L502X modded bioses download (GPU voltages and more!)

it fixed minor stuff and sometimes add extra features, I didnt messed with ME firmware a lot, just altered the configuration in mine to enable OC

here you have a part of the change log I found online

 

Thanks capitankasar. Which BIOS are you using currently?

 

0.85v/0.85v GT525m version5

this one gave me better stability and temps results

 

Where can I see which version is particular BIOS? I can only see versions like A8, A10, etc.
I am running stock A12, can I install modded A11 or there's no way to downgrade?

 

modded bios are organized in this way

when you download a file from here it is something like L502X_A12_525m_83_98_Unlocked_Menus_v5.rar


laptop_BIOSVERSION_GPU_2DVOLTAGE_3DVOLTAGE_FEATURES_version.rar


you have details in first post about the bioses, version, voltages, and features.

most work and effort is being done on latest version, A12

yeah, there is a way to downgrade, my scripts do it automatically.

when you download a bios file from my post, you can decide if install the modded version, or get back to the original version

for example, if you download a A11 package from here and you click flash original bios, it will flash stock A11

 

Great. I see it now. Thank you!
As far as I understand there's no way to overclock or undervolt CPU without hardware mods?

 

as far I know, no, or at least I dont know how to.

 

I have flashed recommended A12 for gt540m. So far so good. Both GPU and CPU temps are definitely lower while playing GRID2. No glitches, crashes or artifacts yet. I will repaste next week and try to overclock GPU a little bit. Would be great if I manage to reach GT550m levels, do you think it's possible?

 

Hello there everyone, I've been reading this topic for a while now, since page 1 to 100 something, the the things got a little off (also I was tired of reading, sorry)
It seems that, in all our vast internet I've been researching for a solution to the dell XPS L502x Geforce 540M 2GB FREEZING ISSUE. I've found this place, where some users had good results by lowering the voltage of their GPUs, especially to 0,85 the 3D profile, I would like a little bit more feedback from these old users, is this solution still working? Did it really worked? I'm scared of doing this because I also use my laptop for university stuff and I'm really close to the finals now, I was wondering about doing this in vacation maybe.

Currently, I've solved this problem underclocking with MSI Afterburner: 550mhz Core clock and 850 Mhz, memory clock, but the default is 672Mhz and 900 Mhz respectively, So I paid good cash in this door weight and I'm not using it's fully potential... Also, I've noticed there is not an A12 Bios 0,83V 2D and 0,85 3D without the advanced options, I don't know if these options would make any difference for my goal, I don't really want to OC it, just want to make it work at the normal configs...

Finally, I want to thank capitankasar and every user that has tested and contributed to this project, as i read the posts, I've realized you came with this "solution" without really aiming to it, still it worked and helped a lot of people. The Dell company seems to refuse to accept that they made a screw up in a worldwide scale and everytime someone with knowledge tries to reach their support they just come with the default stupid solution: Drivers? Formated? Diagnostics? I know these tools are useful but they should listen to their users a bit more...

Also, If anyone have any news about this issue I would really appreciate it, thank you for your time.:hi2:

 

@Giullio S.

thanks for your comments

well, as for the normal versions, I am considering even remove them from the first topic, as it confuse people and advanced versions has been proved to be better in all cases.

they not only unlock menus, they also update microcode,intel Video BIOS, and also native speedstep plus some fixes for OSX users.

if overclocking isnt your goal, the bios is also recomended as it improves things, you allways can let the modded bios with default config, wich is almost like the unmodded bios.

you can try the modded bios, so you may restore or at least increase a bit your underclocked clocks, or at least have better temperatures.

 

Giullio S I can confirm that the A12 85/85v vastly improved the stability of my system. I do have some freezing some times but usually when I'm overclicking. Anyways, the gain of stability is awesome, also, repaste is also a good thing to consider.

I had no problems flashing the modded bios, and I did flash it more than once now, but problems mighty happens.

 

I'm playing with the energy option for the processor on Windows, as many sites recomend it to control the temp... You know, set the max performance to 99% to avoid the thurbo mode to kick in.

I'm having a huge difference in temps here. With 100% it usually get temps around 85ºC to 93ºC, with 99% it stays under 80ºC. Is these readings ok? I was so worried with the GPU temp that did not noticed the CPU temps.

I repaste 3 ou 4 months ago, don't remember, but didn't take out the dust filter. When I set the fan to work at full speed it does help a lot and even at 100% CPU I manage to stay under 80ºC but above 70ºC.

I have a i7-2860QM

 

I want to start off and thank you ever so much, Kasar.

I've been playing Final Fantasy XIV, and have been struggling to fix my "graphics driver has stopped responding and recovered" problem for a couple months. I've updated > downdated(? lol) > updated, etc every driver and even took my system apart and cleaned the fan out.

A couple power tweaks and your A12 83-85 540 mod later, and my gpu temps in MSI afterburner went from topping out at 99-102 in as little as 15 mins to topping out at 85 max in 2hrs. Pre bios mod my GPU was crashing on launch, then crashing as often as 30secs - 5mins apart, until I got the inevitable full system crash/BSOD. Now not one crash in 2hrs.

Haven't tried to OC my card any, but I was able to up the ingame graphics settings several notches with no FPS loss. Went from playing in standard laptop setting to high laptop setting (which would have about instantly crashed the GPU before).

Once again, I tip my hat to you and want to say I seriously appreciate the fine work that you've done.

Haven't even got around to re-doing my thermal paste yet either =D

 

@Alidais

post like yours make me happy for a day

I'm very glad this helped you

 

Was back reading the thread a bit and saw what some (Chris89 I believe it was in particular) were saying about using HWinfo to max the fan speeds, so I gave it a try.

Results are with the A12 83-85 540 V5 mod, HWinfo with max fan speeds, and power set to full (for turbo boost), I oc'd the GPU memory clock to 1057 ( started seeing artifacts I believe it was at around 1100) and gained about 10fps.

Temp has not went one degree above 73 in 4 hours!

I'm more appreciative that I can show.

Thanks ever so much once again!

 

Thanks for sharing. Have you tried OCing GPU core?
I would be careful OCing memory because it doesn't have thermal sensors, it might be overheating but you won't even know it. GPU thermal sensor shows only temperature of GPU die itself.

 

What u can do to get a bit better temps is to block the air inlet completely by adding paper and tape to close off the air inlet. That way when the fan is at full speed it will not only be preceived as being quieter. It will also be forced to create inlets via gaps in plastic etc, which will in turn lower your temps and increase stability.

As I said before the voltage regulators are what need you absolute full attention. Since they are ultimately the root cause of all instability, unless your gpu or cpu are hitting 95-100 Celsius. I have seen when the voltage regulators are staying cool, the gpu core temp and cpu temp can be completely stable at 85 Celsius each.

So I would give it a shot, and a while back I posted shots of the vreg locations. It will be well worth the effort actively cooling this regulators with micro tiny heatsinks on each one.

That way we may be able to pull off stable 825mhz core, 1650mhz shader, potentially 1000mhz memory if heatsinks added to vregs on gpu and heatsinks on the video memory. We can only guarantee at least a 50mv increase in voltage to achieve higher clocks.

All in all it may be better buying a new laptop. I was thinking I'd much rather have a $2000 i7 SLI laptop from eurocom than a $2000 desktop... Or on a budget like 700 bucks will get u into something sick like a GTX 670M 2GB MXM Laptop, i7, 8gb ddr3-1600, 1tb drive, 15.6" 1920x1080 lcd with None-Glare format which is awesome! Game it up with the sun beating down no problem... Unlike my current laptop "GLARE-OLA!"

Good Luck Guys!

 

@chris89

great info as allways chris

anyway that is a little confusing since some of us removed the dust filter to let the fan pick more air, but it seems you fully blocked instead and got better results.

I may test differences on both ways , unblocked air inlet with removed dust filter (my current config), and fully blocked like yours.

oh, another thing I wanted to ask you is about something I just noticed while taking a look to your instructive picture

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l221/chris2006189/board22_zps20b0b002.jpg


take a look to the top right of your motherboard, the part with a small square or rectangle going out.

or basically the one I focus on this post

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...02x-internal-usb-how-proof-6.html#post9403063


I noticed yours seems to come with a port ready for some kind of ribbon cable where mine appears to come with a missing connector.

did it came withsomething connected to that port?

I already got the pinouts from the port and posted in the post I mentionated before.


I think it would be interesting to investigate that port since it seems at least to provide an aditional usb port and maybe some BT or wireless interface too.

do yours come with resistors in the place I marked the bigger/inner soldering points? (R718 and R719)

also while googling for dell BT375, I found a module with the same or similar ribbon connector



http://xarchiwum.pl/g9m5x-oryg-modul-bluetooth-dell-375-fvat-gw12mcy-i1784949410.html

so I think it would be posible to connect it to the connector if we find the propper ribbon cable or by manual soldering.

also since I and most people have already bluetooth on their systems, it can be more interesting to connect other custom internal usb devices.

 

@capitankasar

When the inlet is open it doesn't allow the fan to suck the heat from the voltage regulators that builds up heat inside the casing. When u close the inlet, it forces the fan to suck and consume all the heat from the inside of the laptop ie voltage regulators and pushes the heat right out of the case. Which keeps things more stable than open air inlet, this is years of testing and research since i last thought air inlet open is ideal and ASUS my ASUS K53SV-XR1 had a closed system by default I should have left alone. Now i'm going to buy a new casing on ebay for $40 to get it stable and add the heatsinks for the gpu voltage regulators and ram chips. I will use the Swiftech MC21 which comes with 4 10mm tall heatsinks good for the voltage regulators on the gpu but will need some grinding possibly to fit or just mash it inside for maximum cooling. And the 8 piece full pure copper heatsinks for the ram they are only 5mm tall.

About that connector I wouldn't know because I do not own an L502X, I'm rolling with an ASUS K53SV-XR1 which has the 1GB GT540M and I upgraded to the 2720QM from the 2630QM just need to get DDR3-1600 8 or 16GB kit and it'll be rockin.

I'd like to get more overclock so the cooling on vregs is ideal and completely closed casing with max fan speed to suck all heat out.

 

I will be buying those heat sinks too. Will post few picture once I receive and install them.
I am really liking this laptop, it would be perfect if had a gtx765 level GPU installed like the AW14 I had a month ago.

 

@capitankasar maybe it's touch screen connector? And when googling about touch replacement for normal screen for L502x found info that some MB for this notebook go with touch screen connector but often if you want to replace, need to change all motherboard.

 

@chris89

oh, I see

its recomended to place a thin metal or plastic flat piece inside tappint the inlet?

so you dont need to attach various stuff from outside, it will also make the mod looks better.

thanks also for the info
the heatsinks mod for the L502X looks really promising, not only to improve the system cooling a lot, also to archive crazy overclockings


@agalin


I dont think so, if you look carefull the pinouts I found and posted at the previous post,


they ask about usb connections, and BT (bluetooh?),LInK_IND , Radio_dis and others wich suggest bluetooth or wifi module.

as for me,I will just probably use the usb data + and - pins for another usb internal mod, for example IR mouse receiver or internal flash storage like a pendrive

 

@capitankasar

Sounds great man yeah looks are important too.

About that USB pins you might want to get a board with it pre-soldered as that small of space may ruin the whole board with soldered incorrectly.

It's likely impossible unless your a soldering specialist with a micro scope and a micro tip soldering iron. Then u could wire a usb cable potentially since it could be fairly easy to add the usb port for things like internal usb flash 128gb or something cool...

Cya

 

@chris89

well, if you check the first post of the usb mods from my signature, you will see I already soldered smaller pins from there to the minipcie mods to get an usb mod working, I also desoldered the bios chip and installed socket (pics on the first post of this topic ), that and some intel ME firmware modding allowed to enable BCLK overclocking for this system

this usb mod is quite easier compared with other ones because there are no sensitive components near that place (just the C706 capacitor )

also after soldering, I allways secure the connections with hotglue to prevent accidental pullings.
I may add a usb TV tunner internally or something else there, I would love to add just another usb port outside the case like the stock ones so I can plug a fourth usb device, but I see no places in the case to add a external usb port

 

Hi chris89. Do you think these 100% coper heatsinks would work with the Vregs too?

I bought a bunch of these, I'm waiting then to arrive.

Thanks!

 

Hi
I got 2920XM and replaced from 2820QM on my L502X.
but i got black screen with full speed fan
BIOS doesn't have microcode?
if you can,please add support for Extreme Edition CPUs.

 

I think theorically the microcodes are there
the cpuid the same for other proccesors 0206A7h
however, theTDP is highest 55W

that could be the issue.

anyway I saw L702X laptops running the 2920XM, and the L702X have almost the same hardware, also the bios modding were almost the same for both computers, so I am not sure what could be the cause, but I dont think it is a Microcode issue.

 

@1kfavs

take a bottle of isopropyl alcohol and a tooth brush or just liquid hand soap and clean the pins on the cpu it's okay you won't hurt anything. Brush it up perfectly. Then dry set it in front of a fan or something. Then with the socket in open position with no cpu installed blow into the socket as much as you can.

Then when u install the new cleaned pins cpu press down on the cpu in the socket with your thumb on core while tightening. Don't press too hard that u break the board just a bit of pressure to ensure pin contact. I would also pull the bios cmos battery for 60 seconds first before connecting power to the laptop. Then setup your bios on boot if it works... Check all the pins at angles in light after u clean the pins with the toothbrush and soap or alcohol to see if any pins are bent etc...

Good Luck

 

thanks.

sorry,i forgot to say my 2920XM is engineering sample(Q0PT ES)
any lock for es cpu?

 

thanks.

sorry,i forgot to say my 2920XM is engineering sample(Q0PT ES)
any lock for es cpu?

 

I'm running a 2720qm es works great but had the same issue as u. cleaned the pins and reset cmos and it worked.

good luck

 

hello capitan kasar!

much respect for your work! I want to ask for help because my fan still goes on and off it is terrible!....... how can i fix it? please help me. it makes me very frustrated when i look to movies or something and it goes bfffff-- bfffff- bfffff- bffff- would be better even if its always loud than this!!

 

@ziggyza


huge thanks


did you tried the fan fix/management part from the fist post?

if you set it to "manual" you can control it with speed fan software

 

I tried it, but in speedfan software there is no chance to configure it. if i go to configure and to fans there is nothing. at automtic fan speed nothing happens. my temps are about 55-60. what can i do?

it look like this:

http://s1.directupload.net/file/d/3467/x6yokmgv_gif.htm

 

first set RW value to 00

this will set the fan to manual mode.

then close RW app (if you dont do, it will create lag)

then open speedfan and select your desired fan speed, it works for me

 

I did that... with the RW value everything works fine, on 02 its on 100% and on 40 automatic. then i put it on 00 and installed speedfan control 4.49 and opened it but theres is no adjustable field like at yours... what can i do? i reinstalled it and changed the value.... but no adjustable field for my fan, its like speedfan control dont identifies my fan.... would be very happy if you have any idea to fix it... thanks a lot for your help

here is a picture of how it looks like

 

did you tried this option?

 

Well, thank you very much! it works now! youre the man :thumbsup:

but every value i am setting under 70% its still stuttering.... is that normal?

 

glad to know it works ^^

well, I didnt tested it so much, I just used it to stuff like 80 90 and 100% when gamming

try ensure automatic fan speed is disabled on speed fan and RW

it may hang the computer a little if you change the % value, dont change it too quicly, I got before a BSOD for that.

 

dont you got the stuttering problem with the fan? its horrible! worst technic. the fan should be allways on 50%. would be better than this on/off/on/off, because the human brain would fade the sound out after a while, if its stable (yes both, the sound and the brain) but like this..... big shhit

 

well, I dont have that problem , or at least I dont notice it since I have more computers in the same room and the general noise is huge ^^

 

haha ok, i understand.

Do you know where i can get the heatsinks from? i am from germany
what size can they be? does it have to be exactly 20x15x3?

 

well, I didnt made the heatsinks mod yet, you should ask chris89, he probably got them from ebay.

I can add the links to the first post when he share them as there are many people interested on the heatsinks mod (wich includes me )

 

Ok, so I couldn't wait until my final test, wich is happening tomorrow. I flashed the A12 0,83v 2d and 0,85v 3d today, It's working like a charm, no problems at the setup, so far I've got a max temp of 81ºC playing 15 mins of Crysis 2 and 75ºC playing left 4 dead 2 with high settings... So far no crashes, Altough i did not test for a long play like 2 hours or more... I'm really looking forward to this, tomorrow I'll give it a try and give some feedback. Thank you capitankasar.
Coreclock deafult Geforce GT 540M 2GB: 672Mhz and 900Mhz shader clock.

 

@Giullio S.

thank you for your feedback

 

I finally found out the peak potential of the gt 540m since I tested out different hex values in the vga bios. Was about to pull off a max voltage of 1.020 Volts and that's all the bios will allow and 0.830 volts is the absolute minimum. At 1.020v I am now totally stable at 780mhz core and 975mhz memory since it passes 3dmark11 with flying colors. Even 785 produced artifacts so 780 was the max. It might be stable at 800mhz at 1.020v but it would have to 810mhz because 800mhz reports 797mhz on the gpu. Potentially heatsinks on ram and vregs for 810mhz core clock and 1000mhz memory at the peak 1.020v which yileds obviously more powerful performance for sure.

Intel Core i7 2720QM Engineering Sample @ peak base clock which is (99%) because the 3Ghz turbo clock gets too hot.

What's insane is it's at 1920x1080 with high texture resolution in direct-x 11 getting 20-120 fps which is awesome! Big increase in gaming fps with the 780mhz core clock, 1560mhz shader, and especially the 975mhz memory because the 128 bit memory is a huge bottleneck. I'm very happy with the gaming performance totally stable at 780mhz at 1.020v no chance of a driver failure or crash.

Check it out...

 

awesome, really awesome chris89, nice job

you are really pulling every mhz of performance from the gt540m




offtopic: d
o your ES proccesor hace unlocked multiplier?
what game is that?

 

Unfortunately, my laptop crashed after playing a few minutes of deadspace 3, the freezing issue still chases me... From what I figured, the undervolt will make the freezing less likely to happen, it's a paliative solution, I will test the core speed gradually, so I can see when It won't crash it anymore. So far Its at 590Mhz core clock, played deadspace 3 for an hour or so without crashes... I'll try to go up now.

It really saddens me that this issue doesn't have any solution and nobody knows what seems to happen, Dell is neglecting any guilt because this issue usually starts to happen after the warranty expires. It seems an wear issue that the more you use the more likely is to start crashing. From what I've figured, I think it might come from 2 sources or the heat is doing damage over time, or the voltages that they using are wrong, I really don't know what else could damage over time... I guess the heat should be the best explanation; the constant dilation and retraction, I really don't know if this is a GPU issue because I've had some minor freezes during common use, but when it happens, its like 0,5 or less and it is only perceptible when I'm listening to music, because the music ter a little... It's when I play games ind the 3d profile that it definitely freezes and forces me to do a hard reboot... Well I guess my only option is to buy a desktop and live with an underclocked GPU with this XPS, wich is not that bad but It's a waste of money and a lot of frustration.

 

I have my card overclocked and it works fine for most games, howerver, I dont know why, on dead space, both BCLK and GPU overclock makes the system crash.

had to leave both clocks on default (525m default clock is 600 mhz) to get it working without crashes

all other games are stable, but I dont know why that game doesnt handle any OC at all,

for example, on the new tomb raider I had to lower OC from 700 to 660 mhz while in other games it run fine

but dead space doesnt seems to love OC at all, even a little one.

well, anyway it is a fact that the GPU start suffering a small degradation over the time, for example, my GPU cant handle my initial OC now, even with the proper voltages I had to reduce it a little after some time.

 

Battlefield bad company 2 in directx 11 maxed out damn near and at 1920x1080 getting 35fps or more and it just runs great.

Was only able to get 750-1500-975 at 0.980v and at 1.020v I could only get 780 totally stable no artifacts and it passed 3dmark11 tests.

The problem with some of your guys systems is that the gpu uses 35 watts by stock and could see as much as 45 watts overvolted and overclocked, add a core i7 to that and add another 45 watts but turbo boost pushes it to 52 watts. So we are pumping 97 watts through a tiny heatsink assembly. It overheats in turbo boost so set max cpu to 99% which is a reduction in watts from 52 to 32 watts and that's 20 Celsius at least in temps so try 99% cpu thats overall load of 77 watts which is way cooler. The same applies to going to 98% which is 27 watts range, and 97% is like 19 watts so at 97% it's just 64 watts total load which is run very cool and stable.... Wouldn't it be nice to lock down the i7 gt cores to lesser watts too even undervolt/ underclock the cpu gpu and reduce the cpu temps. Like hard clock the intel hd3000 to 300mhz and reduce the voltage to get the cpu cooler for continuous load in turbo boost.

Anyway Good Luck!

This below PIC is at 98% notice the cpu watts and temps as well as the gpu temps etc... I7 2720qm at 99% is 2.2ghz, and 100% is 3Ghz so 98% is 2ghz.



This is just another action shot.