L502X modded bioses download (GPU voltages and more!)

@sign0ff
sure, I will update this if I mod more stuff ^^

let me know if you get the 1080p screen working with the info from those topics ^^

@gunnix
didnt tested the fanmod yet, anyway I think someone tried before on previous pages and it didnt worked for him, so he had to connect again the wire.

as for the moment the fully and great confirmed methods for cooling the laptop are: repaste, dustfilters removal, undervolted modded bioses.


@tejagamer

the best one I tested for the 525m it is the

L502X_A12_525m_85_85_Unlocked_Menu_v5.rar

best results so far for me

oh, I never installed OSX on this system, but people who did, said the problem went away with the modded bios

 

I don't know if BIOS fixed any issue of MacOSX - I installed BIOS before Mac.
You can google eaasly how to install Mountain Lion from eg. iAtk0s - on osx86 forums are multiple tutorials, for l502x too.

 

@agalin

yeah, saw some of them, in my case, I replicated another mod timewalker did.

he found the updated sleep modules were given issues to the OSX sleep feature, so he picked some modules from last working version and ported them to the new version, worked like a charm

I did the same with the L502X bios and didnt heared any complaints

there was a lot of people asking about relase modded version of older bioses, with the modded a12 version v5 didnt hear anything.

just some kind of bug with external GPU on the official A12 and also happening at the modded A12, problem isnt there with a11 or older, so it seems they screwed also some modules, so getting the screwed modules and replaced them with the ones from A11 version will fix that too, the problem is that I dont know what modules are the ones which need to be replaced for that

 

I have ordered my arctic silver mx4 as iv noticed as past few weeks my temperatures has rocketed

up round the 90c mark on skyrim and this used to only be around 70c while playing skyrim

so its def time it was done will let yous know how i get on

 

@capitankasar Will flash it ASAP! My CPU generally idles at 65-70. Dont know whtat the issue is. After flashing your MOD, came down to 55 (after reboot). But prolonged usage will increase it to 60. Also while gaming it touches 90, GPU touches 75-80. Is it fine?

 

@ tejagamer
well, my mod only tweaks the GPU voltage, not CPU one, so the one having lower temps will be the GPU.

the CPU can decrease temps a little too since they are conected to the same heatsink, but I would not expect more an one or two degrees difference at the cpu anyway

about for GPU, yeah, that temps are nice.

with default BIOS and hardware stuff I was getting like 95, but after some hardware mods such as repaste, dust filters removal and also the bios mod, it never go over 80º now ^^

 

Hey guyz,
this project here is amazing. I´ve read alot about lowering the temp etc., but what's about overclocking?
I´ve the A12 GT540m 0.85/0.95 Bios and running stable @ 815 Core / 950 Memory

Share YOUR results !

greetz from Germany, striker_lt


//EDIT: I´m with 2630QM, removed dust filter and new thermal paste.. Temps never run over 92°C while playing EVE Online 1080p on MAX with HDR enabled *40" LCD ftw*

 

+++ NEW +++
Top of the top Frequency -> 823 / 1645 / 987 @ 95°C
Higher values causes system freeze for me..
CPU at ~ 2.8 - 2.9 GHz

Testing for stability 10Minutes MSI Kombustor GPU-BurnIn Test!
Your turn..




//EDIT: MSI Kombustor showing 0.9800V VCore, instead of 0.95 as in BIOS-Description

 

Without changing anything (dust etc.) I never got stable more than 750 core 980 mem but with 2670QM. With lower voltage I got ~5-10 MHZ more in core.

 

Im using this one:

MD5 checksum: 022D368DE178C92DF012CFD3143AE49B
BIOS version used: A12
2D PROFILE: 0.83v
3D PROFILE: 0.85v

Temps Between 42 -52° in normal use, Working good , but my hard disk steal reaches 50° -55° Sometimes its that normal I had to replace my old Seagate momentus 500gb Old disk with a new Seagate Momentus XT 500gb because old one broke due overheating.

Gracias @capitaksasar Espero recomendaciones Sorry for my English I talk Spanish

 

hey i have an idea .... fan cleaning algorithm like lenovo has ??? wonder if that could be implemented @ the bios level
just an idea dont bash me

 

@dakhan89

added to the first topic ^^

your english is ok, mine isnt really better , I allways have room for improvement

I can also talk spanish, but since this is a english talking forum lets keep it like this way.

the hard disk temps , they dont have nothing to do with this modded bios, they should be the same than non modded bios, the difference is that, in modded bios, you have a bunch of settings to tweak relating HDD.

not temperature related anyway.

@Skareem2

mmm, if you can point at least one of the afected lenovo bioses, I can give it a check.

however I will be away some days due an anime convention in madrid with costumes and other stuff.

so I will not have much time to spent with bioses those days ^^

 

It's I'm with 3D 0.83 A12 and it changes between 1.000 and 8.50 its that normal?
When gaming reaches 80° at max I have not freeze problems, only with Portal 2 after couple of hours.
Can you recommend me a good thermal-paste also a Laptop Base,Thank you?

I really appreciate your work now I can play again

 

Where you're checking voltage?

 

@dakhan89

thank you

mmm , Artic Silver 5 is very known and also good.

as for laptop base, I dont use any one, so i cant recomend you anything

I use a cheap trick to cool a little more the laptop by putting four small metal things under the laptop legs so it is a little more lift than without them

also, like agalin said, what software do you use to monitorize voltages?

 

@capitankasar

Why not choose Arctic MX-4 instead of Arctic Silver 5 since it is non-electric conductive.

 

Because Arctic Silver 5 is better than Arctic Cooling MX-4: Thermal Compound Roundup - February 2012 | Hardware Secrets

 

I was reading about Arctic Silver 5 and is Not Electrically Conductive too

I'm using the Nvidia Inspector as I see at the post @capitankasar

 

try HWmonitor

 

Trying HWmonitor



I'm worried about my Hard Disk any time Laptop freezes my HDD go down 1% on his health also with Overheating 50° - Monitored with Hard Disk Sentinel Pro. Anyone have the same trouble. This Bios gives better Temperature, HDD Voltages can be modified?

 

never experienced HDD issues with this laptop, and I have two internal hdds, I removed the optical drive to install another one.

as far I know there arent settings for the hdd voltages, never heard about hdd overclocking haha, it could be only used to put the hdd into a lower power consumition status, but idk.

try restore bios defaults settings , save the settings, and load windows in order to see if the freezes are there.

if it still crashing, it could be related hardware failure issues on your hdd, wich is not good

 

well remember i was talking about trying the ssd thing turns out when i dugg a bit into dells site it said the XPS L502x cannot support Msata ssd drives bummer i dont want to remove my blue-ray drive just to have a ssd and still keep my rotational space -_- just want the faster boot times an performance with the storage benefit you would think that the XPS would have supported this since its supposed to be better than most laptops

 

"Custom voltage moded A12 bios mod for gt525m with advanced menus for L502X DOWNLOAD from mediafire /// MIRROR by ximinez
MD5 checksum: DA79B0AA216534D9D4E5E9CBC4F967C7
BIOS version used: A12
this bios mod has been tested by crapula and carr251
2D PROFILE: 0.83v
3D PROFILE: 0.87v
notes: Minimal voltage modded A12 BIOS for gt525m with a nice set of extra options,plus native speedstep and updated CPU microcode,intel vbios update to v2137 and sleep FIX for OSX, handle the new options carefully!
note2: carr251 reported hand and freezing issues while coping data using this version.

Custom voltage moded A12 bios mod for gt525m with advanced menus for L502X DOWNLOAD from mediafire /// MIRROR by ximinez
MD5 checksum: C69D454202486396C7D26052B1ADFF23
BIOS version used: A12
this bios mod has been tested by overvu and crapula
2D PROFILE: 0.83v
3D PROFILE: 0.90v
notes: Minimal voltage modded A12 BIOS for gt525m with a nice set of extra options,plus native speedstep and updated CPU microcode,intel vbios update to v2137 and sleep FIX for OSX, handle the new options carefully!"


Sorry I couldn't quote your original post. Both the mods above have same mirror links. Mediafire link is fine though. Again awesome work by you Kasar. Cheers!!

 

I've just flashed L502X_A12_525m_80_80_Unlocked_Menus_v5. I'm using Windows 8 Core x64. I've kept UEFI option Enabled. So far I've faced no crashes while using BIOS controlled hotkeys as reported by NeoMesal. But I can't enable Diagnostic splash and summary screen. Both options are faded out. Any ideas why?

 

@Skareem2

well, you can keep using your Bray optical unit by connecting it to the external e-sata port when you need it.

I do the same with my dvd drive, when I need to burn something or read some disk I connect it, but I can confirm I almost dont use the optical drives but I usually ran out of hdd space easly, too much games, music, films ... etc ^^

so unless you are burning dvds/ brays the whole day or using the machine as a bray player also the whole day, I recomend to connect the optical drive externally with the e-sata port (as far I know there is no speed loss by using a esata adapter ^^)

in my case I almost dont use the optical drive so it is ok

well, anyway, if you dont want to remove the optical drive, then you have no other chance than replace the main harddisk/ssd with your desired unit.


@alvester

oh, thanks for the info

fixed the links

thank you again and let me know wich of those you used so I can add you as tester/user to the list

edit: added you to the list ^^

well, I never used windows 8 yet, I keep using windows 7 since I am happy with it so I cant help you too much with windows 8 stuff.

as for those options greyed out, it is because you probably have fast boot option enabled, you need to disable fast option from BIOS in order to be able of enable those ones I think.

 

Oh yeah. It explains that. Why didn't I think of that. Fast boot just skips everything. Maybe thats why they're faded out as you said. I've turned it on. Lets see if disabling it can unfade those options. I suppose they should. I'll get back to you after checking it out.

 

alavester: you have disabled Legacy Boot? If not, you're still using BIOS (on my PC it doesn't boot on EFI only - probably I should reinstall windows)

 

Well that worked. But I'll keep Fast Boot option enabled. Its great. BTW Kasar, did you ever try to flash Intel ME Firmware Version 8.1.xxxx ??

 

Turn legacy boot off. Enable UEFI boot and then try to reinstall Windows 8.

 

@alvester

we already tried to update to ME8 at the BIOS.mods forums

tried via the fwupdate.exe included at the update package I created for the L502X latest version.

it hangs when I try to load a 8.xx version

also tried to edit the whole chip image and replace the 7.xx with a 8.xx, no luck yet, we also gave up to that because implementing ivy birdge proccesor without manufacturer support is a dead end, cant add that large entire feature just by doing small hacks and without having the source code.

 

I always get the following error when I try to flash 8.xx "Error 8727: Firmware update tool failed to get the firmware parameters" I also tried flashing with fptw64 tool but it says administrator privileges are required, even though I'm running the tool as administrator.

 

I installed Intel Management Engine Interface 8.1.30.1349 drivers anyway.

 

Okay I did a bit of digging and found out as you said that v.8 is indeed for IvyBridge and v.7 for SandyBridge. We can't install v.8 until and unless our mobo supports IvyBridge processors. Also I tried installing Intel Manageability Firmware Recovery Agent. It showed no updates. So IMEI 7.1.52.1176 is the latest version for us.

 

And for your mobo to support IVB you have to have ME v8.. infinite loop, eh? Cougar Point + SNB = not happening according to Intels inside info. Desktop boards with the equivalent series 6 chipset do support it.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

 

yeah, like timewalker said, we already got enough of headache trying that without sucess
I am the first one disapointed to have failed on trying to get IVB support to the L502X, but well, life is not allways happy stuff (like with the stuff with my GF right now ...)^^

 

Touché......

 

There are two shortcut keys that I want to tell you guys. Some of you might already know it.

1. <Fn> + Esc = Hotkey for Sleep mode

2. Hold <Fn> while powering laptop on = Boots your laptop directly into Dell Diagnostics mode. Useful for performing some checks when your laptop is not working properly.

 

Anyone Know why after format my Laptop HWmonitor can't detect the GPU? I have a 540m

 

@alvester

I already knew those ones, anyway thanks for the info, others will probably find it helpfull

@dakhan89

check all device drivers are installed and up to date.

 

Sometimes it doesn't detect due to optimus. Try running any application or game that uses GPU and then run HWmonitor. It will surely detect.

 

I knew you would already know that. You've done a lot of research on our laptop.

 

It works, Thank you

 

In the nVidia Driver inspector's profile editor, I see a "Enable Application for Optimus" Flag. Can I use that to make the nVidia card undependant to Optimus?
The question may look silly

 

Report :

L502x
Gt 540m
Bios A10

Applied the 0.83/0.85 version of gt540m for A10 rom. The 0.85v is insufficient for 3D.
Fails with a little 3d graphics load and resets the system immediately.

 

Its the same option that you can change in Nvidia Control Panel--> Manage 3D Settings--> Preferred Graphics Processor.

But it doesn't work for HWMonitor. I don't know why, even though I force it to open with my GPU.

PS: You can also open any application with GPU by right clicking on it and then selecting: Run with Graphics Processor--> High-Performance Nvidia Processor.

 

hi just thought id let yous know than my arctic silver mx4 paste finally arrived

i carried out the repasting and can now confirm i can run my gt525m card at 800mhz in skyrim and the highest temperature it reaches is 63 degrees

this is a massive decrease in temps for me as playing skyrim previously at even a lower clock speed resulted in temps around 92 degrees

i also removed the fan filter while i was doing it and i assume this also adds to the lower temps really really pleased thanks for all the tips guys

 

I flashed your 0.83/0.9v GT 525M version with advanced options but on 3D, HWMonitor says it's 0.9v and GPU-Z and nvidiainspector say its at 0.95v. Which one is correct?

 

Give nvidia inspector a moment to refresh. It'll show 0.9V as well. It happens with me too.

PS: Be sure to use latest version. Its 1.9.6.9

 

@daryld1988

I also get like 63º while playing Starcraft 2 at 700 mhz with my 525m

a masive change compared with the 95º + temperatures I got while I recived the lappy

@alvester

huge thanks for helping others at this topic

 

Thanks but GPU-Z also says 0.95v though and I've tried spamming F5