(UEFI) Dell XPS 15z L511z modded BIOS - and HOWTO

[jkbuha]

lol good luck mate. if you manage to set up UDK to cross compile for Dell then share the VM with me - need to try out a few interesting efis meself :
happy hacking

[jwhirl06]

Would one be able to make these options stick when booting to windows and ubuntu at 3.4 GHz?

[kasar]

mmm, I has been trying some stuff with clover on a fat32 usb stick.









It seems to include a 1.2 mb uefi64 shell, it seems to have more stuff than the one timewalker send to me, if someone is interested I can upload it.

it also seems to to run in higher resolution.

well, about overclocking options, I didnt was able to modify anything via that menu, I edited some stuff at a config file, thats why it ask 2300 mhz instead 2100, but I supose that just text reading and not real Overclock

I also get stuck at the last loading screen, it is unable to load windows when I select any of the drives.

did you got able to run windows from this loader jkbuha?

[TimeWalker]

Clover is meant as an alternative bootloader targeted at booting OS X. For most of the people it won't load legacy Windows, since our BIOS is pretty much identical and I wasn't able to boot my legacy installation (and I'm already familiar with Clover ad other DUET-based bootloaders for some time ..), but UEFI Windows installation can be booted just fine I highly doubt you will succeeds. Besides the OC feature is just an illusion, it can crank up Turbo as an extra multiplier or even lock on the turbo multi .. but for your i3 it won't do anything.

Also, are you booting in a regular (boot) mode or UEFI mode (renaming CLOVERX64.efi as bootx64.efi ? )

The shell is v2.31 and it fails at some commands, like drivers, ls and some other for example. So even though it may seem like it has more options, our EFI 2.0 only supports Shell 2.0 properly.

---

I was able to setup UDK environment and successfully compile DUET and NT32, unfortunately I cannot provide any VM images because I had set it on my primary OS, not in a virtual machine environment. I had compiled BiosVideo.efi, but .. all I saw was a black screen, since the drivers has probably been altered by Phoenix/DELL to support nVidia Optimus/AMD SwitchableGraphics . It appears that only 3 default modes are allowed for screen resolution in preboot if no EDID data is found during the preboot phase.. even though VBIOS holds tons of resolutions
http://pastie.org/5089197
... the secondary part is meant for external displays only (VGA/HDMI) .. altering the mode data gives absolutely nothing because SystemVgaDxe controls what screen resolution to set...

Code:

//
    // Select a reasonable mode to be set for current display mode
    //
    ModeFound = FALSE;

    if (BiosVideoPrivate->VbeModeInformationBlock->XResolution == 1024 &&
        BiosVideoPrivate->VbeModeInformationBlock->YResolution == 768
        ) {
      ModeFound = TRUE;
    }
    if (BiosVideoPrivate->VbeModeInformationBlock->XResolution == 800 &&
        BiosVideoPrivate->VbeModeInformationBlock->YResolution == 600
        ) {
      ModeFound = TRUE;
      PreferMode = ModeNumber;
    }
    if (BiosVideoPrivate->VbeModeInformationBlock->XResolution == 640 &&
        BiosVideoPrivate->VbeModeInformationBlock->YResolution == 480
        ) {
      ModeFound = TRUE;
    }
    if ((!EdidFound) && (!ModeFound)) {
      //
      // When no EDID exist, only select three possible resolutions, i.e. 1024x768, 800x600, 640x480
      //
      continue;
    }

Snooping around for 00 04 00 03 in SystemVgaDxe had no positive results .. means VESA res of 1024x768 in bootloaders is what we are stuck with.

[thorbsd]

I've been keeping an eye on this thread since I got my XPS 15z, and all the recent activity is really exciting! Great work you guys!

I really hope you guys can figure out how to disable the integrated graphics or switch which graphics card gets used. I really want to use FreeBSD on this laptop, but the system just overheats by having both cards running at the same time.

I'm in med school right now, so I probably won't be attempting any flashing until you guys are a little further along, but if there's anything I can help with, I'd definitely try.

[DoiX]

Clover is meant as an alternative bootloader targeted at booting OS X. For most of the people it won't load legacy Windows, since our BIOS is pretty much identical and I wasn't able to boot my legacy installation (and I'm already familiar with Clover ad other DUET-based bootloaders for some time ..), but UEFI Windows installation can be booted just fine I highly doubt you will succeeds. Besides the OC feature is just an illusion, it can crank up Turbo as an extra multiplier or even lock on the turbo multi .. but for your i3 it won't do anything.

Also, are you booting in a regular (boot) mode or UEFI mode (renaming CLOVERX64.efi as bootx64.efi ? )

The shell is v2.31 and it fails at some commands, like drivers, ls and some other for example. So even though it may seem like it has more options, our EFI 2.0 only supports Shell 2.0 properly.

---

I was able to setup UDK environment and successfully compile DUET and NT32, unfortunately I cannot provide any VM images because I had set it on my primary OS, not in a virtual machine environment. I had compiled BiosVideo.efi, but .. all I saw was a black screen, since the drivers has probably been altered by Phoenix/DELL to support nVidia Optimus/AMD SwitchableGraphics . It appears that only 3 default modes are allowed for screen resolution in preboot if no EDID data is found during the preboot phase.. even though VBIOS holds tons of resolutions
http://pastie.org/5089197
... the secondary part is meant for external displays only (VGA/HDMI) .. altering the mode data gives absolutely nothing because SystemVgaDxe controls what screen resolution to set...

Code:

//
// Select a reasonable mode to be set for current display mode
//
ModeFound = FALSE;

if (BiosVideoPrivate->VbeModeInformationBlock->XResolution == 1024 &&
BiosVideoPrivate->VbeModeInformationBlock->YResolution == 768
) {
ModeFound = TRUE;
}
if (BiosVideoPrivate->VbeModeInformationBlock->XResolution == 800 &&
BiosVideoPrivate->VbeModeInformationBlock->YResolution == 600
) {
ModeFound = TRUE;
PreferMode = ModeNumber;
}
if (BiosVideoPrivate->VbeModeInformationBlock->XResolution == 640 &&
BiosVideoPrivate->VbeModeInformationBlock->YResolution == 480
) {
ModeFound = TRUE;
}
if ((!EdidFound) && (!ModeFound)) {
//
// When no EDID exist, only select three possible resolutions, i.e. 1024x768, 800x600, 640x480
//
continue;
}

Snooping around for 00 04 00 03 in SystemVgaDxe had no positive results .. means VESA res of 1024x768 in bootloaders is what we are stuck with.

About the OC part. I don't think it's an illusion, when i used Clover with a pumped up Bus Speed my geekbench score increased with around 3K, plus the time was reduced by roughly 15 seconds. This is the SS i took back then: http://i.imgur.com/C6ZHl.png and this is a recent one with Chameleon boot loader: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/16173714/cham...active.png
Of course windows was not affected by it since clover loaded the defaults.

About the VESA resolution: in the case of L502x, A06 bios allows bootloader resolutions up to 1920x1080 (if you're screen supports it) after A06 it's stuck to 1366x768, which also breaks waking up from sleep. From what debugging i did a long time ago the culprit seemed to be the graphics, they would simply die/froze.

[TimeWalker]

Hey DoiX,
I do realize that OC is somewhat working for OS X, but since kasar was trying to load up Windows -> no benefit in terms of OC.
And then again .. you have an i7 with a head room of turbo multipliers.

The sleep issue is definitely caused by EDK changes in S3Resume module, for Vostro 3450 it even breaks hibernate for Windows 8 - "System resumes from hibernate automatically", so they will have to release a new bios version to fix this. Similar changes presumably had been made to the L502x bios because it says the following in their summary - "System flashes a white screen when resuming from hibernate".

My laptop support only LVDS screens with a resolution of 1366x768, only 1024x768 for LVDS are found in VBIOS of HD3000... mind taking a peak at yours?

[kasar]

I used UEFI boot.

it seems that having an i3 its the main bootleneck for my system, also its a shame I cant OC for windows

it would be nice to OC at least a little the BCLK or the bus speed but since I think we already unlocked most or all of the advanced setup module stuff not sure if we can do this.

arrrggg, I want to oc so badly, on dolphin emulator (wich is almost only CPU performance related) I got arround 90-95% speed percent in some games, its almost there!, but it isnt yet ^^

mmm, another thing wich came to my mind is following.

one user posted on my other bioses topic and said if is posible to mod this bios in order to make this sandy bridge laptop to support ivy bridge proccesors.

theorically the bios is the only wall because the socket and chipset shouldnt be a issue.

I guess how we can do this, I saw older bios mods asking about cpu microcode update, is that the right way? or its something harder?

[TimeWalker]

Yes, it's the microcode update that is required .. but having a non-reversible module with such a crappy bios is a VERY limiting factor.
Basically we need donor bios which support Ivy bridge.. there is a new series of Vostro 3X60 which come with Ivy Bridge and HM77 chipset, but i highly doubt it will be Phoenix as well. Because from the vostro 3x50 range only 3450 and 3750 use Phoenix Tiano .. whereas 3350 and 3550 use AMI Aptio.

[kasar]

what about the L521X?

it is the new xps 15 (ivy bridge succesor of the l502x wich is sandy bridge)

if we could get a L521X bios, we may be able to get the stuff we need to mod the bios cpu microcode