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

[kasar]

@thorbsd

thank you.

well, I am being now very optimist with the new programer and sockets installation in the motherboard and programer.

just waiting for the new chips to flash and test, I hope that will bring my xps back to life and to modding path again

before it died my l502x was the only one with unlocked descriptor , I want to keep that


thanks, I hope motherboard replacement will not be neccesary, it would be really expensive and I would have to install all the hardware mods again.

[TimeWalker]

POC regarding wake issues in OSX has been confirmed by me today. There's no need to backport PlatformSmm anymore. Everything is purely DSDT-related. You will see an explanation here at some point. Basically memory region allocations are to blame.

And I've figured why I had brightness control issues - VBIOS v2137.0 from Lenovo's isn't playing very well with my Dell. I have reverted to using 2130 from Inspiron 17R SE and it has fixed the problem for good.

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The VBIOS issue I've encountered regarding brightness may be the cause of two recent brick cases with 15z.
So @jkbuha it's worth reverting a Dell-verified (?) VBIOS for Intel.

P.S. still no refund from pledgie. :|

[jkbuha]

hmmm. i'll change it to the old vbios then. I need to understand why this issue happened as it will affect any future vbios patching. it's working fine on my 15z, so this is quite a strange issue.

re: pledgie - the donation did never reach my account as by that time my bank started blocking all incoming payment from paypal - could you just check when it originally left your account so i'll send an email to pledgie/paypal?

[TimeWalker]

I guess the only way to know what's different between Dell's an Lenovo's videobios would be actually to compare same version of both. If there are changes for brightness controls .. there has to be more. But then again I recall Florin was saying that controls have reverted on his 15R with 17RSR v2130.0 .. so we are dealing with hit or miss scenario here.

Sent from my LG-P500 using Tapatalk 2

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Regarding pledgie:
Transaction Date: 18 November 2012
Transaction ID: xxx35378K2682342A

[jkbuha]

alternatively we could look around into dell HD3000 bios updates which actually have this vbios version to see what's changed?

thanks for the pledgie info - chasing it now with pledgie/paypal. in the meantime just keep checking your bank account to see if it has been refunded, as all the original donators that I know of have had their pledge refunded.

[TimeWalker]

Video bios changes massively (even connector table changes sometimes across different SNB VBIOS version) so the changes will be pretty impossible to identify. Comparing VBIOS of same version from different OEMs might give a better representation on what blocks of the VBIOS change depending on the OEM. I even use unchanged connector table from 17RSE, even though it doesn't necessarily matches my actual connector table per se.

The funds weren't even refunded by PP, so there's no way they're going back to my bank account just like that. Stuck in between accounts I guess, or were absorbed by pledgie... not sure how this works.

I had another refunded payment which is being processed by my bank establishment right now.

[TheWiz]

Congratulations on the work guys, your spotlight is up! Special thanks to TimeWalker for the writeup.

http://www.bios-mods.com/blog/unlocked-m...15z-l511z/

TheWiz

[kasar]

read the whole info, everything is well explained there

nice work guys

I noticed the l702x is missing from the list.

I made two attempts of create a recovery image for it, but it seems no l702x user was able to use them yet.

not sure if it is related with the machine itself, the image, or some user related mistake while doing the process.

here are the links if someone want to try them.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?kx0f80q9b8bmiv4
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?g7o84du8zkquntk



about the chips, I still waiting for them :/

checked today ebay since I was starting to worry about.


http://www.ebay.es/itm/190668544992?ssPa...1439.l2648

I bought the chips at 19/11/12

I read at the article info about the delivery time on Western Europe is 10 to 30 days

aparently I have to still waiting ^^

[TheWiz]

Hey guys,

Just to be sure links don't die and they are properly mirrored, please PM me if you want FTP space on our servers to store your files.

TheWiz

[kasar]

as usual, thank you the wiz

anyway, isnt this too much for the ftp server?

I mean there are several Cd isos like 68 mb each, and many attachments at this forums, wich are many and very split.