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

[twntysvns]

Yeah, I personally never would have updated with the 15z. One of my coworkers did while I had it up on the screen, while I was with a client. I was checking them both out, and he flashed without permission. Needless to say I am not very happy with him...

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[kasar]

yeah, bricking a laptop is not something to be happy at all ^^
I supose he will check twice the bios model in future before flashing

mmm, I feel a little bad for this, since this topic were initially for the 15z, but me and TW with different laptops joined also to this and shared our work.
and in my case, I am the guy with the l502x D:, that may confused people to DL the stuff from the first topic even jkbuha said clearly those ones are just for the 15z (and I think there was more bricks caused by crossflashing 15z bios into L502X laptops)

do the laptop is yours? a laptop you use at your work? or is is from someone else like a friend or a client? (just curius ^^)

another test I can try, is replicate what you did, pick one of the 15z bioses, flash it on my l502x to brick my machine on purpose.

I should be able to recover it.

however, the think makes me mad is that I was able to power the machine when there was no chip at all with the END key.

but twntysvns is unable to boot it with the END key even with the chip on board.

this makes me to worry again about the other flash chip located at the L502X motherboard (the 512kb one), the problem is, I dont have backup from that chip,spare chips, or socket installed on that place at all.

so if the 15z update messed something from that chip, I would probably be screwed too.

[TimeWalker]

Don't update /EC either and it will be unable to mess the second chip nor the boot block as said earlier.

The second one had the versioning string in proper place, so it should have read the numbers properly. Which may indicate that it simply does not support v8 at all.

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[kasar]

ok

just curius, what parameters you use for flashing?

I used those with my shared BIOS mods at the other forums

Code:

WinFlash /all /sa /sn /sd /sp /svs /sv /cvar BIOS1.WPH

well, as for ME8, is there any other test we can make? or are we screwed relating ME8 implementation?

remember me,my chips, programer,and sockets will be pleased to perform any other test you suggest.

[TimeWalker]

When I do just the bios mod attempts I use /BIOS /SA /SV /CVAR, but when I flash a full upgrade image I add /EC and /BBL just because I'm totally sure that it won't butcher the boot block or EC part of the firmware.
I currently don't have any more ideas on how to implement the ME8 into your rom, sorry.. but variations can be multiple.

I have 2 more exams left, on on the 9th and one on 14th, so I'm still kind of short with time since I've spend holiday season for other things then studying for obvious reasons

[CodeRush]

It looks like ME incompatibility either with BIOS or with chipset.
Both of them have such symptoms: unreadable ME version and inability to start ME.
It's sad to say it, but there is almost nothing to do in both cases.
If it's BIOS problem we need an example of Phoenix SCT 2.0 BIOS with similar structure and ME 8 support, which can be provided only by Dell, who simply don't care.
If it hardware incompatibility we need to replace chipset to IB-supporting one (AFAIK, they are ball-compatible) and new BIOS as well.

[kasar]

well, then I'm glad I didnt bought the ivy proccesor for testing, it would probably be just a big waste of money ^^

I also ran out of ideas, and about chipset replacing ....

well, that is crazy, I dont have the tools for that, it is imposible to do that with a soldering iron, and the process would be difficult, and also would require bios drivers moding like you said.

would be easier to get a entire new laptop since you are replacing the chipset

[TimeWalker]

It looks like ME incompatibility either with BIOS or with chipset.
Both of them have such symptoms: unreadable ME version and inability to start ME.
It's sad to say it, but there is almost nothing to do in both cases.
If it's BIOS problem we need an example of Phoenix SCT 2.0 BIOS with similar structure and ME 8 support, which can be provided only by Dell, who simply don't care.
If it hardware incompatibility we need to replace chipset to IB-supporting one (AFAIK, they are ball-compatible) and new BIOS as well.

Inspiron 17R SE (Inspiron 7720) had ME8 onboard, but I'm not aware what SCT version is being used on that one. Can't run shell on it to check for ver.
The flasher used there is different, because EC region appears in a different spot inside the RAW capsule (at the beginning instead of very end for previous gen, the rest is pretty much the same.). The string has to say the following: "Phoenix SCT Flash for %s V%d.%d.%d.%d Build %s..120717"
Looking at DellSmbios module it even has ru-RU locale which ours hasn't. I suspect it's 2.3.1 or something in between this and our 2.0 ...

According to what we read from the confidential Intel doc, the HM67 ie mobile Cougar Point can handle ME8 if OEM decides to implement it and there are in fact proper guidelines to do that.. but Dell doesn't really care for older gen machines.

[kasar]

mmm, acording to that image, If I am not wrong, it specify only sandy bridge proccesors can work under Mobile huron river

so even we get ME8 running at that chipset, the benefits wouldnt be very noticiable I think.

then I supose to bye bye to ivy proccesors on our machines then ^^

[jkbuha]

Happy new year everyone - old and new!

I come bearing new gifts, namely the updated Intel mobile vbios 2158. This one is a bit different from the rest as I've flashed the unmodded version as the descriptors looked similar to the 15z code and it worked fine. I still haven't been able to check if the HDMI and DP ports work fine, but the LVDS works brilliantly, and I've even noticed a good improvement in OSX/Mint.

For various reasons I'm not going to bundle it into a Dell Bios (do so at your own risk) but I've attached the unmodded file for anyone to try out.

I've also taken TW's advice and removed the /EC and /BBL params off the flashing process (also removed /CVAR as I don't want to have to play around with the BIOS settings all over again, but it's up to you really) and it has worked fine.

Let me know how it goes!