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

[TimeWalker]

Your current is 0x23, right
Your cpuid id matches, correct. Also the most adequate way of checking CPUID is by going to your BIOS.
The file you need to be using should correspond by cpuid -> cpu000206a7 and the latest date is obviously the highest version.

Giving this a try myself, thanks for the guide jkbuha!

Well, you basically take the cpu000206a7_plat00000012_ver00000028_date20120424.bin file which holds 23FFh bytes of data.
Opening up the F33 the ucode sequence starts at offset 358848h and requires to be 23FFh lengths (regardless of the current lengths, which for 0x14 is 1FFFh in size) to accommodate the new ucode size.
358848h + 23FFh = 35AC47h .. this is your last byte. This will definitely land in the ''FF zone" as mentioned by jkbuha.
So you end up replacing from here:


to this point ...


Unfortunately I'm away from home .. and without my charger, so my battery will die soon and I'm not in the mood of flashing while running on battery (can you even flash like that?). Will try later this evening ..

[jkbuha]

yes - same as mine.
The file to use is the one with cpu000206a7_platxxxx_verxxx_datexxx

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Guys quick question.

When you apply the step in (9) - could you check what version your microcode is at the moment, and verify that with aida?

[TimeWalker]

I did verify it and it indeed matches.

Code:

01 00 00 00 14 00 00 00 11 20 06 01 A7 06 02

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Drivers and BIOS have been updated over at Dell' Support page to support Windows 8, my laptop's bios went from A11 to A13, skipping the A12, the change log is just crushing ..

1. Fix issue when system resume from S4 (hibernate) automatically after upgrade to Windows 8
2. Fix the QuickSet compatibility problem on Windows 8

And none of the files can be downloaded ..thanks, lads ... When I get my hands on the actual file I will try to compare the S3Save and S3Resume modules (HexFiend for the win) to see if they had any changes.. in case they did, it must me a hint towards sleep issues in OSX.

[drkow]

This is a little off-topic but I thought you guys could help since this thread is very active.

The screen on my 15z is cracked and unusable, I've been using an external monitor while waiting for the replacement to arrive.

A while ago I put an SSD into this laptop and out of laziness I switched to IDE mode in BIOS instead of setting up AHCI drivers in Windows.

I accidentally reset my CMOS today, and now I can't boot into windows anymore because the BIOS is set to AHCI mode.

Could someone describe the steps required to set the BIOS to IDE mode? I can't see the BIOS on my external monitor so I need "blind" instructions for setting IDE mode and saving changes in BIOS.

Thanks!

[kasar]

ok, good news.

I was going to do the microcode update, but since that sound a little dangerous without a valid recovery method, I decided to keep working on the recovery method.

and I can say, I finally acomplished the recovery method

I'm making a all in one cd-rom image, so it contain the BIOS.cap file, but also all the required stuff such as basic OS, flasher and bios images.

I managed to recover my bios by using a usb stick with the BIOS.cap file in the root and the windows flasher folder with an older bios, I also added a little script.

but the usb stick was not enough, I needed to burn a bartpe windows xp disk, so I were able to boot it using the backup bios and pressing f12 during the bios boot to select the cdrom, when the basic windows xp got loaded, I was able to flash the bios and then manually restarting the system by clicking on restart.

while the system restarted, the flashing screen apeared and it repaired the bios

I'm now making a custom cdrom image so it can work without the need of a usb stick, so everything needed is at the cd-rom image
I will also include some scripts to make everything easier for naabs like me hehe ^^

now we can say the bios recovery feature is acomplished

I will upload the cd-rom image when it is done.

to customize the ciso for your machines, you will need ultraiso software, and basically replace the BIOS.cap,flasher + bios, scripts and some other minor stuff.

[jkbuha]

great work kasar!

let me understand this fully - so once this iso is finished you can boot a bricked laptop from the cd drive?

[TimeWalker]

kasr, make sure the ISO is made as per El Torito spec, otherwise it wont be detected. I'm holding off flashing the ucode-updated BIOS until I get my hands on A13 to see what ucode and changes it has.

Sent from my LG-P500 using Tapatalk 2

[kasar]

I just tested the whole procedure and it worked like a charm

procedure.

1- bricked laptop, my recovery cdrom inside the cdrom.
2- power cord unplugged, you press end button.
3- you plug the power cable, and then you relase the end button.
4- the bios start reading the cdrom, it load BIOS.cap file from the cdrom.
5- you have to hit f12 fast when the dell screen is at the screen, it will bring the device boot menu, then select cdrom.
6- windows xp is loading.
7-when you are at the main screen, click no on the network message box. then click the go button and click "Command Prompt(CMD)" open a cmd prompt. and type "repair" without the quotes, that will launch my main script (Dont close the CMD window, it still needed to reboot the system.)
8- follow the script instructions, it is a little modified script from my main custom bioses.
9-since the automatic reboot didnt worked for the winflash in that boot cd, my script will do it, just wait after the winflash window is closed and the system will autorestart.
10-black screen for some seconds and the flashing screen will appear , woot

I noticed I was unable to get this working by conecting the cdrom via the esata port, so I had to remove the second hdd caddy I installed and plugged the dvd-rom drive in its original location, then it worked like a charm





















and here is the download link of the image

warning: this recovery package is only for the l502x system, it you have another system ISO modifications will be needed!

recovery cd image: L502X BIOS Recovery package 1.0

here is the app I used to edit the iso file ^^

http://www.mediafire.com/file/gjomz3fenz...6.2750.zip

[kasar]

mmm

timewalker mentionated something in order to fix the sleep feature, since some users said the sleep feature is broken at the latest bios updates, I was thinking on doing the same.

those are the modules I found related

Code:

SystemAcpiS3SaveDxe.efi 2BDED685-F733-455F-A840-43A22B791FB3_1_114.ROM
PlatformS3SaveDxe.efi 51D4BACC-E70A-4136-9426-546973ED938C_1_892.ROM
PlatformS3Save.efi F5AC7057-5650-466E-B692-76A47223EFB0_1_887.ROM
SystemS3ResumePei.efi 8BCEDDD7-E285-4168-9B3F-09AF66C93FFE_2_1395.ROM

so, basically if I replace those A11 modules with the A06 modules I should get the sleep feature working back on A11 version, right?

[kasar]

cpu microcodes updated sucesfully to 0x28 from 0x23 previous version of the bios



do this mean the laptop have now ivy bridge support?

or I have to add another microcode file?

can we add more than 1 microcode file at the bios?

I noticed some microcode files are bigger than others, for example, the one I used was 2kb, and the size was exacly the same as the one in the bios (the next bytes were all FF FF FF ....)

the question is, how I can have a bios with support for all mobile sandy bridge and ivy bridge proccesors.