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

[jkbuha]

Great work nebster - +1 rep! Can't wait to see a one-pass mod for each new bios that comes out

Had a bit of a scare now as I was experimenting with patching the intel vbios and mistakenly patched the wrong connector table so laptop booted in the dark. Thankfully I whipped out kasar's recovery cd, boot into recovery mode and flashed the replacement bios pronto. Well done kasar in creating a great automatic recovery tool! +1 added as well!

Now I'm back on v2104 until I figure out the following:

(i) why is text mode missing from v2143
(ii) what are the *minimum* patches to apply to new vbioses
(iii) where are the remaining goodies such as voltages

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http://a-dda.googlecode.com/svn-history/...j_64-1.dll

Thanks Florin9doi - rep added as well! Did you get my post re: what version of vbios inverted your screen?

[Florin9doi]

The brightness it's inverted. When I press Fn+F4, the brightness increase and when I press Fn+F5 the brightness decrease.

[jkbuha]

with my bios or did you add your own connector tables?

[kasar]

Had a bit of a scare now as I was experimenting with patching the intel vbios and mistakenly patched the wrong connector table so laptop booted in the dark. Thankfully I whipped out kasar's recovery cd, boot into recovery mode and flashed the replacement bios pronto. Well done kasar in creating a great automatic recovery tool! +1 added as well!

glad to know it worked for you

I decided to focus on the recovery method since we were messing too much with the bios, and as expected, sooner or later at least one of us would need to recover its bios ^_^



if u want u can add the ISOs for the 3 mentionated systems xps15, xps17 and xps15z at your first post, near the recovery keys ^^

here is the one for l702x (need to be tested)
http://www.mediafire.com/?kx0f80q9b8bmiv4

here is the one for l502x (well tested ^^)
http://www.mediafire.com/?z4lt1n56catjme6

about the 15z one, I dont have it, so if u can upload your modified ISO for the 15z it would be nice

[Florin9doi]

With unmodded file, the internal screen didn't works. After i changed the block between 0be0h and 0d00h the screen works but with inverted brightness. I'd like to know if I'm the only that have this problem and if the older vbios with 1366x768 vesa mode works in text mode.

[nebster]

@Florin9doi
Didn't someone mention that wasn't the correct offset in the end?

[Florin9doi]

I don't care about the offset. i'd like to know if exist a bios with 1366 vesa and working text mode and if for the others brightness is ok...

[Paralel]

I wonder if I can make a new BIOS ROM with the Intel Flash Image Tool, taking the pieces from the latest L502X, but subbing in ME 8 firmware for the ME 7 firmware?

[nebster]

@Florin9doi
I just meant depending on how you inserted the data there, maybe it's because it is inserted at the wrong offset meaning you're keys have been reversed somehow. Extremely unlikely but hey...

@TimeWalker
Are you sure @CodeRush's git code is correct (it didn't compile because of a merge conflict not being resolved fully but ignoring that). When I run it, it seems that some length values are being written one off. Have you tried the output?

I've pushed my changes anyway and uploaded a new windows version. It correctly recreates A17-A19 EFI BIOS's for L702X but won't correctly recreate the output from @CodeRush's tool. I'll soon make a way of patching the BIOS. Any preferred way/file format you would like for patching?

[TimeWalker]

Yes I did try th output. And another person with XPS 15 confirmed it as well actually. The program compiles and works without a hiccup even under OSX.
I had tried feeding A11 bios to it while staying on A04 myself and it fladhed properly. CodeRush pathes the PWM module slightly different, he nops the part which would otherwise be skipped after the 0xEB operand.
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