05-18-2013, 08:34 AM
Dear bios modders,
I would like to bring up this thread again, although the latest post dates back to August 2012. I would like to express my thanks especially towards AHMED HOSSAM for providing a modded bios by unlocking several hidden options in the phoenix bios. This mod works great for my Toshiba Sattelite A100 (PSAA9) laptop. However, I still miss two basic options in order to enable AHCI SATA mode for my new SSD and secondly, to change parameters for VGA Shared Memory.
In detail, I cannot use the AHCI mode of the SATA controller although I am absolutely sure that the mainboard should be able to switch to this mode according to the information from Intel. However, there is no option in the bios to change from IDE to SATA mode. For this reason, the controller is always locked to the IDE mode resulting in a very low performance of my new SSD. After reading a lot of tutorials in the internet and trying different solutions in Linux as well as Windows OS by using registry modifications and pre-boot parameters in grub2 (mainly with the command "setpci"), I couldn't succeed till this point.
Another problem concerns memory mapping: Although Toshiba showes on their homepage that 4GB RAM memory is supported for laptop model, I could only use 3GB at maximum, even after installing diverse 64bit OS like Ubuntu Linux 12.04 and Windows 7. In fact, in Windows 7 (64 bit) I see under Computer > Properties that the 4GB are generally recognized, but that only 3 GB are directly available, in fact. Obviously, this missing 1GB RAM is addressed to my ATI X1600 video graphic card as the output from dxdiag let suggest, although the video card was shipped with 128MB of dedicated RAM. But again there is no option in the bios settings to manage the VGA Shared Memory.
Could somebody help to enable these options in a new bios mod based on the one provided by HOSSAM? That would be great! In the following part I provide additional information for my system hoping that it might be possible to overcome the user-unfriendly bios constrictions implemented by Toshiba.
Thanks and best regards,
capricorn
Manufacturer: Toshiba
Model: Satellite A100-151 (PSAA9)
BIOS Type: Phoenix
BIOS Revision: 6.00-WIN
BIOS ROM Size: 1024 kB
CPU: Intel Core2Duo T7200 (upgraded by replacing a T5600 Merom chip)
Detailed Processor Information
Socket Designation: U2E1
Manufacturer: Intel
ID: F6 06 00 00 FF FB EB BF
Signature: Type 0, Family 6, Model 15, Stepping 6
Flags:
FPU (Floating-point unit on-chip)
VME (Virtual mode extension)
DE (Debugging extension)
PSE (Page size extension)
TSC (Time stamp counter)
MSR (Model specific registers)
PAE (Physical address extension)
MCE (Machine check exception)
CX8 (CMPXCHG8 instruction supported)
APIC (On-chip APIC hardware supported)
SEP (Fast system call)
MTRR (Memory type range registers)
PGE (Page global enable)
MCA (Machine check architecture)
CMOV (Conditional move instruction supported)
PAT (Page attribute table)
PSE-36 (36-bit page size extension)
CLFSH (CLFLUSH instruction supported)
DS (Debug store)
ACPI (ACPI supported)
MMX (MMX technology supported)
FXSR (FXSAVE and FXSTOR instructions supported)
SSE (Streaming SIMD extensions)
SSE2 (Streaming SIMD extensions 2)
SS (Self-snoop)
HTT (Multi-threading)
TM (Thermal monitor supported)
PBE (Pending break enabled)
Voltage: 3.3 V
Max Speed: 2048 MHz
L1 Cache Handle: 0x0005
L2 Cache Handle: 0x0006
L3 Cache Handle: Not Provided
northbridge: 8086:27a0 (i945GM)
Codename : Calistoga Revision : Stepping : A3
FSB max. Support : MHz RAM max. Support : DDR2 (667)
southbridge: SouthBridge : 8086:27b9 (ICH7-M)
GBM (ICH7-M/U) LPC Interface Controller
Hardware address of memory and SATA controller:
-[0000:00]-+-00.0 Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub [8086:27a0]
+-1f.2 Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7-M Family) SATA Controller [IDE mode] [8086:27c4]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I would like to bring up this thread again, although the latest post dates back to August 2012. I would like to express my thanks especially towards AHMED HOSSAM for providing a modded bios by unlocking several hidden options in the phoenix bios. This mod works great for my Toshiba Sattelite A100 (PSAA9) laptop. However, I still miss two basic options in order to enable AHCI SATA mode for my new SSD and secondly, to change parameters for VGA Shared Memory.
In detail, I cannot use the AHCI mode of the SATA controller although I am absolutely sure that the mainboard should be able to switch to this mode according to the information from Intel. However, there is no option in the bios to change from IDE to SATA mode. For this reason, the controller is always locked to the IDE mode resulting in a very low performance of my new SSD. After reading a lot of tutorials in the internet and trying different solutions in Linux as well as Windows OS by using registry modifications and pre-boot parameters in grub2 (mainly with the command "setpci"), I couldn't succeed till this point.
Another problem concerns memory mapping: Although Toshiba showes on their homepage that 4GB RAM memory is supported for laptop model, I could only use 3GB at maximum, even after installing diverse 64bit OS like Ubuntu Linux 12.04 and Windows 7. In fact, in Windows 7 (64 bit) I see under Computer > Properties that the 4GB are generally recognized, but that only 3 GB are directly available, in fact. Obviously, this missing 1GB RAM is addressed to my ATI X1600 video graphic card as the output from dxdiag let suggest, although the video card was shipped with 128MB of dedicated RAM. But again there is no option in the bios settings to manage the VGA Shared Memory.
Could somebody help to enable these options in a new bios mod based on the one provided by HOSSAM? That would be great! In the following part I provide additional information for my system hoping that it might be possible to overcome the user-unfriendly bios constrictions implemented by Toshiba.
Thanks and best regards,
capricorn
Manufacturer: Toshiba
Model: Satellite A100-151 (PSAA9)
BIOS Type: Phoenix
BIOS Revision: 6.00-WIN
BIOS ROM Size: 1024 kB
CPU: Intel Core2Duo T7200 (upgraded by replacing a T5600 Merom chip)
Detailed Processor Information
Socket Designation: U2E1
Manufacturer: Intel
ID: F6 06 00 00 FF FB EB BF
Signature: Type 0, Family 6, Model 15, Stepping 6
Flags:
FPU (Floating-point unit on-chip)
VME (Virtual mode extension)
DE (Debugging extension)
PSE (Page size extension)
TSC (Time stamp counter)
MSR (Model specific registers)
PAE (Physical address extension)
MCE (Machine check exception)
CX8 (CMPXCHG8 instruction supported)
APIC (On-chip APIC hardware supported)
SEP (Fast system call)
MTRR (Memory type range registers)
PGE (Page global enable)
MCA (Machine check architecture)
CMOV (Conditional move instruction supported)
PAT (Page attribute table)
PSE-36 (36-bit page size extension)
CLFSH (CLFLUSH instruction supported)
DS (Debug store)
ACPI (ACPI supported)
MMX (MMX technology supported)
FXSR (FXSAVE and FXSTOR instructions supported)
SSE (Streaming SIMD extensions)
SSE2 (Streaming SIMD extensions 2)
SS (Self-snoop)
HTT (Multi-threading)
TM (Thermal monitor supported)
PBE (Pending break enabled)
Voltage: 3.3 V
Max Speed: 2048 MHz
L1 Cache Handle: 0x0005
L2 Cache Handle: 0x0006
L3 Cache Handle: Not Provided
northbridge: 8086:27a0 (i945GM)
Codename : Calistoga Revision : Stepping : A3
FSB max. Support : MHz RAM max. Support : DDR2 (667)
southbridge: SouthBridge : 8086:27b9 (ICH7-M)
GBM (ICH7-M/U) LPC Interface Controller
Hardware address of memory and SATA controller:
-[0000:00]-+-00.0 Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub [8086:27a0]
+-1f.2 Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7-M Family) SATA Controller [IDE mode] [8086:27c4]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(06-29-2011, 07:18 PM)AHMED HOSSAM Wrote: Well , i have found that your dream requires some intelligence :D :D
after i have found all options and menus offests , i found that the menus called intel , cpu control , acpi and other menus have got some important options and others are information and useless one.
so , i haven`t linked any menus or options and i just unlocked some menus and moved some options :D
so , i have unlocked 2 menus called advanced and display .
also unlocked 6 new features and put them in the main and advanced menus ( Frequency ratio , thermal control , processor power management , DTS calibration ,Virtualization and Memory throtteling )
flash your bios and tell me if this works :)