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

[mruza]

HOWTO Unlock Hidden Menus

This was a really tough nut to crack, but perseverance pays off in the end. Essentially it involves the following:

1) Dump your AdvancedSetup.efi module (IDA, objdump etc) and parse it through the IFR specification provided by UEFI
2) UEFI IFR spec says: EFI_IFR_SUPPRESS_IF_OP: UINT64 0000000000000000
3) In hex, this translates to: 0A 82 45 8A (00) 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 45 0A
3) Change opcode to UNIT64: 0000000000000001 - replace the (00) above with (01). In my case there were two identical hex strings in my file, I just had to patch the second hex string.
4) Save module, repack with PhoenixTool, and voila!

Thanks so much for this!
The information helped me tremendously in unlocking all the hidden menus in the A12 BIOS on a Dell XPS L502X. Basically the only difference was in that I had to modify the PlatformSetupAdvancedDxe.efi module instead of the AdvancedSetup.efi (plus I had three occurrences of the EFI_IFR_SUPPRESS_IF_OP operation and I replaced all of them).
I'm attaching the resulting unlocked BIOS (A12 09/07/2012) for convenience.

[kasar]

@mruza

nice , however that plus other mods has been already done to the L502X

more info here ^^

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps...-more.html

[TimeWalker]

There was new vbios 2170 released, anyone tried it already?

Sent from my GT-I9070 using Tapatalk

[jkbuha]

Happy to patch it and give it a go if someone posts it here. In fact if it's good I'll update the first post with a couple of additional DSDT mods as well.

[jkbuha]

Upgraded to vanilla 2170 without a hitch.

Same patch table as the vanilla 2170, ie: same as vanilla 2158. However I recall that some people had issues upgrading to 2158 previously, so for that reason I am not going to upload the patched bios here. If anyone wants it (and *fully* understands the risks) he/she can PM me.

For all the others out there who don't have a 15z but want to try v2170, it worked well on mine, but you'll need to manually patch in your tables as per last time. Again; your best bet is to see what's working on your current existing Intel HD3000 vbios connector tables...

[kasar]

is there any performance hit or any new features worth of update to the 2170 intel vbios?

I updated mine long time ago using your method (had also to patch the connector table, else the miniDP port stoped working) but didnt noticed too much difference.

[jkbuha]

Here's the changelog between 2158-2170

New:
[DCN][3872820] Dynamic Media Refresh Rate Switching option added in VBT (Default Enabled)
[DCN][3826644] Support for EDID over SDVO-LVDS
[RCR][1024178] Chromaticity RCR: Added options in VBT for panels 1-16 for narrow color gamut
Fixed display port registers to use correct panel spec values during full link training when system boots

Bug fixes:
System cannot meet the Win8 Seamless Boot requirement with Intel VBIOS.
Internal display not lighting from Windows 7 or 8 install USB stick
[VBIOS]eDP T8 Value configuration on VBT doesn‟t work correctly
Screen corruption issue on RedHat linux
Boot display device combination is not following the definition with VBIOS VBT

[kasar]

oh, looks interesting, do you have the standalone 2170 vbios file somewhere?

also, it was a while since I updated and patched the vbios last time.

is this still being the correct procedure?

1) From your original v2104 bios, could you copy range 0xc20-0xd1f into the clipboard
2) Paste it into your new v2130/v2137 bios
3) Reboot & cross fingers.
4) If fail, boot through recovery & flash original bios?

[jkbuha]

Yes it would look to be the case. If you look at the code table just after the Ivybridge/Sandybridge copyright, it should be functionally similar to your existing table. If not, just patch n go

[jkbuha]

Sorry kasar - only now did I realise you also wanted the vbios as well...

I've attached a little pre-xmas present - all known SB/IB & Haswell bioses together with release notes. The only thing you need to add is four bytes at the beginning of the corresponding .dat bios file - you will get these from your existing working intel bios. Open up your existing file, and you will notice it has four extra bytes at the beginning of the file. Copy and paste that into the beginning of your .dat file of choice, save as the respective .ROM and repackage with PhoenixTool.

Again - this worked perfectly for me, but I cannot guarantee that it will for anyone.