[request] Asus ROG strix G15 2021 (g513qr) BIOS unlock

[fragment]

Hi.
I'm using the G513qr, and the BIOS is locked of course. Can someone help me to mod the BIOS-file so I can open the "hidden menu". I want to play around with the ram timings and possible the ram voltage as well.

The file attached is for ASUS EZ Flash Utility

Best regards
Steinar

[Kugumin]

The file you attached won't help to mod BIOS. You need to dump it with FPTW

UPDATE: nvm, I didn't notice you have Ryzen CPU, not Intel...

[fragment]

Thanks for the reply.

Sorry for the wrong file.

So there's nothing to be done with AMD systems atm?

[BDMaster]

Hi friend, you can use AFUwin64 /O to backup your bios ...
Regards

P.S. Write to Sml6397 now is the best on AMI bios !

[fragment]

Thanks for the answer. Used AFUwinx64 for the backup. Gonna write to sml now =)

[Sml6397]

Thank you BDMaster and Kugumin and hello Steinar,

...Wow! Lots to unlock here! As such, this post will be lengthy.

The bad (delayed good) news first: There is an entire menu dedicated to all things overclocking: DRAM timings; voltage for CPU, graphics, RAM, etc.; overclocking/turbo for multiple different devices; and more. Very in depth settings here. This menu is called "AOD" (probably AMD Overclocking something). There is another menu dedicated to all things power-related called "AMD PBS". A third menu dedicated to various PCI device functions called "PciDynamic". And finally a fourth menu called "AMD CBS" that allows you to enable things like AMD Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO). It seems that this feature dynamically overclocks your CPU as much as it can thermally handle in one-thousandth of a second intervals. Very cool.

Here's the bad part of that good news: AMI UEFI (your BIOS type) normally stores most of its visible and hidden settings in a module called "Setup" (or some version of that). This module can be found by extracting the BIOS dump with UEFITool. Unlocking settings and menus within the Setup module is usually relatively simple. However, sometimes AMI UEFI has additional menus that are in separate modules, such as the CBS, PBS, PciDynamic, and - apparently - AOD menus. I've never seen the AOD overclocking menu before.

BDMaster and I are currently working on getting these "external" menus linked to from the Setup module so that they will show up in the BIOS Setup Utility. We may have had a breakthrough in the past few days. I'll let you know. For these menus, we may have to test several BIOS mod flashes.

That aside, there is some stuff I can unlock right now, including a Chipset Menu and a second more fully featured Advanced Menu. These two menus will contain quite a large number of settings, including DRAM timings. I will work on this for now. I will probably have this to you tonight.

I've attached the extracted IFR (Internal Forms Representation) text from the AoDSetupDxe module that contains all of the overclocking settings. You can browse through it if you wish. Menus and sub-menus are represented as "Form: [menu name]", while settings are represented as "Setting: [setting name]".

Look especially under menus like "DDR Frequency and Timings", "Manual iGPU Overclocking" (integrated GPU overclocking - still useful if you have a dedicated graphics card if you also are using DirectX 12 as it uses both kind of), "Onboard Voltage Controls", "DRAM Timing Configuration", "Manual CPU Overclocking", and more.

~Steven

[Sml6397]

Hello Steinar,

The first part of your BIOS mod is complete! I have made three edits:
1.) Unlocked the hidden second Advanced Menu. This one is far more feature-ful than the original one.
2.) Unlocked the hidden Chipset Menu. Lots of cool settings under here as well.
3.) Hid the existing Boot Menu and replaced it with a more feature-ful Boot Menu. I think it contains everything the old one does and more.

I unfortunately cannot give you an ETA on the second part of the BIOS mod. The second part will involve the unlocking of the aforementioned CBS, AOD, PBS, and PciDynamic Menus. These contains all manner of settings, including all of the overclocking settings a technical enthusiast could ask for. BDMaster and I are working on figuring out how to unlock these menus. We may have discovered something, but we will have to look further into it and eventually test it out (if you would be so willing!).

In the mean time, we can try to get over any almost-inevitable hoops we need to jump through to flash the BIOS mod (ie: unlocking hidden BIOS flash locking settings via RU.EFI, using the right program, etc.). We will start with AFUEFI.


Please follow the following:

1.) Format a USB Flashdrive as FAT32. This will erase all files on your flashdrive. Follow these instructions: https://www.easeus.com/partition-master/format-usb-flash-drive-in-windows-10.html#part2 BUT DO NOT TICK "QUICK FORMAT" in Step 3. We do not want to do a quick format.

2.) https://github.com/chipsec/chipsec/raw/master/chipsec/modules/tools/secureboot/Shell.efi Download this file. It is a UEFI shell. Create the directory /efi/boot on the flashdrive and then place the Shell.efi file there. Rename it to "bootx64.efi".

2.) https://www.ami.com/download/aptio-v-ami-firmware-update-utility/ Download the ZIP file. It contains AMI Aptio V flashing tools. Within that archive, navigate to afu>afuefi>64>AfuEfi64.zip>AfuEfi64> and extract AfuEfix64.efi to /efi/ on the flashdrive. Keep this archive, as we may need to use it later for different methods of flashing.

3.) Place the modified BIOS image in the /efi/ directory on the flashdrive.

You should now have the following three files on the flashdrive:
/efi/boot/bootx64.efi
/efi/AfuEfix64.efi
/efi/mod.rom*

*Substitute "mod.rom" with the name of the modified BIOS image.

4.) With the flashdrive inserted into a USB port, reboot your computer and enter the BIOS Setup Utility. Set the computer to boot from the USB flashdrive.

5.) Once you boot into the EFI Shell Environment, run the following commands:
fs0:
cd efi
AfuEfix64.efi mod.rom

Let me know if this works. If you encounter an error, write down *exactly* what it says or take a picture of it and upload it here.

[fragment]

Oh, thank you! Gonna try this later this evning. Have been away for a few days

[fragment]

Thanks for your help so far, but I'm stuck at the moment. Did what you said I should do, and even disabled secure boot in the UEFI. 

I also had to go to fs2 instead of fs0 to find my USB-disk, but that was no prob at all. 

But when I ran the flashing command I get an error 18: Secure flash rom verify fail. See attached picture. 

Steinar

[Sml6397]

Alright, we are going to try the method from the Annex section of this article (bottom of this first post) by Fernando of MDL: https://www.win-raid.com/t455f16-Guide-H...-BIOS.html

The files for Step 1 can be found at the bottom of the first post that contains the article ("Flashrom v1.2 Utilities.rar"). Ignore steps 8 and 9, as I have performed the relevant edits already. You can skip steps 6 and 7 as well, but more backups never hurt anyone.

Let me know if you need further assistance with this or if you encounter another error.