Unlock HP ASUSTeck P2B-VT

[miki02131]

Can someone unlock the hidden features? Latest Version (1.16) of this Bios is packed in kest_116.exe and can be downloaded at:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=pv494en&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&os=54&product=57628

Thanks,

Miki.

[1234s282]

No Good im afraid

Cannot open the bios for modding

Are you sure its award?

My award/ami and phoenix tools couldnt open this

Sorry
Admin

[miki02131]

Hello Admin,

It's definitely award. Below is a display output from CBROM. Look at Segment 2. It says AWARDEXT.ROM. I think HP may have used some propritary or unconventional form of coding or compression to prevent people from using the full potential of this board. For example, the Via Apollo 133 Chipset allows for 1.5GB of RAM. Yet the Bios limits that to no more than 768MB. This board is capable of much more than what was advertized. It may even be capable of AGP 4x when they limit it to no more than AGP 2x. Take a look below and thanks for trying to help. I appreciate it.

CBROM V1.32 ©Award Software 1999 All Rights Reserved.

******** bios.rom BIOS component ********

No. Item-Name Original-Size Compressed-Size Original-File-Name
================================================================================
0. System BIOS 20000h(128.00K) 11A25h(70.54K) stn.bin
1. CPU micro code 08846h(34.07K) 04642h(17.56K) cpucode.exe
2. Other(6000:0000) 0C500h(49.25K) 05AF9h(22.74K) AWARDEXT.ROM
3. EPA pattern 00642h(1.56K) 002A1h(0.66K) awardepa.epa
4. ACPI table 01E11h(7.52K) 00B05h(2.75K) ACPITBL.BIN
5. VRS ROM 01F67h(7.85K) 012BCh(4.68K) cav_shdw.bin
6. VGA ROM 09000h(36.00K) 0533Ch(20.81K) tnt24.bin
7. OEM1 ROM 0C000h(48.00K) 07525h(29.29K) r128011.bin
8. LOGO BitMap 2583Ch(150.06K) 00A1Bh(2.53K) hpdlogo.bmp

Total compress code space = 31A25h(198.54K)
Total compressed code size = 2AE3Eh(171.56K)
Remain compress code space = 06BE7h(26.98K)

** Micro Code Information **
Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID
------------------+--------------------+--------------------+-------------------

[miki02131]

Hello Guys,

Nothing final yet but a small step to report. Noticing that the HP P2B-VT is an extension of the ASUS P2V-B, I use Award Bios Editor to replace the System ROM of the P2B witt the one from the P2V. I therefore generated a hybridized Bios Image. I flash the P2B-VT board with it. It boots several times very unstably and was unable to detect my IDE drive. Thus was unable to boot the OS. I wasn't able to enter the Bios Setup either. Luckily, I had backed up the working bios on second chip.

Truthfully, I didn't expect this technic to yield any result at all. It seems with more work, something interesting might come out.

Thanks,

Miki out.

[TheWiz]

This bios is using the old award binary 4.5, instead of the common 6 binary modern bioses use. i opened it up in the older modbin, but there's nothing i can access to edit the menu.

TheWiz