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

[kasar]

yeah, I have that option allways enabled

It is also needed to have it in order to be able to boot clover.

EFI/BOOT/.... structure

[jkbuha]

Try this:

<key>LegacyBoot</key>
<string>PBR</string>

[kasar]

tried with PBR, then it get stuck even before the "operation system not found"

it get stuck at the white symbol



did you managed to boot your win7 64 installation with clover?

[jkbuha]

No mate - unfortunately I get the same freezing when I choose PBR, and choosing LegacyBiosDefault I get an error saying "Secure Tianocore" something. Booting UEFI into OSX works fine - even better than BIOS in fact.

My suspicion (and also validated by TW) is that it is due to our faulty (incomplete) UEFI Dell bioses or even possibly a limitation in Clover - unless someone can show us how to correctly *legacy* boot Windows and/or Linux.

Anyone?

EDIT: kasar - can you try booting with the USB drive inserted in the USB2 port, not USB3? I have a hunch...

[kasar]

so, then it is a BIOS limitation instead clover software limitation?

well, anyway I spent some time trying with clover before the xmas, thats why I started to think about hacking a module to hard overclock the machine (default values), OCing this machine CPU was my biggest priority while I started hacking the L502X BIOS, all the other hacks has been made because they were on the way, or also needed, like the recovery methods/cd.

but well, I still want to OC this machine, I doesnt care if I have to flash permament stuff at the bios, I have the programmer and also the recovery cdrom, I also am up for more hardware mods.


about the USB2, USB3, what do you mean?

I have one port at the left, one back, and one at the right side, I dont know how they are labeled.

or are you talking about usb 2.0 and 3.0?

the ones from left and back are 3.0. and the one from the right is usb 2.0/esata combo.

the one from the right is the one where the system load sucesfully the recovery capsule, I also plugged allways the clover usb stick there, and still no luck

I need to OC this thing so badly

my current proccesor is the i3 2310m

2 cores 4 threads, hyperthreading can be disabled thanks to the bios hacks we made.

however I am stuck at the 2100 mhz, if I would up it to at least 2300 or 2400 mhz it would be really nice.

I am a big dolphin emulator's enthusiast, and many games run at 90% speed, I just need a little more to make the amulation perfect

EDIT: is there anyway to send the money from the pledgie back to all people who donated?
and if not posible, would it be posible to donate it to this site?

I remember one of the greatest donations was from thewiz, and also it would be nice to support the forums we are using to make this posible

[jkbuha]

I have 3 ports on my 15z. 2 are USB3, and the other one is a USB2 port but is in the middle of the ESATA port. I guess they put it like that to save space on the thinner chassis. Anyway, when UEFI is disabled I cannot boot via USB from the USB3 drives (I get the Operation System not found error), only from the USB2 drive. Seems like you're getting the same results I am, unless we're both missing something...

[TimeWalker]

Dell has blocked booting of off usb3.0 non-external powered devices while in legacy BIOS emulation, for my Vostro it was as of A07.

[jkbuha]

Morning all

@kasar - I believe all the initial donors have had their money sent back from pledgie, but if someone still hasn't received their funds yet please get in touch so I'll raise a ticket with pledgie/paypal. Anyone who has sent the monies directly to capitainkasar will have sent them directly to you as well

And yes - because you reminded me - thanks again TheWiz for your support to this topic!

[kasar]

@jkbuha

ah ok thanks for the info
oh, and I also want to say big thanks to thewiz and all the other people who helped ^_^


ok, lets focus on OC.

aparently you was able to OC OSX by using clover (and improved results/stability with the new intel vbios probably)

however, while checking windows users (most of people I think), we still stuck.

some of the posible options I can see are

* hacking clover to make it boot windows 7 (I dont have almost experience with clover, and i dont know where I have to start with)
* PlatformSetup.efi/PlatformSetupAdvancedDxe.efi hacking (we found some overclocking strings there, however you mentionated they dont are linked to anything (maybe they are linked to other module? or idk, its a fact those strings are at the bios, and I am sure they had its mision, we would need to fix things to repair the feature))
* alter the default FSB/BCLK, I know this is risky, and crappy, but when there arent other posible solutions, it may be the only solution.

like I said, I am VERY interested on reaching OC capabilities on our UEFI machines, so I am up to test with anything.

[kasar]

ok, decided to investigate a little more

found following strings

(DellMfgBoardDxe.efi)

Press Fn-X to return the system to normal running mode
MANUFACTURING MODE: LEVEL

also started to read again this whole topic, I'm almost sure we are missing something....

like this post at the page Nº 30

@kasar - I have suppress code occurrences in two more modules:
166CD554-8AAE-4617-8FDD-A2E3A5AFD89E_1_1056.ROM: 2
4A538818-5AE0-4EB2-B2EB-488B23657022_0_4.ROM: 15

can you tell me what is the module name and size of your 166CD554-8AAE-4617-8FDD-A2E3A5AFD89E_1_1056 module, so I can locate it and pach at my l502x?

if you can, upload them too so I can watch them more closely

I remember we skiped that step because it was dangerous since we didnt had recovery mode, but now we have, and I have also the sockets & programer things, so I will take the risk