[GUIDE] How to modify AMI MSI BIOS to unlock full features (UEFI Aptio4)

[pro.phantom]

Good morning/evening!

I explain here step by step how to modify your notebook BIOS to unlock hidden functions for an UEFI AMI Aptio4 BIOS.
This Tutorial was made using an MSI GS60 2QE Ghost Pro 4K, with MS-16H5 Motherboard (HM87), but it should be the same for other models carrying AMI Aptio4.

Things you need:
- Latest Original BIOS from MSI
- Rufus 2.xx (to create a FreeDOS boot-able USB) download from https://rufus.akeo.ie/downloads/rufus-2.2p.exe
- AFUDOS v3.06 (BIOS update utility from AMI for DOS with BIOS security bypass feature)
- AfuWin (BIOS update utility from AMI for Windows NT)
- AMIBCP v4.53 (BIOS Configuration Program)
- (optional) AMI ChangeLogo ( to change BIOS boot logo )

DOWNLOAD: http://rghost.net/86YPHPPZv

  BiosTools.zip (Size: 4.93 MB / Downloads: 7,782)

===
(optional) You can use my already modified BIOS with almost all settings unlocked.
If you do so, skip steps 5 and 5a and use 'mod.rom' included in zip to flash.
(it's BIOS version E16H5IMS.10F unlocked, should be used ONLY for the same notebook as mine)
If after booting you see MSI logo with Hello World Edition!, it was flashed correctly.
===


WARNING!! DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK, BAD FLASH CAN BRICK YOUR BIOS

STEPS BY STEP:

1. Update BIOS to the latest official MSI version.
Follow steps provided by MSI.

2. Load Optimal Default Settings in BIOS.

3. Boot to your Windows OS

4. Open AFUWINGUI.EXE to make a backup of your current BIOS image.
- Click on 'Progress' tab, then Click on 'Save' Button
- Choose where to save and put a name on it or leave it as afuwin.rom
- After completed, click 'Exit'.
- Save a copy of the backup to a safe place, just in case.

5. Open AMIBCP.exe (Where the fun begins)

- Click File -> Open, then select the backup saved on step 4. (afuwin.rom or however you named it)
- Just change Access/Use from 'Default' to 'USER' to every menu/sub-menu/option you want to unlock.
- After you changed everything you want to unlock, Click on the 'Save' button (overwrite the current, don't use save as)
- Now Close program, if asked you can select save changes again (doesn't matter).

5a. (OPTIONAL) Change OEM Boot Logo.
- Open ChangeLogo.exe, click on 'Load Image'
- Select thje modified BIOS already edited with AMIBCP.
- Click 'Save Logo'.
- Now edit it as you wish with mspaint, gimp etc.. but preserve the dimensions and format.
- To change it, click 'Browse' -> Select the edited logo, then click on 'Replace Logo'
(it will say something like: JPEG not supported, do you want to continue?. Click YES)
- Now Click Save Image as (overwrite current or chose another name you wish with .rom)

6. Create a boot-able USB with FreeDOS.

- Open rufus, select your USB stick and check create a boot-able disk using FreeDOS as shown in image.
- Click Start (it will destroy everything on the USB so use an empty one)

7. Copy AFUDOS.EXE and the modified BIOS to the root folder of your boot-able USB.

8. Make sure that the files where correctly saved into the USB stick (compare SHA-1/MD5 checksums, file size, etc..)
if everything is cool, reboot your computer. VERY IMPORTANT: Check that modified rom size match with the backup created in step 4, if mismatch don't continue you may be doing something wrong.

9. Enter in BIOS load default settings, in Boot mode select LEGACY. (this may not be needed)
- in boot order select USB Hard Disk (or hold F11 while booting to select USB stick)
- Save changes & Exit...

10. Now boot into FreeDOS.
- Select your keyboard layout.
- DOS prompt will appear, type dir to check that you are on the correct directory.
!!BEFORE TO FLASH BIOS!! Make sure your laptop is connected to the AC power cord. (also good to have just the usb stick plugged in, no other usb gear connected)
- To start flashing, type: (replace mod.rom with the name you saved earlier)
afudos mod.rom /GAN
- hit ENTER, it will start flashing.
!!WARNING!! If you get a warning about size mismatch or something similar DO NOT CONTINUE.Never flash if size don't match!
When you see Verifying all blocks ... done. and retunred to the DOS promt you then can Power off laptop.
- Push your poweroff button, then disconnect your AC Power charger and keep disconnected for some seconds (like 10seconds, this is only for laptops with integrated battery, if you can remove battery do it for few seconds, this it's also not needed in most cases)

11. DONE! Now re-connect AC power cord and power on your laptop, you should see your new Logo at booting (if you replaced it)
- Enter BIOS, now you should see all the unlocked menus.

12. Enjoy your unlocked BIOS and have funs!!
If if it was helpful for you, you can donate some coins if you wish.

Donate Bitcoin: 1H7AP8Zm69WXbqLWm6kK6rvSyCQsjiGTKi

[TheEvolution_PT]

Hey dude i have a huge problem after folowing your tutorial, i did as you said, i have an asus x551cap and i did everything as you said in your tutorial but when i got to the freedos i used the comand and it said do you want to force update your bios, if yes this il erase everything and i chose that option, after that it started erasing all blocks, and i thought well this il take sometime and i decided to go to my bed and start watching some anime on my smartphone, the problem is after sometime when i look to my pc screen it has all black, and i thought well maybe it's because it has completed the update, when i started to click on the power on button it did nothing, i then opened up the laptop removed the battery(not the cmos battery) and tried to power up the pc, but i didn't even have the ac led light indicator, so it means has it apeared that the laptop has not receiving energy.

I think it's prety much dead right? do you know some trick to reset the bios or even a trick so the pc can power up and then i flash the original bios? i read somewhere that if i try to remove the cmos battery and then put it again that the pc can power up?

One thing is certain i il never do this again xD but the problem is not your's it's mine i did something wrong and that tutorial has for msi motherboard.

[pro.phantom]

Hello dude, I'm sorry to hear that.

This method work fine on my laptop, I hope you didn't flash the mod.rom included in zip which is only for MSI GS60 2QE.

I don't know about your laptop, for me never asked if want to force bios update, it simply started erasing and then flashing (it took about 1 minute or less)

Did you have AC power connected during flashing? It's very important to keep laptop connected to power adapter.

You can try download original bios for your laptop, rename it to AMIBOOT.ROM and place it to a USB stick, then boot pc pressing some key i don't remember to recover but if your pc doesn't even power up (no led) you maybe have to RMA or contact ASUS.

[TheEvolution_PT]

Hello dude, I'm sorry to hear that.

This method work fine on my laptop, I hope you didn't flash the mod.rom included in zip which is only for MSI GS60 2QE.

I don't know about your laptop, for me never asked if want to force bios update, it simply started erasing and then flashing (it took about 1 minute or less)

Did you have AC power connected during flashing? It's very important to keep laptop connected to power adapter.

You can try download original bios for your laptop, rename it to AMIBOOT.ROM and place it to a USB stick, then boot pc pressing some key i don't remember to recover but if your pc doesn't even power up (no led) you maybe have to RMA or contact ASUS.

I il try that, i didn't use you're mod rom, the thing i did was downloading from asus the latest bios update and the i enabled some settings in amibcp, i needed this because of my tdp limit this pc had a ulv processor and once reaching the 11 wats the pc start to throttle down the graphics card and processor, the other thing i tried to unlock was eist and processor settings, i just changed that to user mode.

Then what i did was the freedos thing copied everything as you said to the root of the usb drive, and restarted the pc i tried then to flash the bios but it came with something saying that it couldn't update because the size didn't match, so i had did a bios backup first like you said to do, and then i restarted windows, used amibcp but opened the bios backup and started doing the same changes as i did in the original bios downloaded form asus website, so after that i did the same paste to the root of the usb drive, restarted the pc and enter the freedos.

Then i put something like this afuwin.rom /GAN

and the rest you already know

[pro.phantom]

Never flash if size don't match! That's why you got that warning asking if you want continue.

Also did you edit the bios directly from the original asus rom? Never edit directly as some bios have more than just the BIOS like the EC firmware and you can corrupt them easily.

Only edit with AMIBCP the bios image saved in STEP 4. (and make a backup of it prior to editing to the usb in case you need to recover your bios)

Recovery procedure is explained here: https://www.bios-mods.com/bios-recovery/...-recovery/
Now useless for you if laptop doesn't even power up.

I guess you damaged EC firmware which controls things like the AC power.
Try to leave battery removed for few minutes and press the power button to discharge any remaining power, and try again to power on laptop with just AC power cord and no battery.

I bet your last resort is manually desolder and flash BIOS and the EC (it may be the same or different chip, i don't know)
You have here service: https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/misc.php...hipprogram or buy a programmer a do by yourself.

[BDMaster]

Yes this one is right :

Never flash if size don't match! That's why you got that warning asking if you want continue.

I wrote into my Signature

About Recovery You are wrong as normal Bios region as a lenght and size this is correlated so
normal size has as many as adress offsets then longer one change all !
The most relevant Offset Address is HRV Hardware Reset Vector and It is the starting
Address location of the Bios Code so if We have flashed a Bios Region haveing added
at the head address some 0xFFh null bytes We will get a Bios prived of HRV and some
Codes Structure to makeing It valid to Boot or Recover even the BootBlock is good yet !
So only an SPI Programmer with the Clip can be used to rewrite back this Firmware !
Look here :

https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-R...5#pid74575

Regards

[pro.phantom]

Yes this one is right :

Never flash if size don't match! That's why you got that warning asking if you want continue.

I wrote into my Signature

About Recovery You are wrong as normal Bios region as a lenght and size this is correlated so
normal size has as many as adress offsets then longer one change all !
The most relevant Offset Address is HRV Hardware Reset Vector and It is the starting
Address location of the Bios Code so if We have flashed a Bios Region haveing added
at the head address some 0xFFh null bytes We will get a Bios prived of HRV and some
Codes Structure to makeing It valid to Boot or Recover even the BootBlock is good yet !
So only an SPI Programmer with the Clip can be used to rewrite back this Firmware !
Look here :

https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-R...5#pid74575

Regards

I don't go sleep without learning something new everyday.

Regards,

[llz]

Hi

this is my modded bios

i unlocked all the options in the visible tabs
updated lan orom and ucode

i would like to unlock chipset tab and its options

i found a tutorial but i don t want to break my mobo so i m asking your help

it s Aptio v 4
in UEFItool you can find setup as ASUSSetup

i extracted asussetup body
i skipped the ida part and edited setup.bin with hxd
my ifr has 6 tabs: main advanced chipset security boot exit
i looked for 01 01 00 01 01 01 and i found it
i replaced 00 with 01
so 01 01 01 01 01 01

is this correct?

thanks

[okieiam]

Good morning/evening!

I explain here step by step how to modify your notebook BIOS to unlock hidden functions for an UEFI AMI Aptio4 BIOS.
This Tutorial was made using an MSI GS60 2QE Ghost Pro 4K, with MS-16H5 Motherboard (HM87), but it should be the same for other models carrying AMI Aptio4.

Things you need:
- Latest Original BIOS from MSI
- Rufus 2.xx (to create a FreeDOS boot-able USB) download from https://rufus.akeo.ie/downloads/rufus-2.2p.exe
- AFUDOS v3.06 (BIOS update utility from AMI for DOS with BIOS security bypass feature)
- AfuWin (BIOS update utility from AMI for Windows NT)
- AMIBCP v4.53 (BIOS Configuration Program)
- (optional) AMI ChangeLogo ( to change BIOS boot logo )

DOWNLOAD: http://rghost.net/86YPHPPZv


===
(optional) You can use my already modified BIOS with almost all settings unlocked.
If you do so, skip steps 5 and 5a and use 'mod.rom' included in zip to flash.
(it's BIOS version E16H5IMS.10F unlocked, should be used ONLY for the same notebook as mine)
If after booting you see MSI logo with Hello World Edition!, it was flashed correctly.
===


WARNING!! DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK, BAD FLASH CAN BRICK YOUR BIOS

STEPS BY STEP:

1. Update BIOS to the latest official MSI version.
Follow steps provided by MSI.

2. Load Optimal Default Settings in BIOS.

3. Boot to your Windows OS

4. Open AFUWINGUI.EXE to make a backup of your current BIOS image.
- Click on 'Progress' tab, then Click on 'Save' Button
- Choose where to save and put a name on it or leave it as afuwin.rom
- After completed, click 'Exit'.
- Save a copy of the backup to a safe place, just in case.

5. Open AMIBCP.exe (Where the fun begins)

- Click File -> Open, then select the backup saved on step 4. (afuwin.rom or however you named it)
- Just change Access/Use from 'Default' to 'USER' to every menu/sub-menu/option you want to unlock.
- After you changed everything you want to unlock, Click on the 'Save' button (overwrite the current, don't use save as)
- Now Close program, if asked you can select save changes again (doesn't matter).

5a. (OPTIONAL) Change OEM Boot Logo.
- Open ChangeLogo.exe, click on 'Load Image'
- Select thje modified BIOS already edited with AMIBCP.
- Click 'Save Logo'.
- Now edit it as you wish with mspaint, gimp etc.. but preserve the dimensions and format.
- To change it, click 'Browse' -> Select the edited logo, then click on 'Replace Logo'
(it will say something like: JPEG not supported, do you want to continue?. Click YES)
- Now Click Save Image as (overwrite current or chose another name you wish with .rom)

6. Create a boot-able USB with FreeDOS.

- Open rufus, select your USB stick and check create a boot-able disk using FreeDOS as shown in image.
- Click Start (it will destroy everything on the USB so use an empty one)

7. Copy AFUDOS.EXE and the modified BIOS to the root folder of your boot-able USB.

8. Make sure that the files where correctly saved into the USB stick (compare SHA-1/MD5 checksums, file size, etc..)
if everything is cool, reboot your computer. VERY IMPORTANT: Check that modified rom size match with the backup created in step 4, if mismatch don't continue you may be doing something wrong.

9. Enter in BIOS load default settings, in Boot mode select LEGACY. (this may not be needed)
- in boot order select USB Hard Disk (or hold F11 while booting to select USB stick)
- Save changes & Exit...

10. Now boot into FreeDOS.
- Select your keyboard layout.
- DOS prompt will appear, type dir to check that you are on the correct directory.
!!BEFORE TO FLASH BIOS!! Make sure your laptop is connected to the AC power cord. (also good to have just the usb stick plugged in, no other usb gear connected)
- To start flashing, type: (replace mod.rom with the name you saved earlier)
afudos mod.rom /GAN
- hit ENTER, it will start flashing.
!!WARNING!! If you get a warning about size mismatch or something similar DO NOT CONTINUE.Never flash if size don't match!
When you see Verifying all blocks ... done. and retunred to the DOS promt you then can Power off laptop.
- Push your poweroff button, then disconnect your AC Power charger and keep disconnected for some seconds (like 10seconds, this is only for laptops with integrated battery, if you can remove battery do it for few seconds, this it's also not needed in most cases)

11. DONE! Now re-connect AC power cord and power on your laptop, you should see your new Logo at booting (if you replaced it)
- Enter BIOS, now you should see all the unlocked menus.

12. Enjoy your unlocked BIOS and have funs!!
If if it was helpful for you, you can donate some coins if you wish.

Donate Bitcoin: 1H7AP8Zm69WXbqLWm6kK6rvSyCQsjiGTKi

buggy ami flash
I have done update various Lenovo Phoenix SecureCore OK
But
Followed your guide and my laptop brick. Have it solder and reprogram by SPI for 10$

Asus X451CA.204
Amibios v4.6
07/18/2013
Procedure: AFUWINGUI read - save ROM
AMIBCP modding the file and save ROM
File size compare identical
in command prompt run AFUWINX64 /B /P /K
log
sucess... boot area
sucess... main area
etc..etc..
bla.....bla.....
........
Then BUMP, power off by itself
Then brick, no power LED, no HDD LED, no Fan noise, nothing
So to inspect, what is wrong?
tool+rom+mod

[BiosNoob]

Hey,

I modded the bios for my samsung rc-530 laptop using your tutorial. I only changed stuff that looked useful to me to USER instead of default (i want to disable iGPU and use an external gpu, also i want to enable cpu overclockability when i'm modding the BIOS anyways). I'm just wondering if i can mess this up? Like is it possible that i change something i shouldn't to USER and is messes something up?

Also i have another question. How do i know if i have APTIO 4?

Edit: Also one last thing. I'm using an external keyboard (steelseries g6 v2 if it matters) because my laptop keyboard is broken. Will this be a problem?

Thanks, BiosNoob