Acer Aspire TimelineX 1410/1810t/1810tz BIOS MOD (Insyde)

I haven't seen a modded BIOS for 1410/1810t/1810tz yet and I am wondering if anyone has any information or has the skill to unlock hidden menus on the Insyde BIOS.

I don't know how to unlock hidden menus in the BIOS, but I did manage to mod the DSDT table to add extra brightness levels. I have tested my modded BIOS on 1410 and it works great in Ubuntu Linux (should work on Windows too, haven't tried).

Default brightness levels: 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Modded brightness levels: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

I need testers to make sure it works on all systems.

More info here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...10t-1810tz-bios-mod-insyde-3.html#post8881932

 

Hi prikolchik

Nice to see someone modding the 1410 bios....
Im looking for a Mod to increase the VRAM for the 4500MHD to 128 or 256...
i need it for Adobe, few old games.... i dont expect any performance improvements though

 

Doesn't it have dedicated RAM and NOT shared? Oh, and mask89 over at forum.ixbt.com modded 1410/1810 BIOS just a few days ago.

Acer Aspire 1410/1810 modded BIOS v3314: by mask89
- Unlocked hidden menus Advanced and Power
- (not confirmed) Added UEFI boot support. Now you can boot via EFI Shell.
Download: Acer.TimelineX.1410.1810.ZH7X64.modded.BIOS.zip alternative mirror Links updated Oct 8, 2012

You can either flash from Windows with included files OR you can follow flashing instructions here. They are identical, except 1410/1810 proper BIOS name is ZH7X64.fd.

One you have flashed the BIOS, do the following:
1. Turn on computer and immediately press F2 to get into BIOS setup.
2. Once in setup, use arrow keys to navigate to Security tab. There you will see User Access Level. Use arrow keys to navigate to it, then hit Enter key and select Full. Hit Enter.
3. Use arrow keys to navigate to Advanced tab. There you go down to Video Configuration and hit Enter. How, navigate over to IGD - Pre-allocated Memory, hit Enter and change the value to the maximum 128MB. Hit Enter.
4. Press F10, select Yes and hit Enter.
5. You laptop will reboot and you should now have 128MB of video memory

I am not sure if that will work, but give it a try!

 

VGA memory is shared. Acer marketing declares the amount of memory assigned to the VGA as dedicated

Michael

 

This bios mod works. Tested it on my 1410 su2300. Changed the IGD - Pre-allocated Memory to 384mb. CPU doesnt use the full 4gb anyway. Thanks, hope it does something :O

 

Yes this works!! now my 1410 meets basic hardware reqs for Adobe, Armies Of exigo.... Thanks all!! It would still be interesting to see what more can be achieved with BIOS mods... now that the once popular 1410/1810 thread has all but died down...
-----------------
( Premature Celebrations!! The BIOS Flash worked, The options I wanted were there but there is no change in the RAM allocated to the IGP in reality. My lappy still can't run Adobe... even with the 384 MB VRAM ( as per the BIOS).

 

Did you follow the exact steps I posted above?

 

Im not sure i did it EXACTLY as u have listed the steps, but i did change the access level to FULL and change the IGP memory to 128 MB AND also changed the DVMT to 384 MB.

 

There is an additional area you can change it. Follow his instructions on page 1

 

Yes I have changed the options in all the areas after a full exploration of the unlocked bios features. What I am trying to say is even though the settings can be changed in the BIOS the Actual RAM allocated to the IGP is not changing in reality.

Armies of Exigo used to run on my old desktop with GMA 945 IGP but still says that the IGP does not meet minimum requirements despite the RAM allocation change in the BIOS.. By the way the game's minimum requirement is a 128 MB graphics memory...

Is there any way we can actually verify whether the GPU will actually use the extra RAM allocated?? Maybe the minimum RAM is hardcoded into the GPU bios and not the CPU BIOS??

 

( no replies...

 

Could somebody tell which new features do you get with the moded bios??

Thanks!

 

I think the IGP memory setting DOES work. You can see the change within Intel driver(Options and Support->Information Center->Minimal Graphics Memory) but still no GPU acceleration on Adobe softwares...

 

Sorry.. but i could not replicate your steps to see the Minimal graphics memory.... what driver version are you using?

 

Downloaded ZH7_3314_mod.rar from link in post #3. Winrar says "Unexpected end of archive"
Can somebody upload a working file?

 

Downloaded ZH7_3314_mod.rar from link in post #3. Winrar says "Unexpected end of archive"
Can somebody upload a working file?

 

Can somebody upload a working file? please

 

Added link with fixed file. Enjoy!

 

thank you very much. wow, it works. hmm but nothing with efi.

 

mediafire link is down too, can somebody please re-up? thanks

can't PM op. it guess it's a new user's restriction?

 

or can somebody help PM the op please?
thanks in advance!

 

OP hasn't been online for almost a month so there's no point PMing him now.
He'll most likely see your message when he's back.

 

Please re-upload the fixed file, thanks.

 

thanks for checking into this.
it seems that the op has been online but i guess he didn't check this thread. i still have no privilege to send a pm...

 

He's not, check is profile, he does read PMs but won't look after threads.

 

what can i tell from his profile? i only see that his last activity was on the 15th.

i think it's simply that the op didn't know we need some of his help here... i could be wrong, since i am just a newbie...

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/member.php?u=281114&tab=aboutme#aboutme
"If you have a question to ask me, please PM! I do NOT check threads."

Just managed to write him a PM.

 

Thanks for sending me a PM! I don't check forums any more. I was out of the country and had no access to the BIOS file. It has been re-uploaded. Cheers!

 

As for adding unsupported brightness levels, I managed to do it by modifying the DSDT table by hand (you have to decompile it, understand how it works, make changes, recompile). I then used PhoenixTool to build a BIOS image with my modified DSDT table.

Here are the changes that I had to do to the original DSDT table (click here)
Points of interest are:
_BCL: package that holds the available brightness levels. I added some new ones
_BCM(): function that gets called when brightness needs to be changed. I removed the 10% limit in the if-else statement
_Q8E(): Increase brightness one step. This is a function that gets called on Fn + right arrow. I added logic to handle both 1% and 10% increments.
_Q8F(): Decrease brightness one step. This is a function that gets called on Fn + left arrow. I added logic to handle both 1% and 10% decrements.

The tools I used:
- acpidump (Linux utility) to get the original DSDT table
- iasl (Linux utility) Intel ASL Optimizing Compiler. Used to decompile/compile DSDT table
- PhoenixTool - Windows BIOS editor to replace original DSDT table with a modified one in the BIOS image.

I have attached the file that has all the DSDT tables.
.dsl is decompiled source code file (human readable)
.aml is a compiled file (machine code)

I have tried many different methods of modifying the BIOS and only one of them was successful. Unfortunately, I do not remember which BIOS worked and I no longer have 1410 to test it out and see. One of you will need to flash to each BIOS file and see which one unlocks additional brithness levels. I highly suggest using Ubuntu Linux to test the new BIOSes as I don't think Windows will boot if DSDT table is corrupted.

Download all the BIOSes here: link1 link2
Please try ZH7_3314_SMALLR.fd first as I think that is the one that works!

I've flashed to all of these BIOSes and was always able to recover using the emergency recovery mode.

One you flash to a modified image, you can check if the new brightness levels are available using this Linux command:

Code:

$ cat /proc/acpi/video/OVGA/DD03/brightness 
levels:  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
current: 7

If that is the output that you get, then its working correctly!

I do not think you can use Fn+arrows to get all the new brightness levels in Windows 7, so please use Win+m to get the control menu and set the brightness using a slider control.

Let me know if it works!

 

Thanks for uploading the files! The "ZH7_3314_SMALLR.fd" works in windows, but only does 0-100 in increments of 10. As written in previous posts, the brightness slider does work for the 1-9 steps. The Fn keys do work for going all the way to zero now, which can be helpful. Now off to get a SU9600 installed in place of the SU4100...

 

Don't you have some other mirror please ? Seems that files have been deleted. Thank you.

 

Found this in IXBT forum
http://forum.ixbt.com/topic.cgi?id=17:38124:290#290

Mod BIOS 3314 for Acer Aspire 1410/1810 and Aspire One AO752

• unlocked the hidden tab Advanced and Power BIOS Setup
• Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Unlocked Technology ( EIST ) to Enable Intel Dynamic Acceleration (IDA) on Both Cores of A Core 2 Duo

Update:
1. fixed problem with the Boot Logo

Acer_Aspire_1410_1810_AO752_3314_more_options_IST.rar

 

My son is still using my 1410T. Thanks for the modded bios.

 

"Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Unlocked Technology ( EIST ) to Enable Intel Dynamic Acceleration (IDA) on Both Cores of A Core 2 Duo"

Could someone explain how to enable IDA? I went through the menus of the modded bios but could not find the option.