L502X modded bioses download (GPU voltages and more!)

@pogster88

are you sure your cdrom is bootable?

if your burned the iso file properly

you should see following at the root of the cdrom while viewing it on another windows system



PS: dont exactly remember your original problem
you seems want to do bios recover, but you also want to make windows restore. I'm confused ^^

@Mang0

my games also crashed after get some clocks tested as stable on benchmark and error detecting apps suck as OCCT

so I had to test the clocks on games, and lower them manually until they stoped crashing, couldnt find anything easier/faster >.<

 

@capitankasar

I want the bios restored, i stupidly installed one from the advanced section with the logic "ahh whats the worst that could happen" and i have learn my lesson to very apply that logic again
The reason i was talking about windows reinstalling was that if i cant restore the bios i assumed i would have to do this instead? Quite frankly I'm a bit lost right now and have no idea what to do

The disk has all those files and if i put it into another computer it comes up as L502x bios recovery pack with the xps.ico icon.

On a separate note, if you still need pictures of the chips I'm planning on taking my laptop apart once its working again as i recently got some prolima PK-3 thermal paste i wana try out

 

@pogster88

well, theorically nothing wrong can happen by flashing one of the advanced section, those bioses are tested, even there are some ones marked as untested, they are based on tested bios with minimal voltage changes

its more like bad stuff may happen with bad config of the unlocked settings like uefi mode.


if your windows doesnt boot after flashing bios, it is probably related due some bad config in bios, aka you had some custom config with previous bios, and after flashing it went to default.

or you had another bios config, and after flashing you modified it.

I would try to change disc mode betwen ahci to ata and viceversa

that could help to boot the recovery disk too without entering via the recovery mode (end button)

well, if the problem started after flashing a bios, then dont reinstall, you must manage to flash a bios version you are confortable with it, and keep your installation and files.


and yeah, I still interested on the pics

it should be awesome, specially for people interesting on overclocking their machine without desoldering their bios chips ^^

 

@ capitankasar

Well after i changed the bios that's when every time i started my pc i would get a blue screen and it would restart.
Can you explain the changing the disk mode from one to the other, as in how do i do this (i need all the help i can get as you can tell )? As far as i remember i have never changed anything in the bios settings before trying to flash it :/
When i boot the disk the normal way the same message comes up as in my previous post

 

@pogster88
mmm, there was a while since I entered at the bios last time, I have my laptop allways on

but I think it was at the advaned settings tab, without entering on any submenu.

there was an option wich let you select ahci - ata

try switch that option to see if your OS is able to boot.

however I dont get why your laptop cant boot a bootable cdrom.

did you checked the boot device priority settings at the bios?
cdrom must be at the top of the list.

also, try with other bootable disks like windows installation disks or some kind of live cd.

 

@capitankasar

hahahahah well it turns out all i needed to do was change to ata

Just out of interest what is ata and ahci?

Thanks very much for the help, i have missed my laptop!
Also i am planning to open up my laptop sometime next week, will a 8 megapixel iphone 4s camera be ok or are you looking for higher quality photos? If you need higher I'm sure ill be able to find something but would probably have to be later in the week

 

@pogster88

so, you finally fixed it by using the ata mode?

well, those are sata operation modes

ahci is better and newer, but the laptop also have ata for compability

I suspect you had your laptop on ata when you or dell installed the OS

you would need to reinstall the OS in ahci to enable ahci support, however you are lucky if you want to use ahci without reinstalling

there are some tricks like this

Neowin Guide: How to change from IDE to AHCI without reinstalling Windows - Neowin



well, as for the pics, all I need is that the chips texts/labels needs to be readable while looking at the pic, that will let us to identify the chip and look for the schematics and look for posible pinmods to bypass the descriptor settings.

 

If you use a hard drive then having ATA or AHCI mode won't really make a difference.
Also, is it possible for the 525M to go above .98v? If it can, could you make a .80v/1v bios please?

 

@Mang0

well, as far I know, the AHCI mode enables NCQ (Native command queueing)

wich does improve SATA hard disk drives

Native Command Queuing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


* added 80v/1v for the 525m A12 V5

about if it does make effect, flash and compare results, and share them with us

 

Both the .80/.98v and .80/1v mods work and show the correct voltages. Got up to 840 MHz stable. Turned off c1e for more performance out of my SSD too!

 

mmm, tested something today and I cant belive the results of a performance test

I checked this table and I downloaded their performance test software


take a look at the i3-2310m proccesor score (the proccesor I have)

and also take a look at the i3-2370m proccesor score




comparing the score from the 2310m to the one from my tweaked laptop, it is really close to the 2370m performance score



that is curius, even the OC is lower, just 2.20 ghz compared with the 2.40 ghz stock speed of the 2370m, it get almost the same score, I suspect the unlocked bios settings like fast strings and some others improved the performance to the 2370m levels.

 

Hi. I was messing around in the advanced bios, and I changed some settings in IGD configuration and nw every time I boot my computer the screen is black. The setting I changed was to have the detection from LFP to the auto variant. I figure if I can change that back then I'll be alright. Even if the screen is black is my computer still technically entering bios when i press F2? If so is there anyway someone could post pics of the pages of the bios to get to that setting and a pic selecting settings so i know how many times to press the down keys, etc?

 

@danblu

hey

mmm, it seems you are unable to get image at the screen after switch a bios option.

in that case, easiest way to recover your laptop functionality is restore bios default settings, that will allow to visualize the screen and change all settings you need at the bios again.

in order to reset the bios settings, you need to load a bios capsule

do following steps

1 - download this file and place it at the root of a usb stick

1- turn off your L502X laptop and put the usb stick at the usb/esata port (the one from the right side)
2- unplug the power cord, and press end button.
3- plug the power cable, and then you relase the end button fast. (the machine should start automatically without push the power button)
4- the machine will start reading the usb stick, it load BIOS.cap file from the usb stick and when it boot it, all settings go to default.
5 - now turn off the laptop by hold down the power button 5 secconds
6 - finally turn on your laptop, enter in the bios setup by pressing F2, and change your desired settings again

let me know if this works for you ^^

 

@captainkasar

Thanks for the fast reply and help! I'm sending this via the computer that was black screened! That was a life saver considering I'm going to need my computer to help study for my Final Exams next week.

 

I'm using the A12 0.85 V/0.85 V mod, and it is working great. I wanted to do a stress test with kombustor/furmark, but both are only recognizing the integrated graphics card as the rendering device. This is not an issue in games, but I wanna do a stress test to check the stability of my overclocks. Any solutions to choose my 525m GPU as the rendering device for OpenGL and to be used for kombustor/furmark? I have gone to the NVIDIA control panel and selected the 525m for both applications, but that does not do anything. The hints that the gpu isn't being used: in the tests I'm getting 1-3 fps, the temperature is not increasing, and in the application it shows the gpu and msi afterburner shows that the load on the 525m is 0.

 

@danblu

try set nvidia 525m as default GPU in control panel and try again,you can try also pdating GPU drivers/ kombustor/furmark else I dont know.

it works fine for me, even it says the renderer is the intel hd graphics (it also report 2000 instead 3000 :/ ), the nvidia control panel shows the app being used by the GPU and the gpu ussage also goes to high levels




well, I also just noticed the nvidia GPU is at the kombustor screen (marked as GPU1 at the right side of the rendering screen)

 

I'm new and am not sure how increase size of images in posts, so sorry for having to click each one.

I don't have the GPU OCed at all right now.
here is where I tested the waves.
here is where I tested the MSI symbol.
I tried to do the burn-in test with dx11, 10, and 9 and this message came up.
Here is furmark
In each of the possible .exe I have the 525m chosen as the preferred graphics processor.

Also is it possible that things are not working because I'm using the currently released beta driver? I'll try the last approved driver to see if that changes anything.

 

checked your screenshots, the nvidia gpu seems detected at the rendering screen, however, for some reason it doesnt get the full power.

take a look at the core ussages
51 and 203 mhz, msi afterburner report those mhz while the system is idle or not using the gpu at all.

I would test with the a non beta driver version to clear any doubt, you can also check the "correct installation" checkbox while installing the driver update, it set the gpu settings to default, that will help if it is a config issue.

 

I've been using this modded bios for awhile and at first it worked well. Now my games are crashing again. Any ideas?

 

Oddly, I updated to the newest beta driver from Nvidia for the 540m, and it started crashing randomly. For some reason, I feel that the nvidia update panel cause my computer to crash... Not sure why, but I removed that module of the driver apps and it hasn't crashed since.

 

I ran the same test and I can also see an improvement

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/3047/screenshot126i.jpg

The 2630QM normally scores 5600, but I was able to get 6433 with fast strings enabled and increasing the turbo timeout. (Just above a 2720QM!)

Although it's increased by quite a bit, it's a 14% increase in score whereas you have gained a 20% increase in score. Both impressive improvements I must say

Yet again, your modded BIOS ceases to impress me

I'm afraid I haven't been following this thread closely for a while (getting busy with school) but how have things been things going recently? (For yourself and your mods! )

That's why I generally avoid beta updates, unless they improve a game which I own!

 

Hi! I have a question, can we update Intel ME Firmware on non modded bios?

 

@zombiefan

try cleaning the dust from the system, or reducing the OC , try also the solution posted by NovaTornado

@NeoMesal

glad you also archived higher results with this BIOS

yeah, we have to keep getting the most of this machine, because even it is getting old, it still is a nice laptop

well, about updates, there arent any recent updates at the bioses, the A12 v5 versions are the latest ones.

I found by myself some time ago a way to unlock BCLK overclocking , and documented it at the first post, but since it involve hard hardware mods, it seems no one decided to try it.

well, about me, I had few personal issues during last week, but well, I still here ^_^

thanks for caring


@nidaba

you can use the ME update on stock bioses too.

however, you cant view the ME version at the bios with the stock one.

if you are talking about the ME hack to enable overclocking I relased, it require more stuff.

but if you are going to the normal ME update, it is fine

 

Is anyone else getting really high load temps with the 320.00 beta driver? also, could you do a .80/.83 mod for 525m?

 

Yea, I'm getting really high temps with 320.00. Laptop started overheating again, even with modded .83/.85 bios for 540m. Gonna go downgrade it now that you also verified that GPU driver is causing funny issues.

 

Tried the 314.22 driver, now it just idles at 100% load at 3D at 90 degrees.

 

Still idles at 100% load but turns out my heatsinks were also loose.

 

Dear Capitankasar,

I would like to update my L502X with I72630QM and 540M from 4GB RAM to 8GB 1600mhz RAM, possibly that Kingston 8GB 1866mhz hyperx.

This laptop is only used for audio apps like Traktor Pro, Ableton or Cubase, no games at all so I'm not bothered about graphic performance.

I understand I need to mod the bios so I can get the faster frequencies of the RAM to work. Could you direct me in the right direction as to what bios mod to perform? Or should I just not tamper with advanced bios settings and buy regular 1333mhz 8GB RAM, maybe a SSD later on in order to keep a stable audio system?

If the answer has already been given, I apalogize but I haven't managed to read all 188 pages of the thread yet.

Thanks in advance.

 

@Brwaap

well, not sure if it absolutly required but I heard many users had to install a modded bios in order to flash get the correct memory frequencies working.

relating your GPU specs, I recomend you to install this one

http://l502x.lag.re/L502X_A12_540m_83_85_Unlocked_Menus_v5.rar

you can change the bios memory settings, 1600 mhz memory work fine with this bios, 1866 mhz may work too, but no one tested it yet, still waiting for someone to test it.

however 1866 may also need compatible proccesor.

 

DDR3-1600 is ideal even for the ultimate high end systems which can yield upwards of 30GB/s on a desktop

There's no way to obtain even DDR3-1600 speeds on a laptop because DDR3-1600 can do almost 30GB/s when using three sticks in triple channel.

Laptops use typically two slots so whats more important than anything if your looking to "upgrade your ram" is to make sure both sticks are exactly the same. Because memory loves symmetry, especially the core i7's.

Here's my system running an Asymmetrical configuration by using 1 stick of 4gb ddr3-1333, and 1 stick of 2gb ddr3-1333. I'm seeing incredible memory performance when in top speed turbo boost mode. So basically you have nothing to gain by going beyond ddr3-1333 on a laptop, unless memory capacity is of concern. For me 6gb is way more than enough even for insane multitasking like say running 10 xp virtural machines and gaming it up while firefox is open with 150 tabs. If your just itching for a change get a better cpu that supports DDR3-1600 being what I have the 2720QM+.

2 Sticks of say 8GB DDR3-1600 on a 2720QM (as what I'm running) would yield some huge performance. However the ram doesn't do much when your I/O can't display it to you at even 1/1000th the speed the cpu/ram can. See your ram can write at say 20GB/s and your hard drive can only write at say 200MB/s that's where the bottleneck is. I say run 2 SSD's in RAID0 and keep your current ram and let the SSD's eat up beyond 1GB/s or 1,000MB/s.

What are you looking to gain exactly? Get a better cpu like a 2720QM and get a 16GB kit of DDR3-1600 and be golden. Or just be happy with what ya got.



Even if u had a 2860QM -

Memory Specifications
Max Memory Size (dependent on memory type) 32 GB
Memory Types DDR3-1066/1333/1600
# of Memory Channels 2
Max Memory Bandwidth 25.6 GB/s
ECC Memory Supported
No

2630QM -

Memory Specifications
Max Memory Size (dependent on memory type) 16 GB
Memory Types DDR3-1066/1333
# of Memory Channels 2
Max Memory Bandwidth 21.3 GB/s
ECC Memory Supported
No

@ capitankasar

How's it going bro? I have found out why 800Mhz wasn't working it was the fan/thermal paste. I bought an aftermarket chinese DC 5V 0.50A fan to replace my original being DC 5V 0.40A. The old fan spun up to 4,600rpm on it's best days but typically after wear 4,100-4,300rpm. This new chinese DC 5V 0.50A fan is unreal! It turns out a blistering 5,200rpm and man can you tell a difference. On top of that the Shin-Etsu X23-7783D is some unreal stuff and in combination my temps are killing my old temps. I even have it on Fluctuation mode with the PWM pin to adjust it and it runs hotter yes however its very stable and fan overhead per say is very high.

Anyway I was wondering if you knew the battery discharge rate was on the L502X? I upgraded my 5200mah 6 cell to a 7200mah 9 cell and my ASUS K53SV power consumption on battery seems a bit high. Say I have 72,000mWh of capacity, my ASUS is eating it up at 26,000mW per hour. I use AIDA64 to monitor power consumption. Some people say they are sitting at like 10-15,000mWh discharge rate while being 35,000mWh in game. My idle usage is pretty darn high and doesn't change. My battery life isn't that great even on the 9 cell so I think it's something with my laptop. Maybe it's such high performance it's not capable of being good on battery life (idk).

Thanks

 

@chris89

that fan looks good,

and nope, I didnt messed with the battery, I know mine have high wear levels due gamming on max performance on battery power.

I have the 6 cell one.

 

@apitankasar

That's cool the battery gets damaged if not completely discharged to 0% and not completely charged to 100%. Frequent charges from 50% to 100% will damage the battery in a hurry. The same applies to the cell phone and smartphone which needs to be fully discharged to get the same great battery life each time. This is regardless of the load that is put on it, the load doesn't cause the damaged it's the chemicals that get damaged they need to be fully discharged and charged to 100% frequently.

Anyway in regards to bios etc can we manipulate the bios fan profile for the VGA bios and CPU? My Bios seems to want to maintain 85C while under load on the cpu. I think it's mostly concerned with the cpu and not the gpu not sure but it doesn't matter.

Can we manipulate my bios to a new fan profile? Like say have it turn the fan off if temps are below 50C, and have them go wide open full speed at 70C?

I'd like to try and keep temps below 80C, which I can do by creating a switch for the PWM outside of the laptop. I may do that if we think we can't mod the bios fan profile.

THANKS

 

@chris89

well, I only charges/discharged the battery completly a few times, I allways charge the battery to 100% and wait until completion, but I rarelly discharge the battery to 0%


regarding new mods, I doubt any new mods will be relased, due personal issues, I'm not in a mood now to work at this.

also the bios modding team seems dead , last update were made long time ago, and relating the existent OC mod I relased and explained how to get it working, it seems no one made it due it involves hardware modding.

so well, it seems that we are done with the bios updates ^^

 

@apitankasar

Yeah I always overlooked the whole discharge to 0% part and man o man is it important lol after realizing all my devices had severely damaged batteries. Full discharge is key and as well charging without stop to 100%. lol

Anyway, Yeah I was wondering about say my ASUS K53SV BIOS fan profile. If you would know how to find it in the bios dump I suppose searching "fan" in notepad ++ or something of the sort...

Maybe you could shed some light on my ASUS Bios for me as to Fan profile manipulation. I'm sure It's similar to the L502X as it's the same Intel HM65 chipset...

Thanks

 

On newer mobile devices, its actually better to charge from 50% rather than a complete discharge. The new Li-Ion batteries work better that way. Not sure about laptops though. Should be similar. The old rechargeable batteries that relied on copper worked better with a complete discharge I think.

 

@chris89

my bad I cant help you with that, also, tweaking the fan profile I didnt found it while modding the bios

relating the L502X, it actually uses the HM67 chipset

 

@chris89 discharging to 0% Li-Ion and Li-Poli batteries is very bad idea. They don't have "memory effect" that lowers capacity. And more discharged gets more usage - energy cells broke faster when low poower. For these battery types it's better to charge non-stop (all time 100%) than 0%-100% and you should charge them as often as possible. Fully discharge of Li-x can totally destroy them - but there is "secret" power that user can't use (security system).

Oh and is there anybody who tried 8gb RAM modules in l502x? I think that AIDA said to me that max is 4gb per slot.

 

@capitankasar

Thank you for the fast reply, I will try out the link to the modded bios with my current system tomorrow, tamper with some settings just to see what it does before buying anything. I just got off work and am a little tired, I want to make your recovery image cd before I try anything, I will report back to you with the results!

@chris89

First of al thank you for your fast and elaborate reply, you gave me a little more insight on what to research further, I've only just began studying up on possible performance upgrades at reasonable expenses.

What am I looking to gain? I have this €10 voucher I would like to spend wisely on some performance increase, for example doubling up my current 4GB RAM to 8GB, just to have a little headroom and not running on the limit all the time. I read up some on memory speeds, hence why I came up with the 1866mhz RAM, because bigger/faster is better right? Thanks to your post I realized this is already money down the drain.

Most of info I find is about extreme gaming laptop performance, which is not what I'm looking for, actually what I want to achieve is lowering general latency when using Traktor with the timecode vinyls and a few effects, or have a few more plugins running stable in cubase or ableton.

A better cpu would defenitely help, but this is not an option for me: too expensive, and is it even possible to change a cpu on a laptop motherboard? I remember when buying the laptop, the better cpu was a couple hundreds of € more, which is why I opted for the 2360QM back then.

The dual ssd in raid0 would indeed be a impressive upgrade, but unfortunately too expensive for me. After having read as much as I could on ssd performance in audio workstations (what they call 'work time theft' at my job ), turns out ssd would deliver good increases in general loading times but not in performance (lower latency). Not what I'm after.

Maybe I should just be getting some cheap 8GB 1333mhz RAM, not even having to change the current dell bios through Capitankasars' mods and be done?

 

@agalin I currently have Corsair 16GB Dual Channel DDR3 SODIMM Memory Kit (CMSO16GX3M2A1333C9) installed on my L502x from amazon. 8 gig per slot works perfectly fine for me.

 

@NovaTornado thanks, it'll be very useful at the future.

 

I have done this in the past with my old 6620g and I did try a search on here, would it be possible to hard code an overclock in the bios? If so would you be able to create a bios with 0.8 and 0.85 voltages for a 540 with advanced menus and fast strings and 550 clocks in the hardware? Cheers and apologies if that has already been posted somewhere - this is one loooong thread now

 

...tested the 540's 0.83/1V A12 BIOS. so far, so good. stable gaming @ 873/1747/962MHz clocks. (MSI-Afterburner MAX Core/Shader-Clock) But beware of the heat! Temps with cooling pad & removed dust filter up to 92°C (GPU)!!
Will test the OC-Performance with a program that doesn´t lock at 875MHz. any suggestions for that?

The most efficient BIOS for those who need maximum performace of their L502x by now.. Highly recommended!

 

I'd like to say thanks for modded bios.
I have read through several pages and I undervolted it and overclocked it.
but it only uses 1 core how do you use all the cores like
cuda does I don't see a option anywhere to run all cores @ once thanks

 

Hey, can you make an advanced bios with these stats? The 0.85v 3D profile one is starting to crash for me recently, but not from overheating. Going to try the 0.92v one as well, but that one overheated for me before if I remember correctly.

BIOS version used: A12
2D PROFILE: default value
3D PROFILE: 0.90v
notes: Voltage modded A12 BIOS for gt540m 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!

 

@apprentice01

?

what are your reasons to think it only uses 1 core?

@NovaTornado

done

 

Tested the last advanced bios that you made for me. Works fine, but my laptop still overheats sometimes. Gonna have to find some time to remove those dust filters and repaste my laptop :|

Edit: What kind/brand of thermal paste do you recommend I use when I repaste my laptop? I saw Arctic MX4 in other posts, but I was wondering if thats changed?

 

yeah, repaste and remove dust filters is a must have for this laptop even using modded bioses
else will still overheat at least a litte.


that thermal paste is ok, it should work fine, use this guide http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...stallation-cpu-gpu-repasting-56k-warning.html

and dont forget to remove the dust filters

 

@capitankasar I didn't do that and with undervoltet and overclocked 540 works all fine (but OC is just lesser than with them)

 

Yup. Got Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) here. Works Great!

 

almost tested all 540m's bioses but still getting crash in games
i also tested (undervolted A09 bios) it seems better but i don't want to reduce my performance
which one do you recommend for stable gaming?