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

[kasar]

ty

well, I am not sure of the soft mod for this.

because they hardlocked those setings on porpose, and like we discused, it was annoying as h3ll to unlock this even doing a lot of efforts doing all those hardware mods.

well, I am also interested about how the HDA chip looks, probably many people will preffer just bridge 1 pin instead desoldering chips, and soldering sockets.

well, as for the moment I didnt got undervolt the CPU, I enabled all the options related to OC at the FITC (you guys have to give a look to the intel PDF, it explains well each option, it was relatively easy to mod it with all those docs.)

[TimeWalker]

Compared your me firmware to a stock 7.1.52.1176 binary which comes bundled with FWUpdLcl, zero changes what so ever. The common header (1000h to 37FFFh) is totally different now though, so there's no way this could be updated by means of software without breaking the chain of trust on the ME region... also this won't neccesarily suit other machines even with same chipset.

[kasar]

so, acording with what TW said HW mods are the only way to get it :o

well, I has been playing with my OC unlock

it seems I can only change BCLK.

if I go more than 105.34 mhz with clock reference, the machine crash.

so that seems the limits ^^

I gained following

stock

cpu 2.10 ghz
ram 1333 mhz
HD graphics 3000 (base profile) 650 mhz


OC

cpu 2.212 ghz
ram 1405 mhz
HD graphics 3000 (base profile) 685 mhz


as you can see , the OC is minimal, since I already did all the stuff, I will use it.

also the windows timer for games music and any other thing based on time got screwed.

to fix it I had to do:

* bcdedit /set useplatformclock true
* reboot
* run WinTimerTester.exe for 2 , 3 mins to adjust the time everytime I do the OC at winows startup (edit, not needed to run at the startup anymore, the value is saved any I set XTU to OC on startup )

so , as for you guys, the performance gain isnt probably enough to take your lappys appart and pick the soldering iron.

in my case I love any extra MHZ I can get, but it your case I am not sure, so your choice guys ^^



OC

[TimeWalker]

I would actually udservolt or underclock mine rather than OCing it, but its good to know you have finally figured a way.

[thorbsd]

Glad you finally figured out how to OC!

I don't suppose any of you guys have ever tried figuring out how to disable Optimus, or switch to using just the nVidia GPU?

I recall that the option was in the BIOS, but apparently it didn't seem to do anything.

[TimeWalker]

You can't just switch to nvidia as it only renders stuff and outputs thru uma, acts like an acceleralor and is not physically connected with lvds, but can be with other connectors (take HDMI on 15r as an example). Disabling nvidia completely can be done by means of dsdt, but we don't know how to reintegrate it properly to avoid black screen. But then again, disabling it may result in some port loss.

[jkbuha]

5% O/C seems to be on the low side. With Clover I can push up the FSB easily to 120MHz (with corresponding increase in performance) without any issues. True it's OSX - I still havent figured out how to boot Clover into legacy Windows without having to reinstall Win8 UEFI, but maybe the high o/c is because the i7 has a wider spread spectrum than the i3.

Just out of interest, not sure if you have OSX installed, but if not could you boot up a linux livecd and check if you can get higher speeds?

[kasar]

well

the only think I can tweak for now is the BCLK/DMI/PEG line, and I didnt saw too much people going over 105

for example

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1650/17/

also your i7 have turbo boost, wich let you to play a little with the multipliers I think, my I3 doesnt have that D:

I can only play lowering the ram frecuency at the bios lowering it, but I dont think the ram speed is limitating wich such low OC


take in mind even that minor tweak messed up my apps timming, and I had to use some tools to fix the timmings on windows.

and no, I dont have OSX

[kasar]

mmm, any of u guys interested in more ME firmware tweaking?

there are some stuff I read on the intel documentation

aparently there are two types of firmwares

production, and non production

I supose non production firmware is like pre production firmware with unlocked stuff.

my firmware dump (the one I sucesfully modded to BCLK OC) is production I think, while editing it, it seems to have lot of greyed options.

also, I have some questions.

what is the difference between BTM (Buffer Through Mode) and FCIM (Full Clock Integrated Mode) in terms of Overclocking?

my laptop is currently running at FCIM mode, I was wondering if is posible to change that mode through ME firmware and or descriptor, since I saw options at FCIM to change it.

well, I am happy with my BCLK unlock, but I was wondering if there are any way of unlocking more OC options like CPU dividers

for examples the ones asked at this post

http://hwbot.org/newsflash/1441_how_to_o...y_bridge_e

not sure if I can do all of that with my current chipset/proccesor

but I still interested on get out the max posible from this laptop and OC it to the max

[jkbuha]

Interesting article - seems also to explain why, with a locked ME you can theoretically clock up to 125-135MHz FSB, which roughly equates to what I found with Clover+OSX. Interestingly I also had the timer calibration issues you noticed - at 115MHz my system clock started to behave erratically and I had intermittent audio, so would be good to see if we can recalibrate on OSX as well.

As with TW, I'm more interested in undervolting than o/c'ing - my battery is starting to decrease in capacity, and if I decide to replace it I'll probably do that once we've figured how to reduce the base VIDs for our SNB motherboards.

Also over the last week my 1080p LCD screen has developed an annoying screen bleed which apparently is a known defect on these WLED truelife screens. It seems to be increasing so most likely I'll have to get a screen replacement as well - which brings me to why I've posted it here...if I find a cheapish 2560x1600 or 2880x1800 15.6" screen with a right-side 40" connector, using our new unlocked v2158 bios it may be a good idea to think about a naughty mod upgrade