Dell Inspiron 7537 UEFI, SLIC 2.1 request

[Exec360]

Alright, a few hours ago, I took apart my Dell 7537 and found some details about my motherboard...

The disassembly tutorial I used was very detailed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vI6kHlomao
Putting the keyboard cables back together was a painful process too... especially the illumination one because it kept coming out when I push in the keyboard. Be careful with them though... manufacturers/assemblers put yellow tape over my illumination cable before the computer was sold and it came off. It was not very strong after a while, so I had to use some of my own regular Scotch tape as I put it back.

Other than that, there were so many screws I had to remove, at least the size of them is labeled on the back and the PC only has around 4-5 different sizes of screws.

The BIOS chip is MX25L6473E* -- it's right near the main microprocessor with a bunch of text ("2010, 2012, 2017")... maybe they represent years? There's something on the bottom that says "25SPI" for SPI programming... how ironic.
There was no schematic of the laptop so I just had to find it myself. I knew what a BIOS chip looked like and searched through my motherboard for a while.

I also found some neat specs about the real chipset and found some other "swapping" chip... might be for the touchscreen part perhaps?
My daughter USB board had a mSATA port. In anticipation, I bought an SSD off of Amazon and cancelled it only to realize the mSATA port won't hold SSDs without soldering something to it. I quickly cancelled it after that. Stupid Dell!

This resource helped me, even though it's a shopping site... http://www.ebay.com/itm/141525276060
Every other laptop had Winbond BIOS chips, while this one had a Macronix one (MXIC). It was hard for me to focus on the chip with my camera, but I found it!

The chip is partially accessible through the back with the two holes. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND taking apart the bottom base though to be safe, so you don't damage it.
Remember to take the keyboard apart for those last two pesky screws at the top!

I looked it up and the chip is most likely compatible with the CH341A*!! (and the kind I'm buying anyway, the newer black version)

*The chip may be compatible with the software because MX25L6406E is also. Not sure though... I've also seen people have success with the newer version.

We can mod this BIOS together and free ourselves from restrictions! Thank you all for your support and encouragement!!

Pictures coming later (I am tired now...)

[Exec360]

As promised, here are some motherboard pictures. I found some great stuff under there! One picture is labelled with a partial schematic of the motherboard.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0rgmt1v1wvnr0...8OXaa?dl=0

[JJWW]

Hmmm... thank you for the detailed instructions! I actually already installed Win7 before on a new SSD, but I used an oem key instead of what is in my MSDM... I'll have to give this a try! Thanks!

I'll let you know how it went in couple of weeks though, as I'm leaving town for a while.

Cheers!

[JJWW]

Oh I didn't see the rest of the messages... jeez you're going hardcore with this modding. Pretty impressive! All I can do is wish you luck!

[Exec360]

@JJWW Thank you for the nice compliments! Have a great time!

Got my CH341A and some test clips. Writing works successfully.

Anyway... I modded the BIN file myself. Shoot! Now I can't upgrade or downgrade the Dell original BIOSes again! (I have a backup though, but I don't feel like going back to it now) At least it knows that it's a modded BIOS so you won't upgrade on your own by accident.

And at least my OS is working fine too... thank goodness. I have to use it for work tomorrow!

Result... nothing D:
I tried to remove all Dell information and unlock other tabs but that made the security check get all mad at me while upgrading.
NO WONDER this is called SecureCore!

Practice makes perfect... this thread will be continued in another thread. So many threads to keep track of!!

[JJWW]

Hey I'm back. So I tried what you suggested, using the key from MSDM, but it failed. I tried two ways, first just changing the key from the System Properties windows, but it did not allow me to enter the full key when I reached a certain character. When using the slmgr.vbs command after a clean install it simply said the key is invalid. So I believe it recognizes that this is not a win7 key. Oh well at least I tried. Guess I'm stuck with Win8.1/Win10 on this laptop.

[Exec360]

Well, good job. At least you tried!

In my opinion, I think Windows 8.1 is more refined and newer than Windows 7 which is why I still use it to this day.

To deal with the odd changes in 8.1, I use Classic Shell and Clover to bring back the old Start menu and have a better file explorer.

I am working on an advanced option unlock mod for the 7537 BIOS and I'm going to test it very soon. Hope it works! *crossed fingers*
(It requires an SPI programmer because of the Phoenix write-protection after POST)