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

[jkbuha]

guys we've collected Eur 87 so far (approx $100) - come on help us get some more!
please give as much as you possibly can in recognition of those who have provided you with the ability to push your machines faster than before!

[kasar]

@jkbuha

woah, the Donation thing is really working, cant thank you enough mate

@all

thanks for donations.

about the bios interchangeable chips designs:

I went to the electronic store today, they didnt had any compatible soic sockets D:

just had this kind of sockets for DIP



any chance where I can get the one you mentionated in previus page?












well, another option could be use some kind of converter

like





or well, another option could be to adapt the soic to the dip manually for all 5 chips




to make things clear, I made a crappy paint with MSpaint software




using this method you will need like 7 DIP mounts

5 to solder to the chips, 1 to attach to the mother board, and another one to attach to the programmer.

by doing this, the easy removable design would be nice too

[TimeWalker]

Dirty idea .. getting proper sockets online is probably a better solution. Will lurk around to provide you a link

[kasar]

oh, adeebm found them at the l502x modded bioses topic

http://bios-repair.co.uk/Products/SMD-Sockets.html

with this the whole thing would be easier


mmm, those adapters are a little more expensive than the DIP ones I saw at the local store.

and I ran out of budget after getting the chips and minor equipment for the programer I bought from the local electronic store.

would be posible to move at least a small ammount from the pledgie so I can get the sockets?

as a payback, I though about I can make extra LPT programers for you by soldering the stuff, and send them to you plus a extra SOIC socket to solder into your motherboard.

with this way you would have the machines ready to fully access your firmware.

let me know what you think

[TimeWalker]

The sockets are perfect fit into the breakout where chip would be installed, so even though they are not cheap they're well worth it.

This would end up being quite pricey
I'm actually thinking of getting the components and assembling my programmer myself, the only issue is that my chip is surface mounted, I don't know how the package is called, you can't see the contacts anywhere .. TFBGA possibly?
Oh, the irony ... I looked where I can get an LPT port or at least a cable locally and it appears nowhere lol.. they are extinct right here, so I may be building a serial-based programmer instead..

Also in process of filling my monitor's transformer and coils with epoxy because it started emitting a high-pitch static hiss when brightness is below 99% D:

Sorry, @TheWiz (if you are looking that is) for not putting up what I had promised .. had some stuff going on, will do by the end of the week.

[jkbuha]

Morning all

Guys we're at Eur110 for Kasar's Mobo replacement! Well done to all who contributed and thank you for your support!
Can we all push one last time before I close off the campaign?

Cheers
jkbuha

[kasar]

@jkbuha

thanks a lot for all the efforts you are doing mate, I really apreciate it

@all

thanks to timewalker, I made some deeper research about the hardware


I will quote my post from the other bios thread

@timewalker


I checked the pdf

didnt found anything related that port (well, the port were already unsoldered, maybe it was for a higher specs motherboard?)

anyway found something about the another windond chip W25x40vsig wich is 512Kb

just talks about the known one (W25Q32BVSIG)


however, I saw some other interesting info

it talk about some kind of 512 kb FLASH conected to the KBC (wich also have the keyboard and touchpad conected)

W25x40vsig




and also the known one, the one I dumped

W25Q32BVSIG





about the strange conector, it could be maybe some kind of bluetooth conector?






mmm, if this definitly the bluetooth port, maybe I can see another posible internal usb mod?

usb data + and data -


wiring stuff to this port should be really interesting to expand l502x capabilities

[Fawar]

Hey guys, have you achieve some secured way to flash the l511z?

[kasar]

@fawar

modded bios yes.

bios recovery is also working, so it is safe to flash bios.

anyway other parts of the firmware like Intel ME, or descriptor can just be modded by hardware based programers

[anscorp]

Hello all.

I need some help.
My notebook is not a DELL, but a Brazilian manufacturer called CCE (hm61 and i5-2410M).
He has a BIOS / UEFI Phoenix Tiano Securecore with menus blocked.
Need to enable UEFI boot to get my osx start correctly (actually also need to enable sleeping).
Extracts my bios with Phoenix Mod and found CFEF94C4-4167-466A-8893-8779459DFA86_1_941.ROM referring to platform_setup_advanced_dxe.efi. With the Hex Editor I found some occurrences of 0A 82 45 8A and 0A 82 45 0A, but already followed all of 01, ie, with the menus activated. (!?)
But the options do not appear. Very upset, I risking something that could eventually damage my motherboard. I dump CFEF94C4-4167-466A-8893-8779459DFA86 modded the rom posted here, I inserted in my bios, and flash my notebook.

The notebook boot ok. But upon entering the setup, I get warnings:
1º
Formset 78D3BC87-78A3-4996-B813-1844050889F7
FAILED TO LOAD STORAGE: SETUP. STATUS: 0x7.
OK

2º
Formset 78D3BC87-78A3-4996-B813-1844050889F7
Failed to load storage: DellVariable. Status: 0xE
OK

3º
Formset 78D3BC87-78A3-4996-B813-1844050889F7
Failed to load storage: SSDExist. Status: 0xE

4º
Formset 78D3BC87-78A3-4996-B813-1844050889F7
Failed to load storage: SioPolicy. Status: 0xE.

After that enter the bios normally, but when entering the Advanced tab, it takes a while but it opens with all options unlocked. But changing some option when I save the changes, I get the first warning again. But back to the setup option has not been modified.

Help me. I really want to have the UEFI boot enabled.

Follow my attached file if help:
  CFEF94C4-4167-466A-8893-8779459DFA86_1_941.ROM (Size: 256.81 KB / Downloads: 3)

TKS
(Sorry, but the text was translated and may contain errors.)