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

[kasar]

ok, tested it, and didnt worked D:

so aparently the alienware have bigger flash storage, I though they were the same :o

[kasar]

OK, some updates, I managed to dump my brother's laptop flash info.

he have a high end ivy laptop with the posibility of two GPUs in SLI

Managed to get the dumps by using MESET.EXE (to override descriptor security by software)
then used a DOS version of FPT to get the dumps


machine name: CLEVO P370EM


Flash units

EN25QH16 ID:0x1C7015 SIZE: 2048KB
EN25Q32b ID:0x1C3016 SIZE: 4096KB

I have following DUMPS

* DESCRIPTOR REGION
* BIOS REGION
* ME REGION
* FULL DUMP

the machine is able to run Ivy and sandy

the chipset is the hm77

since getting bigger size flash chips working on our machines didnt seemed to work, I think I will keep trying to get ME8 1.5mb firmware working on my machine.

I will try some tests, if someone wants to help and or is interested on give a check to the flash DUMPs from the other machine, let me know.

I also will send the DUMPs by private message to the interested ones.

[kasar]

ok, have some interesting news guys, I managed to get the ME region from the clevo, it is a ME8.1

I modified the settings in FITC to fit the ones from my laptop.
flashed, and guess what?

it worked

yes, the laptop is not only able to show things on screen, it also even booted windows.

I am posting right now from my l502x laptop with a ME8.1 firmware on it.

anyway it isn't perfect yet.

there are some stuff wich stoped working

In BIOS menu report unknow ME version

http://i.imgur.com/v0ndrO2.jpg

also XTU is unable to do OC anymore.

all menus are greyed out (even all my custom ME FW OC settings were also applied to the new fw, it doesnt even appear.)

I am also unable to get the ME version from the MEinfo windows app.

it seems that something isnt working, probably bios related.

however, I think this is a big success since this is the first ME8 boot working on a suposed "not compatible" machine.

so, I supose, now, there is only more bios modding needed to get the new ME working fully

here it is the ME region from the clevo, and my modified one from FITC with the L502X settings.

https://www.mediafire.com/?q436ttrlupcp76r

there was many people at this forum before with interest on ME8, I hope they still interested and watching this forum ^^

edit:
found this:

http://www.eurocom.com/ec/release%28137%29ec

laptop, hm67 and ivy bridge proccesor.

yep, it seems definitly posible to run ivy on our hm67 machines

[jkbuha]

What? WOW - great work kasar!!

You are the first official Dell SCT2.0 user who has (some form of) ME8 running on our machines!

Can you do a full stats dump with CCTWIN, MEInfo etc?

I'm away from the 15z this week but will aim to flash this by the weekend to see what results I get on my machine.

Awesome work again mate

[Florin9doi]

ok, have some interesting news guys, I managed to get the ME region from the clevo, it is a ME8.1

I modified the settings in FITC to fit the ones from my laptop.
flashed, and guess what?

it worked

yes, the laptop is not only able to show things on screen, it also even booted windows.

I am posting right now from my l502x laptop with a ME8.1 firmware on it.

anyway it isn't perfect yet.

there are some stuff wich stoped working

In BIOS menu report unknow ME version

http://i.imgur.com/v0ndrO2.jpg

also XTU is unable to do OC anymore.

all menus are greyed out (even all my custom ME FW OC settings were also applied to the new fw, it doesnt even appear.)

I am also unable to get the ME version from the MEinfo windows app.

it seems that something isnt working, probably bios related.

however, I think this is a big success since this is the first ME8 boot working on a suposed "not compatible" machine.

so, I supose, now, there is only more bios modding needed to get the new ME working fully

here it is the ME region from the clevo, and my modified one from FITC with the L502X settings.

https://www.mediafire.com/?q436ttrlupcp76r

there was many people at this forum before with interest on ME8, I hope they still interested and watching this forum ^^

edit:
found this:

http://www.eurocom.com/ec/release%28137%29ec

laptop, hm67 and ivy bridge proccesor.

yep, it seems definitly posible to run ivy on our hm67 machines

you can completly erase ME firmware and you'll have same result

[jkbuha]

Ah of course - we had the same results a year ago when we had incorrectly flashed the ME 7.1 firmware.

Back to square one then.

[kasar]

what?

I though ME was needed to boot the machine up. (got the machine bricked some times some time ago due some bad ME images.)

about CCT and other stuff, it just didnt worked, said ME comunication errors.

well, the furthest I went before, were black screen, or just splash screen without being able to boot, do this mean .... I just wasted my time?

[jkbuha]

Never wasting time - just one small step at a time

Florin9doi was right about ME wiping having the same effect - though you do raise an interesting point. From my experience, when the machine bricks up it is mainly because (i) the base ME layer is working well, but (ii) some ME settings are wrong, such as the incorrect PLL setting to define base FSB etc.

[kasar]

well, restored to the last FPT working me7 flash dump, my ME7 firmware is back to working status ...

anyway, I still dont get why the laptop is able to boot with a whole blank/emty ME region like you said and still working.

wasnt the ME a important firmware part wich allowed the system to boot up properly?

also, I have read on thousand parts that MEx is a must have to run y proccesors



another thing, what do you think about this?

http://web.eurocom.com/ec/ec_reviews%28229%29ec

maybe a typing error?
or a real hm67 laptop running ivy proccesors?

edit:
this topic also looks interesting

http://www.win-raid.com/t372f39-Possible...on-HM.html

specially at this part

IIRC changing just the ME Firmware from 7 to 8 is not enough. The BIOS drivers used for the ME firmware need to be updated too in order for the BIOS to be able to communicate with the ME Firmware. For IVB support there would need to be a lot of modifications to other modules. Microcode itself is not so important, this is just an update to fix errata for the CPU and add or remove special features. Technically the CPU should run without any microcode update, if it halts on lack of it then it is most likely the BIOS refusing to continue rather than the CPU not being able to operate. I have run a desktop and laptop successfully before without any microcode update.

that could be the reason the bios report 0.0.0.0 unknow ME version.

does anyone know wich modules I would need to replace?

[jkbuha]

Nice post on that forum kasar

Have you downloaded their modified mobile QM67 firmware - it would be good to gauge which other modules (other than the ME region) have been changed to support ME8.