L502X modded bioses download (GPU voltages and more!)

The forum got me lock at the page 235, I can't go to any further page... Weird.

EDIT: Forget it. It was some kind of problem for sure, I could not see any new messages. After post this, everything went back to normality.

 

I had the same issue, but after your post, it seemed fixed

this forum sometimes acts weird ^^

 

Don't know how with you, but I still have available next, empty topic page... Actually 237. And I'm not sure if I can see all new posts... Something is going really wrong here.

Edit. Ok... Writing this post fixed problem for now. It's sick!

 

hello again, after three weeks of playing league of legends without any crashes, i come with my problem again , today the game freezes two times with buzzing sound , so i must restart pc.. I think this problem never show again, but...

 

@tocioniukas

modded bios fixed the problem in many cases, but in other ones just improve it, you may have to downclock the GPU until it stop crashing

 

what do you mean but in other ones just improve it ??

 

it reduce the crashes or increase stability some.

 

I can confirm that A12 525m 83/87 v5 works. I'll reply to the thread again once I've had a chance to test performance and such.

Also, I've found a newer version of the Intel ME firmware than is in the OP, and I've stuck it on my own machine.


Here's a link: https://mega.co.nz/#!I8d2mZoT!Kpze1ywvwYC2seU4ViGM9VZz0pV4VTB5p_NXg0h8_E8

Keep up the awesome work.

 

@SwooshyCueb

huge thanks

updated the first post ^^

did you noticed any significant changes using the newer intel ME firmware?
here you can see the change log I found

aparently that version bring some fixes and support for windows 8, that may fix some issues some people had ^^

oh another thing is that I didnt tested my overclocking ME patch with that version.

my overclocking patch to enable BCLK is only tested on the 7.1.52.1176 version, so I cant guarantee it works for other firmwares or cause bricks if used on different versions.

I will test it when I have some time, thanks again

offtopic: what is wrong with your left ctrl key?

 

I don't really have any use for ME, so I couldn't tell you one way or the other. I just happened to stumble across the update and installed it I guess for the novelty.

As for my Ctrl key, I seem to lose a key or two every semester. I've got a service plan with Dell so I just get them to replace the keyboard whenever it's convenient for me.

 

well, ME is part of the system firmware like the bios or the EC, so it should be noticiable even for normal activities :3

oh, thats weird, I didnt lost a key on mine, my keyboard anyway seems the normal one, while yours seems the backlit one.

 

Hey capitankasar can you unlock the BCLK for the L501x BIOS too?
Thank You.

 

@spidey180 unlocking BCLK needs physically modified motherboard...


Edit. Tested ME update. No visible changes for UEFI mode. Still crashing on FN+F3.

 

@spidey180

well, I read somewhere bios modding for the L501X was different than for L502X, I am not experienced with that BIOS.

however, if you feel really interested, we can do some kind of tests in order if it can be unlocked.

first I need to know the motherboard chipset for the L501X.

it is HM67 for the L502X, not sure for the L501X

and as for the BCLK, what kind of controls appear in intel xtu by default for you?

and in the case it can be done, there are a lot of chances it is also intel ME firmware parameters related,

that region is protected for the L502X, you can not read or write data by default on it, since it is locked on the descriptor.

there are two options:

override descriptor: by hardware or special boot ex like key combination, some software also does on some special laptops

descriptor parameters hack: when you cant overrite the descriptor, like in the case of my L502X, you need to acess the phisical chip and modify the descriptor settings with a hardware programmer to unlock the descriptor manually.


unlocking or override descriptor will allow the software to read or write data on those special regions and do ME firmware parameters changes, and do stuff like enable BCLK.


so yeah, I would need to ask you a lot of stuff and make some tests on your machine before in order to check if it can be done.

I'm pretty sure my modification method will work on the L702X machine with minor changes to get BCLK overclocking working, but not sure on the L501X

@all

I noticed there is a lot of people who is using the bios and ME updates from this topic, but I didnt noticed anyone using the advanced hardware mods for BCLK overclocking.

it would be nice if there is someone interesting in get the most from the machine and enable OC by getting the required parts and soldering the required stuff

 

@capitankasar hardware mods are nice, but... When you didn't solder anything in your life, it's bad idea to learn on your major notebook, especially when you know that cash for replace doesn't exist

 

yeah, doing the first hardware mods on the notebook isnt the best idea.

I made some electronic stuff before.

for example, I made some homemade portable gamecubes and posted a guide to do it :3

gamecube portable guide

portable 1.0



worklog


portable 2.0



worklog


in the case of the laptop hardware modding, I never desoldered or flashed a bios chip ^^

that was totally new for me, hopefully I had some support while doing crazy stuff, I have to say big thanks to timewalker and jkbuha from bios-mods forums forums for helping me with their knowledge in the whole process.

 

Hi capitan , i have been getting Nvidia kernel mode driver crashed error for past few days. Dont know what triggered. I changed my old Bios to

2D PROFILE: 0.80v
3D PROFILE: 0.83v

Advanced version bios.

I found that to solve the issue you need to increase the voltage : Guaranteed Fix!!! Display driver stopped responding and has recovered [Solved] - YouTube

is that true ?

Please help , also with A12 , Advanced bios , please mention what volts are over volted and which ones are undervolted .

What is the default ? Has it been changed with A12 Bios ?

 

@Naveen_Reloaded

it depends, in that video it seems the guy is using a deskptop machine , I flashed a overvolted bios into a AGP card some time ago to get higher OC and it helped.

however on the xps 15, this seems more tricky

not allways higher voltage means more stability.


for example, I found the most table bios for the 525m gpu is 0.85v/0.85v (2d/3d)

and the most stable one for 540m is 0.83v/0.85v (2d/3d)

so I suggest you try some of those depending your gpu, I also suggest you download the Version5 of my bioses , wich is the latest one (v5)

the default voltages for the gpus are on the first post, so any bios here with higher or lower voltages per each profile can be compared with the bios details.

 

I think the crashes were related to recent game update ( dota 2). anyway went back to undervolted bios to be one a safer side. I even went one step to repaste ( *sigh* ) thinking it could be over heat issue.

Sorry , i thought with latest BIOS they changed the volts . thanks for pointing it out again.

Also Version 5 ? I cant seem to find it , i tried searching this thread , still nothing.

I use Artic Silver 5 for thermal paste , and i pasted it 4-5 months back. Yesterday when i opened it , it was still in semisolid state , is that normal or i should use some other thermal paste ?

Also i think its time to move on from 5XX series , its getting old and atleast for me , i think its time for some upgrade. goign to keep this laptop for mobile computing and get a Gaming PC. Had enough of playing with crappy over heated laptop GPU`s.

 

Hello Mr Captain,

Thanks for the modded bios again.

I have a small problem. I upgrade the wireless adapter to Intel 6300. I had 1030. I already have 3 antennas, White, black and gray.

In which order do I install it?

Does anyone have an idea?

In the Intel 1030, it was white as 1st and black as 2nd.

Help will be appreciated

 

@Naveen_Reloaded

I played Dota 2 for some hours and didnt crashed for me and my current OC for my 525m, game ran perfect and fluent in FPS ^^

the version5 are the ones wich say "intel vbios update to v2137 and sleep FIX for OSX" in the description.

well, give it a try to the paste, if it works, keep using it, if you get bad temps, choose another one or just buy a new one.

I will stick to my laptop since have no money and it also works fine for now ^^



@windowsappme


mmm, try adding the white as first one, black as second one, and the gray as last one.

I have a different configuration in mine since I have also the HSDPA card.




but I think it will run fine with the config I suggested

oh, and ignore the extra wires and pcb from the pic, they are from a internal mod I did ^^

 

You too dota 2 player ? Which servers ?

anyway i was able to stop the game crash by lowering the clocks in big numbers (600/1200/850) LOL.. it somehow stopped the crashes.

Huge FPS drop and Freezing After Diretide Patch. FPS Unstable !! ( my thread regarding the issue.)

Also my temps dont go beyond 78c , which is a big improvement for me atleast , since at max , the temps go as high as 92c.

I did repaste , and temps are coming down. I used the same paste before ,but didnt get this much difference , dont know what is causing this massive drop .. while i get the same / better performance than before. Weird.

may be its your BIOS which is doing the trick .. i dont know .Yeah i am using version5 bios only

Actually i too dont have money to build a pc But planning to buy parts in piecemeal .. Case>display>Powersupply>RAM>HDD ... this way when i finally come to main parts , i might get them cheaper or better at that time of finishing

 

well, I dont play a lot, I even still on level 1, Just played a little and managed to know that my favorite char was the sniper

I play sometimes using steam and eu west and east servers.

well that temps decrease looks good, it may be an specific game related issue, when I played on mine the fps were allways over 45 on high settings and 1440x900

my game is updating right now, so I dont know if it is an specific patch issue.

well, my bios should give the same and better results than original ones, but never worse results if the configs are the propper ones.

you can allways return to original bios if you dont trush them ^^

my advice is try check other games, and also give a try to power options, gpu options and set everything you see to max performance.

ensure also there are no other apps running in background, it could be the cause of the issue.

 

If you are still on level 1 , i really advice you to stay away from this game. As a dota player who has played 1500+ matches , let me tell you , this game is addictive .. period.

Getting into the game might take atleast 20-30 matches , then after its all addiction.

Anyway , i have set everything max and reducing the clocks have somehow fixed teh issue for me. I think the patch is messing with shader and crashing the driver or something .. i dont know..

Anyway something fixed for me , will keep this till they release a specific patch for it.

 

well, I am more a LoL player than Dota.

I am level 30 on LoL since long time ago, however I barelly play now, so I supose I will play League Of legends when I find time for a quick match

relating your issue, it seems fixed for the moment, well, give also a try to other games to see if you have issues with them or everything runs fine.

 

The 540m bios mod works also with Asus laptops with 540m card?
I'm sure it will work but i need you guys to confirm it.

 

@AnanaSS

nope, the bioses from the first post are all for the DELL XPS 15 L502X

flashing those ones in other systems will probably brick them, so I dont recomend it.

if you have the BIOS files for other laptop, and you want I mod the voltage for it, I can give it a try if I have some time.

 

Guys, just bought these Heatsink Pads on DX to do the voltage regulators stuff.

Usually I have to wait a month before get the DX order trough mail so, as soon as it get here I'll try to document everything and post here.

 

Ok. Thank you..., but I can't save the bios with GPU-z. "Bios readig is not supported on this device."

 

@thenriques45

good, let us to know how they run after you add them, also if you can add pics of the proccess it would be awesome

I may do that mod too

@AnanaSS

bios cant be modded in that way ..., even you were able to dump your bios, it wouln't probably be flasheable after with normal methods, so yo need to provide me the latest or desired bios update package from the laptop drivers site.

then , if posible, I will mod the bios package and modify it so you can easly flash the modded bios like I did for some other people before

 

I really doubt an overclocked card bring more phisicall cores

the cores are the same than before, just may running on higher speeds after overclock.


about your BIOS, I already modded it from chris89 request.

I uploaded all his requested voltage changed bioses plus a 0.85v mod I just made for you right now.

https://www.mediafire.com/?x0sp8dnhv1qgtzb

unfortunely I did not found anything else to unlock, it took me months and a lot of help to hack the whole L502X bios, so I cant do the same with every other laptop if the structure differs.

 

So I can flash my mobo bios with asus bios utility??
btw, thank you for bios!

 

@AnanaSS

well, I dont know wich flasher you used to flash the bioses, there was no flasher included on the update files, so just use the flasher you used for normal updated and it will be OK

you are welcome

 

Btw, can you tell me what you modified in 0.83V bios and 1.05? What freq for gpu and for mems? Thanks!

 

I just modified the 3D frecuency used for games, the name of each file is the setting for that, I didnt modified any frecuency of the GPU, if you want to OC or underclock, just download the MSI afterburner from the first post and try different combinations with the modified bioses.

 

Ok. Thank you man! You rock!

 

Performance is pretty good with 83/85 when gaming on 525m. I'm able to get a decent framerate (usually 40+, rarely dropping below 30, sometimes breaking 60, even) in Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut with most of the settings cranked all the way up and SweetFX hooked in. It also doesn't take forever to turn Aero on or off, which has been a problem for me in the past.
I can mine LTC at about 13.9 KH/s on the GPU with this BIOS mod. Sometimes it'll get up to like 14.2 KH/s, though.
Haven't done extensive testing with overclocking, but I'm able to bump the clocks a little without it causing problems.

Gonna try 83/83 for a bit now and see how that does.

It's probably also worth noting that this laptop is my main gaming system, and I'm very used to playing games at like 10-15 fps. I value texture quality over fps to an extent, so most of the time I'll have texture quality cranked all the way up. I also often have anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering turned all the way down unless the game is really well optimized.

 

@SwooshyCueb

same here, using my L502X as my main system for gamming and everything else, it is a good laptop, it had minor issues, but with this bioses and other minor fixes it is completly functional and stable.

83/83 wasnt stable for me, I suggest to give a try to 85/85

it was the most stable for me, and I am running it now with great temps and performance

 

Also, I'm going to be getting an external GPU mount here soon, probably a PE4H-PM3N. I remember reading somewhere that A12 had issues with external GPUs. Is this correct?

 

yeah, the A12 version gives issues with external GPUs for some reason ....

it happen even with the unmodded original A12, so it is not a modding issue.

for eGPU you will have to stick with A11 BIOS

I'm planning to relase a fixed A12 modded bios someday with custom logos and fixed modules for the eGPU

however I need to locate the issue first and pick the working modules from A11 BIOS and place them into the A12 one to make it working.

but yeah, as for the moment eGPU requires A11 bios, wich is sadly less modded or enchanced compared with the A12 modding work over here.

 

Ah, one thing I forgot to mention. Turning on Native PCIe causes Windows to BSOD randomly in every voltage combination I've tested. It may not /actually/ be random, but it seems like it'll happen no matter what I'm doing. It's just as likely to happen while I'm gaming or working on music as it is while I'm compiling code or writing a report.

Haven't gotten a chance to test it in Linux yet.

 

well, that setting didnt gave BSOD to me, but caused some usb devices to stop working, like the internal touchpad.

if the system start acting weird, like when you enter in thermal menus, do a settings reset and start again changing only desired settubgs.


most settings issues doesnt have anything to do with voltages, voltages changes only affect nvidia GPU stability.

 

Yeah, I noticed the number of hardware interrupts drastically increased when I activated all the thermal monitors and such.

And I just realized I never reported back on 83/87. Game performance was pretty decent, though I can't remember any exact figures. I'm testing all of these with the same setup for Deus Ex HR Director's Cut. Once I'm done testing 83/83 I'll go back and do this bit again.
LTC mining averages at about 13.86 KH/s. I didn't notice any significant peaks.

Again, didn't mess too much with overclocking, but I was able to bump up the clocks a little without having problems.

I can't wait for that A12 mod, BTW. I like the sound of custom logos. Never did like the Dell logo much.

 

thanks for the info

well, if you dont like the dell logo, like me, you can enable the diagnosis splash screen, wich disable dell logo and show all the detected devices like a desktop machine, a feature I REALLY love for this laptop

well, future mods will take longer, people on BIOS-mods forums seems away, I have less time now, and also remaining things seems a little complex ^^

 

Hello,

I'm using this version of the modded bio and my games are still freezing.

any ideas? maybe change to a different bios version like A09?

 

@zombiefan

rolling back to a09 will not help

repaste and remove dust filter from the system.

if that still doesnt work even using that modded bios, you will have to underclock the GPU until it stop crashing

 

do you have a guide to repaste and remove the dust filter? Thanks

 

there was a guide here

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...stallation-cpu-gpu-repasting-56k-warning.html

but the links are dead

here you have a video about dissasembly

Dell XPS L501X / L502X Complete Disassembly and Reassembly Guide - YouTube

the thermal paste apply procedure is the same for all computers, just check any repaste video on youtube and do the same for the l502x

about dust filter, just remove the plastic made flter sticker from under the system fan.

 

What are the benefits of updating intel management engine software?