Lenovo IdeaPad 300-15ISK and 100-IBY BIOS MODs

[moriel5]

Hello, I would like to request BIOS mods for the Lenovo IdeaPad 300-15ISK and the 100-IBY which include (In descending order of immediate importance) :

1. Removal of the wireless card whitelist (I am planning to upgrade them in the next few weeks).
2. Unlock of the more advanced option (to tweak them for a bit more performance).
3. Enabling Hackintosh's native power management feature (I don't use Hackintosh or OS X, however I do experiment, so installing Hackintosh is on my to-do list).
4. Replacing the logo with the old logo (found in the older BIOS version linked below).

I'd like to receive a mod for the 300-15ISK first, and I am planning on getting an SPI flasher if needed.
Additionally, I intend to learn how to mod them myself (I have a Dell Dimension 4700 which I have begun to learn how to mod it's BIOS, however my desktop is currently out of commission, after taking a direct hit from something(I wasn't at home, so I have no idea from what)), so any help on that front is welcome.

Most of my experience is on the higher levels, being a Linux user who also mods his phone's Android ROMs (and hoping to move over to PostMarketOS in the future).

IdeaPad 300-15ISK latest BIOS: https://download.lenovo.com/consumer/mob...cn47ww.exe
IdeaPad 300-15ISK BIOS with old logo: https://download.lenovo.com/consumer/mob...w_ia32.exe
IdeaPad 100-15IBY latest BIOS: https://download.lenovo.com/consumer/mob...cn21ww.exe

[Dudu2002]

Hello, I would like to request BIOS mods for the Lenovo IdeaPad 300-15ISK and the 100-IBY which include (In descending order of immediate importance) :

1. Removal of the wireless card whitelist (I am planning to upgrade them in the next few weeks).
2. Unlock of the more advanced option (to tweak them for a bit more performance).
3. Enabling Hackintosh's native power management feature (I don't use Hackintosh or OS X, however I do experiment, so installing Hackintosh is on my to-do list).
4. Replacing the logo with the old logo (found in the older BIOS version linked below).

I'd like to receive a mod for the 300-15ISK first, and I am planning on getting an SPI flasher if needed.
Additionally, I intend to learn how to mod them myself (I have a Dell Dimension 4700 which I have begun to learn how to mod it's BIOS, however my desktop is currently out of commission, after taking a direct hit from something(I wasn't at home, so I have no idea from what)), so any help on that front is welcome.

Most of my experience is on the higher levels, being a Linux user who also mods his phone's Android ROMs (and hoping to move over to PostMarketOS in the future).

IdeaPad 300-15ISK latest BIOS: https://download.lenovo.com/consumer/mob...cn47ww.exe
IdeaPad 300-15ISK BIOS with old logo: https://download.lenovo.com/consumer/mob...w_ia32.exe
IdeaPad 100-15IBY latest BIOS: https://download.lenovo.com/consumer/mob...cn21ww.exe

Hi
you need SPI-programmer+SOIC8 clip

[moriel5]

Hi
you need SPI-programmer+SOIC8 clip

Thanks, I'll order one tonight from either eBay or AliExpress.

[moriel5]

Might these board schematics be of help for the IdeaPad 300-15?

https://mega.nz/#!d102lZAY!F8oVKiAhtuNeZ...Xk5fbhB2aI

[moriel5]

My SOIC-8 clips did not arrive the first time around, due to issues with the shipping company, however the second time (same listing, same seller) it arrived without issues, hence the delay.

I wonder whether I can use my desktop's motherboard's serial pins instead of a dedicated SPI programmer.

And correction, since I had updated the firmware on my father's laptop (the 100-15IBY) to the latest, I have decided that I'd rather the POST logo on my 300-15ISK with the 100-15IBY's POST logo (this is, of course, not critical, and I am not pushing for it).

[moriel5]

Huge update will appear in a separate post.

I have the SOIC-8 clips and a CH431A programmer, though I do not really understand yet how to use it very well.
Aside from that, and this will be in a separate post, after looking at the .text file within the .fd file from the last firmware IdeaPad 15ISK from Lenovo's website multiple times, I had a suspicion that I may not have a WiFi after all, which turns out to be true.

I still wish to mod the firmware, though, to unlock graphics memory (my recommendation is to set it to 128MB, any more than that does do anything in my experience) and memory overclock and timings, but more importantly, to update the CPU microcodes and ME firmware (I'll work on disabling ME later, once I learn enough to be able to do so correctly), and later down the road, flash CoreBoot.

[moriel5]

After going through the last firmware file for my laptop, the Lenovo IdeaPad 300-15ISK, multiple times, and not finding anything relating to the well known WiFi whitelist, I have started suspecting that I may indeed have no whitelist on my laptop.
My laptop was made nearly three years ago, and since then, I had updated my laptop's firmware whenever a new version came out (I am a former Windows user), so there is no possibility that any sort of whitelist, or lack thereof, would be limited to my specific unit, but rather encompasses all IdeaPad 300-15ISK and 300-14ISK users (they share the same firmware).

I had first had a Realtek RT8821AE in it, which caused me no end of grief on Windows, though on Linux, while still causing a lot of grief, at least it was mostly functional on (plus I got to help test testing drivers until it got stable), after which I had switched to the Intel Wireless-AC 3165, without realizing at the time that Lenovo even implements whitelists.
Later I had switched to the Intel Wireless-AC 7260, after upgrading my sister's laptop to the Intel Wireless-AC 9260, which worked without issues, as I had guessed, given it's release date.

Yesterday, after thinking the situation over, given my suspicions, I decided to test one of my Intel Wireless 9260s (I had bought an entire batch on AliExpress, Fenvi is the best supplier I have seen so far, plus their FV-102 M.2 to PCIe adapter is simply superb for WiFi) inside my laptop, and miraculously, I am typing this post, while connected to the network using the Intel Wireless-AC 9260, which was released over a year after the last firmware revision was released for the IdeaPad 300-15ISK and 300-14ISK was released.

This may or may not be a great step for Lenovo (I still prefer Dell though), however I would like to hear from all of you about Lenovo products with WiFi that were released starting from 2015, in order to verify whether Lenovo has truly stopped whitelisting WiFi cards.

[themacmeister]

I just bought an 8th Gen i3 Lenovo IdeaPad 330s-15ikb, I was kinda hoping it doesn't have a whitelist either?!

I guess I will just have to try it... if it works (BCM94352Z M.2) then I will Hackintosh the living cr*p out of this laptop !!

Cheers.

[moriel5]

I just bought an 8th Gen i3 Lenovo IdeaPad 330s-15ikb, I was kinda hoping it doesn't have a whitelist either?!

I guess I will just have to try it... if it works (BCM94352Z M.2) then I will Hackintosh the living cr*p out of this laptop !!

Cheers.

Hopefully it works, however there may be other blockers for Hackintosh, such as native power handling (I do not know much about hackintoshing, I had just read this over on the TonyMac forum, since I do need MacOS on the side, mainly for experience so I could service customers' Apple products).
And did you already buy the card? If not, perhaps you should first try an existing card from another laptop?
I personally use Linux, though I think that Intel WiFi cards should work well on MacOS, and you could order one from china for extremely cheap (if you ever think of using Linux, Intel and Qualcomm are generally the best on Linux and Windows, with Broadcom right behind them).

[moriel5]

I'm really sorry I had disappeared on you, @garek1979.

In the end, I do not remember what went on with my attempt with H2OEZE, however I did find a simpler way since then, SmokelessCPUv2's LenovoH2O-Unlocker.
Here is a link to the archived download page (as the original Github repository no longer exists):
https://web.archive.org/web/20240428080532if_/https://objects.githubusercontent.com/github-production-release-asset-2e65be/520846884/56fc5a7f-00d9-42cb-ada6-6ea8e7993951?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAVCODYLSA53PQK4ZA%2F20240428%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240428T080531Z&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-Signature=2f73ea55600bbf05b9a00045077e89ccb3580e849ea1a6d5d3c3d2a29ff4ecac&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&actor_id=0&key_id=0&repo_id=520846884&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B%20filename%3DUnlocker.exe&response-content-type=application%2Foctet-stream

For anyone wondering, this does not remove any whitelist, however it turned out that Lenovo stopped whitelisting WLAN cards with the switch to M.2 cards.