[UNLOCKED] Unlocking amd-v for Aspire AO725

[boulbi]

Yes a bit further down you have a whole block of strings used to provide for the different menus. svl7 has overwritten a few characters with his nickname.

Also at the very beggining of the module the header is changed over a few bytes it's most likely due to the CRC.

Those are all the differences between original setup module and svl7's setup module mod.

I was too lazy to diff the other modules looking for modifications and i believe it's technically feasible to include some sort of malware among all the other modules. Even though i belive svl7 provided a clean mod i prefered to apply the patch on the two jumps on a freshly downloaded bios update from Acer's website just to be sure.

Maybe you should consider doing same depending on what the machine is purposed for.

---

Also i think this might be the actual snippet of code inside the CPU module which enables SVM instructions by writting to bit 4 of C001_0114h #CR_VM.SVME_DISABLE register thus enabling write over bit 12 of C000_0080h #EFER.SVME finally allowing to use virtualization.

So probably a more targetted lower level patch could have taken place there turning on permanently the SVM feature:

(sub_CDAA4 and sub_CDABE being respectively a "rdmsr" and a "wrmsr" function)


See AMD reference architecture manuals for further details: BIOS and Kernel Developer Guide (BKDG) for AMD Family 14h Models 00h-0Fh Processors PDF – 01/04/2011

[AlexKidd]

I prefered to apply the patch on the two jumps on a freshly downloaded bios update from Acer's website just to be sure.

Share your result, if you can

[boulbi]

Ok so i had the time to redo this all over again cleanly:

- took stock bios 2.04 from acer.
- cut out the file to fit on 4MiB like described previously.
- extracted setup module "FE3542FE-C1D3-4EF8-657C-8048606FF670_2_265" with phoenix tool 2.12
- hexedited the module at offset 0x969: "74 59" >> "90 90" and offset 0x973: "74 4F" >> "90 90"
- replaced the original module by the modified module inside the bios, still with phoenix tool.
- reflashed the bios using Fn+Esc recovery method.

At the end the menus are all unlocked and only 4bytes were modified appart from the CRC which is managed by phoenixtool. As everything gets compressed in the process even such a small modification obviously gives a very different file from the original.

This method worked to flash two different Aspire One 725 using the same file, one was already updated to 2.04 and my other one was a stock 1.05. So it will work on any AO725 no matter what bios version it was originally.

It would also have been possible to dump the 4MiB bios directly from the running system but this would have included specific configuration and serial numbers thus making clones with every new flashed computer. Instead by taking the original bios you can generate a file that can apply to any AO725.

I hope every interrogations on that matter are now answered :p

[AlexKidd]

thanks for the istructions

[AlexKidd]

this thread must be marked as UNLOCKED

[aricart]

Thanks for confirming,



Moved to unlocked /mod

[MrRatio]

Finally I have won, we have won.

Hello.

I have AO725 with v1.05 BIOS. I flashed your modified version v2.04 and it works perfectly.

But version v2.09 has been released. Can you unlock them?

Thank you.

[AlexKidd]

I'm unable to mod the new version, I haven't the required know-how

If you want it (and you know what improvements are brought from 2.04 and 2.09) you can extract the ZHGBIOS.FD file from the exe (the method is described above in this thread) and submit it at users more skilled than me

[ssshadow]

Although 2.09 does not have a change log, from what I can tell at least two issues have been fixed. Under Windows 7 I had two problems with the old version. Seemingly at random after resuming from sleep, brightness would be stuck on 100 %, and only a reboot would fix this. In addition, I had random and rare reboots when going to sleep. So far I haven't encountered either with 2.09.

[MrRatio]

Modded v2.09 version by conghoaxa1.

- unlocked SVM support
- added SLIC 2.1 Acer

Tested, and works perfectly Flasher is also unlocked so upgrade from v1.05 to v2.09 is no problem. Just run InsydeFlash.exe.

Download



/update/

v.2.12 mod below.