrong

[kasar]

@Yaks

thank you so much Yaks

well, since the begining this seemed a nice project, and I wanted to help with what I all I had.

I feel bad to have people giving me money but well, I dont have many options right now.

jkbuha started a page to help me fix my hardware

you can find it here.

http://pledgie.com/campaigns/18729

dont have a paypal account yet, I'm doing it right now.

again, thank you so much.


@timewalker.

well, my knowledge is also nothing compared with yours, like I said several times, I just feel here like a noob with a keyboard ^^
(well, now I feel like a noob with a working keyboard and a fried motherboard )

but well, if I manage to get the machine working back to life, I will solder chip mounts to the motherboard and programer so I will keep being at least your tester


oh, that app can remove the Regions lock without all the electronic messing I did?

that should be nice for all or us , and probably will be also good news for all the bios mods users
let me know if it works ^^

@jkbuha
I cant thank you enough to make the site and make the initial donation, I think this is more than most friends made ever for me *-*

I hope to get my machine working back so I can keep helping this project

I will install the chip mounts like I told to timewalker ^^

PS: yeah, I think starting hate to gangam style, heard it enough times and it keep playing everyplace I go

[jkbuha]

No worries kasar - we got your back
let me know when you set up your paypal account so I'll just send the funds over.

re: chip mounts - this is an interesting project. hopefully we'll be able to make this mod on most dells!
ps: I've still got gangnam coming out of my ears. And lots of drink as well...

pps: can someone look into my comments re: meset and possibly try it out themselves?

[kasar]

@jkbuha



cant thank you guys enough ^^

for that reason the least I can do is continue with this project and you guys when I will get my hardware in working condition again

as for the moment cant much stuff from this old laptop wich freezes even with a browser, but well, I will still in touch with you guys

yeah, chip mounts will make things easier and will prevent damage from excesive solderings heat.

if I have success with the other one, I may install also another chip mount at the other winbond chip installed at the other part of the motherboard (yep, I mentionated there was another chip) , I can dump its content too in the future, so we can analyze it.

but as for the moment I will wait to replace the other chip and evaluate if there are more damage in the motherboard.

I would try meset hardware, but I think my xps cant load anything in its current status

@timewalker

thank you so much for the donation

---

oh, I forgot, I made the paypal account, and I'm waiting the confirmation from the bank account to vinculate it with the acccount.

what you need from the paypal account?

the email I used or something?

really, thanks for all you are doing.

[TimeWalker]

@kasar
I'm taking guesses and following the *logical approach* .. my knowledge is limited, I know my ways around some basic IT/Electronics stuff, nothing flashy that might blow your mind away. So don't even start the "I'm a nab" thing..
The sockets you are referring to are actually widely used on desktop motherboards, only the package is usually different. Ours is DIP8 ... no SOIC8 actually, desktop boards use PLCC package and brown plastic sockets with contacts on 4 sides


So the socket you are looking for is (because the pins are flat and those have to be secured with a clip) :



@jkbuha
The "report" I have posted was actually from a user of a Clevo/Sager laptop.. so this may indeed be the case... the software may be propitiatory.

I can't for the life of me get my copy of FreeDOS cd to boot.. sits there with "No operation system found"
I've read moral hazard mention there's is resistor on the mobo which somehow is related to ME locking state, he himself was unable to locate one .. so eh.. go figure.
According to @Knenglish the binaries provided with FWUpdLcl are actually crippled and not full-fledged ME regions, they come strictly as an update..

This format lacks the clock config at the beginning of the file and adds padding at the end to match the proper file size.

I see more and more stuff added to flashrom in regards to ITE 8518 and W25 chips ..
http://git.chromium.org/gitweb/?p=chromi...b340809d3d
http://git.chromium.org/gitweb/?p=chromi...65a5646a85

Maybe assembling a flashrom binary is actually worth trying ?

---

lol .. found some piece of code by someone who writes Phoenix SCT ..
A Python for merge KBC(ITE8512)/BIOS image. (that's essentially to merge our 00000000h - 003FFFFFh: FD/EC/BIOS and 00400000h - 00420FFFh: EC inside the F33 RAW )

Code:

import os
import sys
import getopt

SIZE_64K = 65535L
MAX_KBC = SIZE_64K

def MakeFile(bios, kbc, out):
ft = open(out, “w+b")
fkbc = open(kbc, “rb")
ft.write(fkbc.read())
fkbc.close()
for i in range(SIZE_64K-ft.tell()+1):
ft.write(chr(255))
fbios = open(bios, “rb")
fbios.seek(SIZE_64K+1)
ft.write(fbios.read())
fbios.close()
ft.close()

def CheckFiles(bios, kbc):
if not os.path.isfile(bios) :
print “Error: Not found BIOS file, File:",bios
sys.exit(3)
if not os.path.isfile(kbc) :
print “Error: Not found KBC binary, File:", kbc
sys.exit(4)
if os.path.getsize(kbc) > MAX_KBC:
print “Error: The KBC binary size over 64KB, File:", kbc
sys.exit(5)

return 0

def ShowUsage():
print “""Usage: MBK [Option]
The program will embed KBC/ITE8512x binary into BIOS image.
Options:
-h, –help              Display this usage message
-v, –verbose           Show run step information
-b, –bios <file>        Bios image files, MUST assign
-k, –kbc <file>        ITE8512x binary, MUST assign,
the file size must less 64KByte
-o, –output <file>     Output file name
“""

def CheckArgs(argv):
try:
opts, args = getopt.getopt(argv[1:], “hvb:k:o:", ["help", "verbose", "bios=", "kbc=", "output="])
except getopt.error, msg:
print msg
print “for help use –help"
sys.exit(2)

verbose = False
kbc = “"
bios = “"
out = “outbios.bin"
help = False
for o, a in opts:
if o in (“-h", “–help") :
help = True
elif o in (“-v", “–verbose"):
verbose = True
elif o in (“-b", “–bios") :
bios = a
elif o in (“-k", “–kbc") :
kbc = a
elif o in (“-o", “–output") :
out = a

if not bios:
help = True
if not kbc:
help = True
if help :
SignOn(True)
ShowUsage()
sys.exit(2)
return bios, kbc, out, verbose

def SignOn(verbose):
if verbose :
print ‘Embed ITE8512x binary into BIOS v1.0 by KunYi’
def main(argv=sys.argv):
biosFile, kbcFile, outFile, verbose = CheckArgs(argv)
SignOn(verbose)
CheckFiles(biosFile, kbcFile)
MakeFile(biosFile, kbcFile, outFile)
return 0

if __name__ == “__main__":
sys.exit(main())

[TheWiz]

Hey guys,

Please keep me posted on the funds for kasar, the site can kick back a few if you guys come up short. Special thanks to jkbuha for putting that together.

The DIP8 chip sockets are pretty common, shouldn't be too difficult to install if its using a ZIF as in the photo or if you are halfway decent with the soldering iron.

TheWiz

[kasar]

@timewalker

well my electrinic is also basic, and I also made some small cisco courses and other stuff wich let me do small hacks and tricks.

this bios stuff seems a little bigger for me, but well, its good to have people like you wich show the correct path


oh, I see, so I will need to pick some of those

this is how the flasher looks now:


it would need to look like the one from the right ,without the flying wires ^^ (the one from the right was also a programer I made some time, but that one is serial based)



as for the flashing, I used a bootable usb stick with dos, it was nice to start fast the flashing machine, and dump the chip firmware there.

so as for my advice, if you want to do anything with DOS, try doing it on a usb stick, it have write access to make any kind of changes/dump

and it also allow to put different executables for each time you need it for a different project rather than burning CDs all the time.

doing a DOS bootable usb is quite easy

all you need is HP format tool, and the dos files to create the bootable disk.

this site explains it well

http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm

---

oh, I didnt notice from your post wiz.


huge thanks for all the help


well, my skills with the soldering iron are not great, but I think I will manage to do it if I already soldered and desoldered the chip like at least 3 times ^^

tomorrow I will call my electronic parts local store, and will check if I can get some chip mounts, and some extra parallel port so if I have to make another kind programer I will be able to.

I hope they will have also the bios chip, waiting to get them from internet can take ages :o

[TimeWalker]

uh oh ... I totally forgot to check the bad dump you posted. :O

---

Well it appears to have written the ME in the correct region, the firmware however is bananas ..
I guess using FITC wasn't a good idea after all as pointed out by @CodeRush ... there is some random data in place of FFs in the original good dumps and there sectors with the opposite - FFs in place of data .. so your laptop got totally confused.
Also it appears to have updated a part of the BIOS regions for some reason ? This may have been due to saving some settings (boot order and such ?) in BIOS setup.. I don't really know where is the BBL part in the bios region (the boot block which is used for start up and recovery initialization... all the boot mode switching technically) but it sure became confused (note the "Note Installed" strings) after this and saved some bs into the bios region.

[kasar]

well, that dump was before my laptop got phisically screwed (I think) because when I plugged back the restored chip after the bad ME update, the laptop powered on, once, then it didnt did anymore.

and while trying to access the third time to the chip, it started acting weird, unstable, sometimes detected as unknown chip, some others as 1mb or 8 mb chip ..., well, it was messed up, and it wasnt the wires, they were exactly the same and as short as when I did the good dumps and unlocked the descriptor settings.

like you said, probably the chip is fried, thats why I want to get another one, plus the chip sockets for the motherboard and programer.

I noticed you talk a lot about @coderush, I though you were talking about the guy who posted this topic

http://forum.techinferno.com/general-not...ptops.html

but he isnt I think, do you have the topic link where you are reading @coderush posts?

[TimeWalker]

Nah, not the same person.

I'm talking to him via private messages. He's active on overclockers.ru and hardforums.com .. but I prefer no to interfere in his threads directly because they are asus-related mostly.
http://forums.overclockers.ru/viewtopic....5&t=447045
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1726429

Here's his programmer project:
http://we.easyelectronics.ru/electro-and...t232h.html