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

[kasar]

oh, thanks a lot!

it looks like I will have a lot of pending work hehe ^^

and yeah, installing a CPU socket on a motherboard isnt easy stuff, so if you dont have a friend with the required tools, I would focus on something else ^^
also, with the socket, the cpu would be a little more elevated, so you would probably need to mod the heatsink to work with the new environment.

probably the main difference between the 15z and the L502X is the thin design.

in the 15z, they sacrified some stuff in order to have a more thin design, that included the cpu socket.

thats why I choosed the L502X, I preffered more functionality than thin design, if I had more money when I bought it, I would probably choosen the L702X with a 555M GPU

[follow_me]

Little note about cpu miltyplier - there is no torubles with it if CPU has unlocked - we have a CPU settings menu (where "Fast strings" option is located) , there is option for multiplier , an you are able to change it if it is unlocked

about flash density - I think you should NOT change it
at this point I think we should have as little changes as we can , to know what exactly affecting system and not to decide which one from dozen changes prevents sysfem from boot

[kasar]

ok, I think I will start with the BIOS mods instead the bigger flash.

I will start with the plop one.

downloaded plpbtrom-0.6.zip and extracted exe and bin files. (I supose your rom file is just the output file from those ones including your vendor and device ID)

in order to got the vendorid and the device ID from my integrated LAN adapter (probably the one used in the network boot since I didnt saw any one working with the wireless minipcie) I went to the windows device manager and clicked on properties on the lan adapter, wich gave this.



VENDOR ID = 10EC
DEVICE ID = 8168

then I entered this command

plpbtrom.exe -vendorid 0x10ec -deviceid 0x8168 plpbtrom.bin plpbt.rom

the plpbt.rom resulted in an almost identical file from the file JKbuha sent me, there was some diferendes at the header of the file, so I supose the L502X and 15z have different ethernet hardware.

however, what is the PXE boot module rom name in your bios? %somename%.efi probably
or if posible tell me the size of the old file, that probably will help ^^

relating the bigger chip size, there may be another issue.
I didnt tested yet flashing the file, however, while looking for the PXE boot module, I found some suspicious module names.

(this one is the EC chip in my board)
W25X40FlashPartDxe.efi
W25X40FlashPartSmm.efi

MX25L3205DFlashPartDxe.efi
MX25L3205DFlashPartSmm.efi

(W25Q32BV this one is the one I installed a socket and dumped content to mess with the descriptor, BIOS and ME region)
W25Q32FlashPartDxe.efi
W25Q32FlashPartSmm.efi

W25Q80FlashPartDxe.efi
W25Q80FlashPartSmm.efi

EN25F40FlashPartDxe.efi
EN25F40FlashPartSmm.efi

EN25F32FlashPartDxe.efi
EN25F32FlashPartSmm.efi

W25X32FlashPartDxe.efi
W25X32FlashPartSmm.efi


wich make a total ammout of 7 entries per different chips.

there are 6 entries at the VSCC table of the BIOS, so not sure what it is the aditional chip.

maybe it is the small one containing the EC wich I saw in my motherboard. (yep, the l502x contains two flash chips, I documented it here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps...ost9508992)

anyway, in order to support bigger size chips, I think we will have also to do something with those files ^^

edit:

I am trying make the W25x40vsig (W25x40) to show up in FPT software, for that, I am editing the fparts.txt file trying to create a profile for this chip, but I dont know the values to add.
maybe someone can give me a hand? ^^ attached fparts.txt file

I think, it would be something like:
W25x40vsig, 0xEF3013, 0x400000, 0x1000, 0x20, 64, 0, 0xc7, 80000
tried it but the chip doesnt show in the list , only the W25Q32BV 4MB one appears :/

I noticed dell flasher is able to flash EC region, what I am trying is being able to access it, in order to backup it, and in case of need, modify it

[jkbuha]

however, what is the PXE boot module rom name in your bios? %somename%.efi probably
or if posible tell me the size of the old file, that probably will help ^^

Read my post again The filename of the plop rom (AD13024C-) is already renamed to replace the PXE rom. Just to double check your work; do a quick binary file search on which ROM files have 'PXE' in them more often, and the one that does (>20 times) is ~45k in size and is the PXE rom.

Interesting find re: W25X40FlashPartDxe....

[kasar]

ok, got following stuff working:

* intel vbios v2170 (patched the table and it works flawesly, external minidp and brigtress controls too )
* intel microcodes 0x29


* plop


anyway, I have some questions relating plop
this appears everytime I access the F12 boot menu or everytime I access F2 BIOS setup

also, network boot doesnt seems to work, everytime I enter in plop, and access network, it just reload the menu (it looks like it try to access the PXE boot, but since we replaced the PXE boot with plop, it just reload itself)


do this also happen to you?

I would like to keep network functionality in my machine.

if not posible, wouldn't be a way to launch plop from a hotkey like f9, like we did with the uefi shell from F10 hotkey?

after fixing this, I will focus on the bigger flash chip tests, however, there would be nice to check also the xxxxxxxFlashPartxxx.efi files , that could be part of the issue the BIOS doesnt show in bigger chips.

[TimeWalker]

Sorry break into this discussion. Anyone care to remind me about making integrated shell load by pressing F10? I think it involved replacing a fs drive?

Sent from Huawei 3C using Tapatalk

[kasar]

@tw

go to this page

https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-U...O?page=162

download ShellEnablerDxe.efi.zip from follow_me post

place the efi file into a usb stick and load it using the efi shell.

on reboot, you should be able to load the integrated shell by hit f10 key on boot ^^

the bad thing is that I dont know how to add this without the need of load the efi file, and also changes are loss if you do a cvar reset.

but well, it is better than nothing ^^

I also updated the integrated shell with a bigger size one, so it is nice to have it

[TimeWalker]

Thanks a bunch to both of you! Not sure how I missed it .. must've been really busy when this was posted.

Sent from Huawei 3C using Tapatalk

[jkbuha]

ok, got following stuff working:

* intel vbios v2170 (patched the table and it works flawesly, external minidp and brigtress controls too )
* intel microcodes 0x29


* plop


anyway, I have some questions relating plop
this appears everytime I access the F12 boot menu or everytime I access F2 BIOS setup

also, network boot doesnt seems to work, everytime I enter in plop, and access network, it just reload the menu (it looks like it try to access the PXE boot, but since we replaced the PXE boot with plop, it just reload itself)


do this also happen to you?

I would like to keep network functionality in my machine.

if not posible, wouldn't be a way to launch plop from a hotkey like f9, like we did with the uefi shell from F10 hotkey?

after fixing this, I will focus on the bigger flash chip tests, however, there would be nice to check also the xxxxxxxFlashPartxxx.efi files , that could be part of the issue the BIOS doesnt show in bigger chips.

Well done

Yes it has the same effect on my machine, but I'm assuming it supports network boot as I have patched it for the respective vendor & device ids (and importantly I don't have any way of testing network boot). If anyone does, please let me know.

[kasar]

I already patched vendor & device IDs, I also didnt had set a test PXE boot server, but I'm almost sure it doesnt work like it is, because with the PXE , it started waiting for the DHCP server and other stuff, and while entering on the network option in plop, it just reload itself, that makes me to consider if remove plop and load the default PXE rom.

EDIT: I think Plop is a cool feature we can add to our bios, but not at the cost of killing current working features of the machine, I think the best way to add it, would be to add it on the firmware and then link it to a hotkey like it has been done with the uefi shell, F9 hotkey would be interesting, what do you think guys?