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

[jkbuha]

No issues at all. I've used the Speedstep OSX mod in Windows and Linux and it works fine.
Additionally you'll gain the benefit of using an updated Intel vbios in Windows, which apparently runs more stable than its 2104 predecessor.

[nebster]

Hehe, I know it may be stupid but...
How do you extract the Lenovo BIOS? I extracted all the files from the EXE but how do I extract files from the FL1 and FL2 images?

[jkbuha]

Andy's PhoenixDell tool

[mackyreddy]

Guys some more feedback with regards to L702x A.19 custom bios.

Windows 7 & 8:

With Latest Intel vbios update even with Microsoft Basic Display driver i am getting Full HD screen Resolution and definitely feels more accelerated even without Intel and Nvidia drivers.

Turbo ratios and Speed stepping both are working fine in Windows checked With Turbo boost app, hitting max 2.9 GHz on my i7 2630 QM and also idling out at 0.78 GHz sometimes 0.76 GHz.

Feedback With Regards to OS X:

1. Native speed step is working perfectly with turbo ratios 6699 on my i7 2630 QM.

2. improved graphics performance, rendering of photos is smooth due to intel vbios update.

4. Vesa mode now starts in Full HD screen resolution, before it use to start in 1280 x 1024.

5. Sleep & most importantly Wake both are working fine. Now this should make all folks with i7 2670 QM processor happy.

6. Brightness bar is now available under display settings.

TO Do List if possible and applicable:

On L702x USB 2.0 doesn't work natively on OS X, every time i add the EHCI Patch for sandy bridge processors using DSDTEditor-Linux-Mac-Win. If its possible to add this permanently to the Bios would be great. I don't know if u guys have this problem on 15 or 15z

If there is any probability to add USB 3.0 support naively to the bios would be great, As previously Doix tried with XHCI code injection into the DSDT. By the way have u guys tried the firmware Update for USB 3.0 on Windows ? it stabilizes the USB 3.0 functionality on OS X as well with the same PXHCD.kext.

Fn brightness keys are not working on OS X, i think its a common problem for all XPS laptops.

Regards

[TimeWalker]

My FL1009 usb 3.0 works out of the box in 10.8. You cant do anything in bios to make it work in osx.

The rest has been answered already.

Windows 7 fails to install because you have osx partition, not because you have a custom bios. Thats a known issue, i even have this happened on my desktop machine.

Sent from my LG-P500 using Tapatalk 2

[mackyreddy]

Thanks for the suggestion TimeWalker, after deleting OS X partition. Windows 7 installed fine.

cheers

[marstone]

hi, @jkbuha, i'v some problems about intel hd graphics 3k connectors, could u give me some help? i sent u a private message, coz there is little relation to the current topic. thanks!

[jkbuha]

Hey marstone - my pm's aren't working well. Re: Intel connectors I had published a long (and painful) series of posts on insanelymac and tonymac on the issues with the connector table. Eventually my problem was resolved with an EDID override for my laptop screen. But bcc9 did an even better job than I did on patching the connector tables for OSX and wrote a whole topic on insanely mac. Just have a look and let me know if you need any help

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Do we have any updates on unlocking the firmware descriptor region for ME? Having seen where all the developments are going this seems to be the lead with most potential. There definitely is a way of doing so (Dell does it, apparently so does Winflash) - so what should we be looking out for?

[TimeWalker]

every attempt at reintegrating dsdt into the bios has failed for me ..
even thought all the checksums are corrected by iasl and phoenix tool all I can see is a completely black screen.

i suspect that InitialProgramLoadDxe.efi has something to do with it. also .. when you change dsdt then rsrd/xsdt fails at locating it presumably and since IPL driver is sort of a layer between PEI and DXE, which is designed to do this 'locating' job (as per some description I was able to read on a chinese page.. which I can't find any longer).. it seems to fail at doing it's job ;\ And since it fails at this, then DXE core can't be started (only pre initialization modules seem to start).. those laptop remains sitting with a black screen...

[kasar]

I was wondering how different the descriptor file is different for all our machines.

I included my descriptor file and the tool to dump the descriptor file at this post as attachment, if posible let me know about if there are differences or if it is similar in all or most part of the content.