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Hi,
I bought a second hand laptop - Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED SA.
It mostly works as expected but it has an issue:
Whenever I make ANY change in BIOS, the built-in display remains blank but a display connected over HDMI works fine once booted into Windows.
Windows in this case shows that HD 630 video is not working properly so everything is output via GTX 1660.
The only way out this is state is to shutdown, disconnect the battery and CMOS battery for a few seconds.
After that the built-in dispaly starts working fine again (and after sleep, hybernated, shutdown) if I don't makr any BIOS changes again.
I suspect that a wrong unlocked BIOS was flasded into the laptop and based on what BIOS shows, from a different Gigabyte Aero 15 line - from Classic 15 YA.
Also, I see BIOS shows ME Firmware SKU as Undetified and I have a suspecion that this is the cause of the problem with the built-in display/HD 630.
Here are a few photos from BIOS:
I have a flash programmer CH341A so I can reprogram the flash but I don't know what I should reprogram it with as I understand I cannot just download the latest BIOS for the laptop model and write it into the flash.
Any help is appreciated!
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@kajuk
I dimly remember that someone was flashed a wrong bios into his Gigabyte Aero oled sa ,he seem flashed oled ya to his machine then some issue occurred. But he can't revert it because he don't have a spi programmer. There should a his request thread on this forum ,but right now i can't find it. He ever asked me how to solve this ,because of when the bios is ole YA ,the SA update tool will gave him a error message when he run it ,so he can't revert it to Sa.
(He said Gigabyte put a wrong bios update file on site ,but i don't think so.)
I'm guess you bought this guy's issues laptop ,why did i thought?
Because i saw the screenshots you provided , i felt this bios unlocked method is mine ,as i always unlocked three tabs only , they are Main , Advanced ,Chipset. This is not related in unlocked bios ,the mainly reason is the original owner flashed a wrong model bios. Didn't you felt it was very weird why does YA bios on a SA machine?
If you own a programmer , you should dare to try re-write the correct bios and include EC. First check the correct model name on motherboard then download bios form Gigabyte official site.
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Thank you for pointing me in the right direction!
It is definitely Aero 15 OLED SA as I disassembled the laptop. The motherboard is ga-rp75sa
I have a CH341a programmer so I definitely can flash it with the right bios file. Do I just grab the BIOS file from Gigabyte website for Aero 15 OLED SA and program it? What about individual information in the BIOS like Windows license and etc?
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Yes ,if you write official bios ,these stored information will be lost ,such as UUID,motherboard SN ,mac address..etc or something we don't know. I don't understand whether the windows license will lose ,so i can't give any suggestions to you.
This is a dilemma ,if you write the official bios , you may lose something ,but you don't do it ,the hardware issues will not disappear..
Another ideas ,if you could get a bios dump from other SA laptop ,it should contain Windows license ,write it back should still keep the windows authorization ,then think another methods to changes uuid ,sn ,mac adress to currently yours. This is not i skilled item ,you might need to learn how to do by yourself.
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What will be affect of lost "UUID,motherboard SN ,mac address..etc"?
Will they be reset o zeros or random numbers?
Will Windows complain about licencing?
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I actually got UUID, SN, mac address using HWINFO (don't know if it also should show Windows product/license key).
Can I move this data into stock BIOS file downloaded from Gigabyte website? Which tool should I use for it? AMIBCP or UEFITool? Something else?
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Sorry , i don't know. I mentioned i'm not skilled with this.
They may are dmi information or can be edit by hex editor ,search where they're stored in the bios then try to replace them.
btw you have to take a try by yourself.
Missing the uuid or sn may lose the official warranty ,it will some fill some default string ,e.g 12345678 or 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001.
Some mac address is stored in the bios ,like some ASUS mainboard ,if you lost mac address ,it will changes to such as 88-88-88-88-87-88.
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Thanks again!
Do I understand it right that I can ask for somebody else's Aero 15 OLED SA BIOS dump (locked or unlocked) with UUID, SN, Windows key, MAC obfuscated (replaced with XXXXs or 012345..) replace them with my UUID, SN, Windows key, MAC and flash it with CH341a?
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1. Text " To Be Filled By O.E.M." or "12345678" or 0000-000..etc is default DMI string by official bios you might see ,if you directly write the official bios. Instead of let you to fill these string......
2. Even if you could get a bios dump from another SA laptop ,you still need to research where were stored these information ,then you just can replace them. Then i thought that to replace Windows authorization is impossible by common user.(I don;t understood this so don't ask me.)
So ,directly use another bios dump but don't do any changes is also a way. (Directly write official bios is also a way)
3. Anyhow ,you have to try at first then just know the result. Only ask will not get anything.
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