The First M17x R2 BIOS mod. Need suggestions for future mods.

Well to put it simply anything that is a BIOS is written in low level Assembly language, and can be manipulated with ASM or a Hex Editor. The actual BIOS code though is specific to the manufacturer. In this case, Phoenix is the BIOS source code company that writes the core, and then Dell/Alienware customizes the core to how they see fit.

 

001011101010101010100101010100101011010010010

/answer

Thank you TheWiz.

Where do I donate to you at ?

 

I sent mine in via bios-mods.com. Here is a link to the M17x thread, and he has a link in his sig. Good to see you around Moo

 

that's intense. i cant imagine trying to read that. I'm a computer science major, going mostly for programming, that's why i asked.

 

Pictures are up on the latest release bios mod. post 1 and 2

Download link will be available soon.


Testing for stability before release


Ant

 

I knew this could be done before and I saw some of the options but all my efforts were failures...

Thanks to him we are all happy now... because I certainly don't code assembly lang.

 

Thanks guys much appreciated. Still looking at a few more options that are kinda disconnected from all the new menus. Also, a HUGE HUGE thank you to user "kizzwan" here and on NBR forums who really helped shape the technicalities of it all.

TheWiz

 

Can I flash back to Dell BIOS?

The Warning scares me to death lol

 

I'm not risking nothing before I have instructions to make a recovery USB stick :°

 

I successfully flashed the MOD BIOS this evening for testing, and here are some of the screen shots from it. I won't be able to do much testing till Friday, but at least the flash went without a hitch on the first attempt. Since many are looking forward to this I thought I'd post some shots for you all. So far one of the things I see that I really like, is the ability to control the temp switches for the CPU fan. I'm hoping the next revision will have additional cpu voltage options, but it's still in the works. Be sure to do what you can to support TheWiz, and his crew as they are selflessly putting in their valuable time into this project, so that we can make the most of our system.

A few things come to mind. One, It's been stated that the CPU will throttle around 100*C. This in a way is true. I think that this is what Intel has designed into the CPU. However I always noticed that CPU throttling began at 95*C during my benching sessions. I never pushed the arguement because the numbers were close enough. Looking at the Passive cooling settings in the BIOS shows that what I suspected was right. The CPU is throttled by the OS at 95*C. I don't know why anyone would raise the limit on this, unless you have a death wish lol.

Also of note, the Thermal Data read is inaccessable in the BIOS. At least for now. It's just as well, as they serve to show you the CPU temps, so I wouldn't disable those either way.

Now for some screen shots.

Advanced Option Menu

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Thermal Config 1

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]

Thermal Config 2

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Thermal Config 3

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IGD-LCD

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IGD-LCD 2

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Memory Submenu

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PCI-E Menu

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Sata Control Menu

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Hope that answers some questions at least. Once again. Thanks to TheWiz and his crew, as well as those who pushed for this such as GoodStone, and Scook. This seems to be the dawn of great things and a good time to be an Alienware owner

EDIT: Last thing, Sorry the pics are tilted, I had the system running on my hotel TV when I should be packing, (Flight in a few hours) and since it's 1am, I didn't feel like getting off the bed to take the pics! lol

EDIT: See post one for link to BIOS MOD

 

thanks for all your efforts and wait for the final result, so excited...

 

Could you fix the "plugged in not charging" ? everybody seems to agree it's a bios problem, maybe it's possible to remove the requirement for genuine Dell battery/adapter

 

any updates?

 

The latest bios is stable. Thewiz is producing a package for bios update and Crisis Recovery if anything goes wrong.

We just want to get this right before releasing mod.

Also some more options menus to be added and overclocking functions available to all i7 processors and not just the extreme cpu's

 

what do you mean? multiplier and TDP unlocked for regular corei7 too?

 

Overclocking my non xtreme cpu sounds awesome !!!

 

Throttle state feature was unlocked on first mod. I havent had much time to play with it all. There is about 3 testers playing around with the modded bios.

A the moment i get the first test as i can recover from bad build then is passed to the others for testing.

Its the crisis recovery which is causing a little problem. For some reason the crisis usb can only be built from windows xp. It took 2 days to actually figure it out and get it to work. I have managed to make an image so it can be written in windows 7.

There is still a few items missing from the menu including some dell sub menus which have been locked up. CPU frequency options hopefully will be available to all i7's. Multiplyers will only be adjusted on xm's only i think.

Be nice see the backclock % up to 40%.......

It could be time to get my 920xm.

 

Plus voltage in excess of the stock 150mV

 

Cannot wait!! This is sweet.

 

No posting about donations. You want to do that, PM the OP or track it down on your own.

Thanks.

 

this sounds awesome

 

Just an update,

Thewiz is recompiling a new bios to include overclocking into all processors. Also he is producing a tool to automate the changes if and when Dell releases new bios updates.

Just waiting for the o.k to release the update. Sorry to keep you waiting.

As to recovery. I have found the crisis.zip which is in Dell's A10 bios will only work on WINDOWS XP. I have tryed creating it in windows 7/vista x86 and x64 without success. The files get written to stick but does not recover the computer.

If using WIN XP to create the stick the computer recovers.


PLEASE READ AND READ AGAIN BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO DO THIS. LINK BELOW IS FROM MAIN FORUM ABOUT CRISIS RECOVERY

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/404987-how-recover-bad-bios-flash.html


I would recommend that anyone wishing to start using the mod bios will need to create the crisis usb as fallback.

Ant

 

Hi guys,

Sorry to keep you guys waiting, I just want to ensure we get things right the first go around. Today we finished up the tool goodstone was talking about so we can better analyze the Alienware BIOS (complements of 400 lines of code and a small vacation)

So, Dan and Anthony will have copies of the BIOS in their hands tommorow to play with, now that we have the tools to ensure we are going in the right direction.

Thanks for your support and patience as always,
TheWiz

 

Thanks for keeping us updated Wiz. Can't wait to see what my 940xm can do let alone possible GPU support added

 

Sweet! Since it's obviously doable to edit the bios . . . why not in the next revision try adding support (or at least determining what support there is) for more video cards.

 

Thank you guys very much for all of the effort you've put forth. This is a huge break-through.

 

This is not a simple task, that is why it has not been done yet.

 

Hi guys,

I am sending off my last battery of tests now, should have something ready to go within the next 24hrs. (hopefully much less)

The first release for users will have all major options unlocked, including memory frequency and utilization of the CPU overclocking on non-extreme CPUs. I'll keep you posted.

TheWiz

 

Here are some pics of the new test BIOS. Opinions on the new available options would be great. Still working out some other kinks, but please give some feedback. Alot of the power managements that give you opions such as "511" allow you to make adjustments (power limit) based on 1/10th of a watt.

Performance options

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Platform Thermal Config

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Intelligent Power Sharing

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Intel Power Sharing Enabled

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IPS Platform Policy

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CPU Temp Limit

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MCH Power Limit

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Processor Power Limit

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Core Power Limit

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Run Time Interface

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Core Power Limit

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Run Time Interface

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Feedback?

 

besides the fact that some of those settings are unknown to me, but i think that can be addressed with some googling, are you running with an xm cpu, right? not with one i5 i7qm?

 

We are getting closer guys, last test in the next hour or so will be for the Memory Frequency option. Then I will release the package to you all and make that the official version1 so that you can get a grasp on the various options, and then V2 will focus on other tweaks other than the unlocked options.

TheWiz

 

Right now I'm running an i5 540M. The reason I have a 5% bios OC (Grayed out), was because I had a 920XM installed and didn't reset the BIOS. Currently working on allowing OCing for non XMs

EDIT: Non XM CPUs unlocked for the standard BIOS 1%-5% OC

 

We've had some success unlocking the BIOS OC options for non XM CPU's All thanks go to TheWiz. Below are your screen shots for proof

BIOS i5 540M CPU

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BIOS OC Menu unlocked

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CPU-Z Verification

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How high does the oc percentage go now? Is 5% still the maximum?

 

Because it looks like dell stripped the OC feature of values higher than 5%, for now the release will feature upto 5% Higher values are going to be looked into for future release. But this should give people something to play with in the mean time.

 

one could always use setfsb to bump up the OC beyond 5% when benching but during regular use 5% is plenty to get the job done. Of course built in support for beyond 5% would be awesome but I would rather they spend time on getting Video card support if any way possible.

 

^^this

i want 6870s and i want them now!
lol j/k but yeah i really want 6870's in my r2.

 

Hi everyone,

I am pleased to announce that version 1 is completed, and hopefully goodstone can update the origianl post soon. To find out what has been done in version one and to learn more, please visit the confirmed thread at our site. Hopefully this is the first step towards making an awesome series of updates.

Thanks and happy flashing,
TheWiz

 

Wow the work you guys have done is amazing. Once i get back home (only about 18000 miles to go) i'm really wanting to try this modded BIOS.

Have you all figured out how to make the Recovery work in Windows 7 yet?

 

We are still trying to get it working in Win7, but we will update both threads ASAP.

TheWiz

 

Sounds good man. I'll definitely guinea pig this, I would just feel better being sure i can recover in case a worst case situation happens

 

Is memory overclocking in this release?

 

Not this time, but that is in the works at the moment, still working on figuring that out. It should be out very soon though

 

Out of the six different BIOS images I have tested with Dan and Ant, not one has failed. (Some assurance) Also, the CRISIS disk is also some assurance.

Further assurance is that there are no modifications to the offsets of the BIOS, making the unlocked BIOS virtually the same size as the original, jsut with all the goodies unhidden.

We are working on the QPI options and memory frequency, the option is being quite ellusive atm. Meanwhile, everyone should get some OC joy in V1.

TheWiz

 

Post one has been updated

Just as TheWiz has stated, I have tested each BIOS version set for testing, and not a single one of them gave me any sort of trouble flashing. I flashed 15+ times during the testing and did so without a recovery (creating that tommorrow at work) and never needed a recovery. So rest assured it's as safe as it gets. But it's always a good plan to create a recovery USB just in case. Thats even true when flashing Dell BIOS' Happy testing and feedback is much appreciated!

 

For confirmation, I flashed to the V1 bios under regular bios flashing conditions (i,e, closing everything having nothing going on at all during flash) and then i did the flash in a chaotic environment i had almost everything the computer could handle running at one time, an i had no issues flashing. I did create a crisis disk however. nice to have the bios OC ing, avail. Thnx to The Wiz & Kizwan!

 

quick question. i never updated to A10. its still cool to flash this bios with A09? i assume it wipes and re-writes the bios, but i wanted to make sure.

 

I've also flashed the BIOS. It has WAY more options than I understand at the moment. Here go my dumb questions.

I have set the (or so I think) CPU fan to never come on until 95° C. The fan still runs on low speed like it did before. How do I enable this? Am I missing something?

Secondly, has ThrottleStop more or less been built into the BIOS? I see the 'tenths of a watt' settings. How does that correlate to the numerical settings in ThrottleStop?

 

thats what i flashed from the 1st time. Will be ok.

 

I also flashed from A09.