L502X modded bioses download (GPU voltages and more!)

@koca12
I think there is a way going into the power plan advanced options and setting the proccesor max ussage to 99%, or at least is what i've heard from others.

@yungbenny911

oh, you are right, well, in that case it could be dangerous to play with the nvidia video bios without a backup graphics.

anyway, acording to your proccesor specifications
i7-2630QM it have the intel HD 3000 graphics.

maybe optimus can be enabled or disabled in your bios settings?

idk, your xps 17 shoulnt be that different from another ones I think.

 

wow today my l502 is back from dell

they changed the mainboard.....

maybe some days and ill go again with ur bios mod; yours and only yours

 

Update, I'm back to the .85 A09 bios with latest drivers and zero issues, my problems seem to have been due to chrome flag "GPU Accelerated Canvas 2D".

 

@scruffyITA

glad you got finally your system back

hehe


@buch3r
great

thanks for the feedback and sharing the cause of the problem

 

Can you make a

2D PROFILE desired voltage: 0.83v
3D PROFILE desired voltage: 1V
card model: GT540M

Unlike many other l502x owners. I have no luck overclocking my 540m. In Starcraft 2. If I overclock Core to 725Mhz, game crashes. If I overclock memory by 25Mhz to 925Mhz, I get a memory leak.

 

@savior

you already have that settings for the A07 bios, you can give it a try.

the DL link is at the first post.

however since you seems interested, I will relase the same settings with the A09 bios version ^^

 

ok A09 BIOS version 0.83v - 1V is out for the 540m
feedback plz ^_^

 

Well I flashed it and booted up. So it seems to work for now.

 

I would like to report that the .83v - 1v bios didn't add any overclocking headroom for me.

The .83v - .83v bios isn't stable for me at all.

 

@Savior

give a try to the 0.83v/0.85v version

most 540m users reported that version as the best one, stable and lower temps, even it doesnt improve your OC a lot, it should improve the temps

 

This is now officially my favorite thread on the board.

525m @ 83/83 = No longer a flaming toaster.

Have only tested it a bit with Mass Effect, but seems stable enough without overclocking. Overclocking even a bit still crashes it just as quickly as it did on the stock BIOS. Haven't tried the 85/98 to see if I could get it to take a stable OC, and I may yet, but for now I'm happy with the heat reduction.

Thanks, man!

 

@FL5

glad you liked it

added to the testers list ^_^

 

Bah. Seems I spoke too soon. 83/83 appears to have been a tiny bit too aggressive, it seems. Bumped it up to 85/85, and it has remained stable for an hour or so now. We'll see if that holds.

 

well, its better than nothing

it still low voltage compared with the 0.95 stock voltage

0.83v just works perfect for my card, but may not work for you at all.

I will edit the firt post.

thanks also for the reference at your signature

 

Modded bios tested on my laptop-used the version for A09 bios with 0.83/0.83V...Tested with:Kingdoms Of Amalur:Reckoning,Syndicate,The Darkness II,NFS-The Run,Metro 2033,Crysis 2...and many more.Everything went fine-cooler temps and no BSOD!Keep up the good job!Salutes from Macedonia...

 

@Jovica666
thanks for the feedback

also added to the first post

 

No problem...I`m glad that someone was able to make this beautiful machine run a bit cooler. Currently testing it with Battlefield 3, MW3 and Alien vs.Predator...no problems for now I`ll let you guys know how things are going.

 

Battlefield 3 freezes after start but only when i overclock the GFX card.I guess I`ll won`t OC that much...

 

what are your highest "stable" clocks with the gt525m card and modded bios?

mine are 700/1400/915

 

For the 0.85/0.85V went up to 750/1500/1000(haven`t tried anything further) and used that for a while without any problems lag or freezing.Switched to the 0.83/0.83V A09 bios version and tried to play couple games as I already said...It started to freeze after 2min of Battlefield 3 gameplay with these clock settings(750/1000/1500). Switched back to normal clocks and there was no lag and freezing.

 

0.85/0.85 seems definitly the bios for you in this case
, else, if you still want the 0.83v, you will have to lower a bit the clocks, and I think the 0.02v are not worth of reflash, and readjust the clocks after testing.

in my case 0.83v was even more stable than the 0.85v, and there was no crashes unless I tried to OC further.

 

I signed up just now to appreciate your great work.

I've been a regular visitor in almost all active bios mod forums for my L502X for last 8 months. I've been holding myself back from trying your mod since i thought it's just for gfx card and not for i7 volt/clock mod. Anyway I finally tried it yesterday and it's just awesome!!.
I tried .85/.85 for my GT 525M and temps never goes up beyond 78 with furmark or occt.
With stock volt, and oc to 824/1080, eventhough I never had artifacts or freezes, temps rocketed upwards of 90 deg. and it was practically unusable.
With your .85/.85 mod, the oc head room went down slightly but temp drop's significant. occt didnt show any error @ 770/1080 but experienced one freeze.
So my current setting is 760/1080 and temps are lower than that of stock volt + stock clock.
Thanx again for your good work.
Now waiting for advanced menu mod with cpu volt mod.

 

Yes I guess I`ll have to stick to the 0.85/0.85V A09 bios profile(Which is great!) if I still want to use the GT 555M clocks for my GT 525M card

 

@dhaneshbc thank you very much man

well, this mod is based about what I discovered by myself and also based a little on another topic wich is trying to go deeper on things such as menu modding, unlocking extra options, and stuff like that, however since that subject is a little dead right now, I can only focus on the stuff I already confirmed that works fine.

and as for the moment, the only real acomplishment for the L502X is the GPU bios modding.

added you at the first post as a 525m A09 0.85v user

@Jovica666

nice clocks
I wish mine could be stable with that clocks, but seems it isnt :0

 

@capitankasar Yeah it is strange how every GFX card of the same type is unique...with its own limits Thanx again man for all that you`ve done to cool down our XPS`s...

 

It would be nice to unlock the "Disable Intel GPU" bios option (assuming there is one) and run the Nvidia chip full-time.

 

It would be nice; however the Intel IGPU is the only source of connection to the laptop monitor. This means that if you were to disable the IGPU, you would not be able to work the NVidia GPU either; NVidia operated programs are rendered through to the IGPU and then to the display.

Besides, turning off the NVidia GPU reduces unnecessary heat and power

(I think that the NVidia GPU renders directly to the HDMI connection – so it is a half workaround)

@Jovica666

Nice OC's you got there - with luck, those 525's can put out some grunt.

@Captain Kasar (or anyone else!)

Do you know if there was any difference between the December vs February dated A09 BIOS? I swear Dell is trying to confuse us!

Cheers all

 

@Matix and all

i think someone before asked that in another topic, and I checked both checksums and they were identical, so you dont have to worry.


in the other hand, I entered today to the site, and I saw the A10 update.
I got a file not found error while trying to download from the original drivers download site.

but getting to dell's ftp site, I was able to download.

users interested in getting the "original" new A10 bios can give it a try here:
http://ftp.dell.com/FOLDER00318273M/1/L502XA10.exe

according to the official site those are the checksums:

MD5:5593c978aad809a53b86374a7f001603 L502XA10.exe
SHA1:4326a0c7c4567550b0ea49c4c54d74c2bece57e6 L502XA10.exe


about the changes, they are following.

as you can see, it may contain the fan fix.

I have to do some exams today, so I will be a little busy, but I can start modding the new bios tonight, so if there is someone interested on trying the new bios and tell me if the if is worth of it , i would be really pleased

also, since I have to start from 0 again with all the voltage settings for both cards in the new A10 version.
you can post here your desired voltage settings and card version so I can focus on those versions first

 

hi capitankasar iv free time atm so i will try out this new bios and report back any changes and thanks for the heads up much appreciated

 

Can you do step by step on how to update the bios ?
Ignore this , the guide is in the first post .

 

@daryld1988

yeah, the bios just got relased today, I was just checking the drivers downloads site cuz matix told me something about something about two posible A09 bios versions.

thanks in advance for testing the new bios

I think will relase some versions tonight, relasing a modded bios the same day the original one came out may be a world's record, hehe

 

@ZXRaziel

it is already explained at the first post.

you download the file (winrar is needed)

then you extract the files into a folder, and you run the "flash the modded bios" file and follow instructions, fast and easy

anyway, are you talking about the original bios relased today? or to the already existing bios mods by me?

 

Il try it out too,...
2D PROFILE: 0.83v
3D PROFILE: 0.85v

for the Gt 540m
Thanks again !

 

I have downloaded the new original bios and installed it , it works fine , no issues so far ,but i never had any isues with the original bios .

 

bios update went ok as always but havent noticed any changes thus far, the fan still gives its short bursts on and off but the other point is that maybe with an undervolted version you release it might come on even less again as the voltage will be decreased and this should also lower the temperature which means hopefully the fan triggered temperature mark shouldnt be hit as often

 

Flashed back to .83/.83 from .85/.85 to give it another shot and see if I can get it stable by underclocking. Big goal for me is to get the temperatures down. If I can get it with just a little bit of a performance hit, then I'll be happy enough with it.

Just swapped in some low-voltage 1.35v ram to replace the old 1.5v ram. Since sandy bridge's memory controller is on-die, I figure any voltage reduction will help give a little more thermal headroom. Probably won't make a difference, but ram is cheap, so why not? If it ends up cooler and/or more stable, it'll be worth it to me.

Gonna go play some more video games to see if it locks up or not.

As for voltages on the A10 BIOS, I'd like it if you could get it as low as possible and still have it run. For stability, .85/.85 should probably still be great, right? But having a lower setting for us goofy knuckleheads who are dumb enough to try it would be appreciated as well.

 

@all

ok, I finally modded the A10 BIOS

I started with the version I'm using right now, the 0.83v / 0.83v for the 525m.
I decided to start this way since I needed to test if modding this version still safe before uploading it to the public.

as allways,I flashed it without any problem and it works fine.
FACT ^_^


now I will relase the 0.85 versions for 525m and 540m, I supose I will take less time since it is already tested.

probably will be up in less than an hour :3

I'm sorry for all people waiting, working as fast as I can

 

@all
ok I relased following versions for A10 bios

525m 0.83v / 083v (already said on previus post)

525m 0.85v / 085v (NEW!)

540m 0.83v / 085v (NEW!)

need some feedback!

thank you

also, if you want a bios version/voltages wich is not at the first post, just let me know





@FL5

let me know if you have some luck with the 0.83v/0.83v

and yes 0.85v at the new A10 bios should work fine ^_^

 

@ Captain Kasar:

Your " FACT ^_^ " has been maintained - had no issues with flashing the 540M (.85v). Big thanks as always.

PS Hope the exam went well

For interest:

"Sync solution from Queen for IFIR fan noise issue"
After a bit of google-searching possibly means Initial Field Incident Rate (Dell's term for problems after product distribution). Sounds sorta like they are retrieving a solution from the Queen (The Hive!?) to fix problems reported by users after purchases due to a high incident rate.
Personally I would prefer if they used plain language when talking about these fixes & enhancements - very hard for us laypeople to understand.

However, IMHO the new BIOS hasn't brought anything revolutionary in terms of fan behaviour at first observation. Will keep an eye on things and report back.

 

@Matix5
thanks also for the info, yeah, most times we are not sure about what we are flashing, specially if they dont enter in much details ^_^

thank you
I edited the first post and removed that red text from the A10 540m .85 (I hate it since it scare some ppl hehe ^^)

yeah, the exam went fine, today I will get the last exams for this course, I hope there will be no problems on the way

I also will put an eye on the laptop Fan after flashing the modded A10 version.

I also noticed some annoying fan noises sometimes, but since I am in a room with a lot of computers, I almost dont notice it due the over 9000 fans spinning in the room

 

capitankasar, any luck with hidden bios options?

 

nope, there was a topic at the bios mods forums, but it seems inactive right now, and I dont have the skills to accomplish that alone :/

 

2D PROFILE desired voltage: 0.85v
3D PROFILE desired voltage: 0.95v
card model: GT525M
A10 Bios

Thank you so much for doing all this work, Capitankasar!

 

@utmmyak
thank you

well, 0.85v/0.95v are already the default values for 525m at the official bios.
so modding it will make no changes at all

do you want a 0.85v/0.98v for the 525m A10 instead?

 

@all

added two overvolted bioses for the new A10 version

* 525m 0.85v/0.98v

* 540m 0.83v/1V

feedback plz ^_^

 

Ok i decided to test this mod bios , will let you know how it goes

 

@ZXRaziel
Thanks

wich one are you testing?

525m 0.85v/0.98v?

or

540m 0.83v/1V?

 

Well this might be my last post from this laptop , i have the gt540 2GB GPU in my system , i think i was lucky because it overclocks very well and runs cool , but after i pass the 800 MHz mark the performance gains seem to be very small , i believe if i increase the voltage i can not just run higher frequenci but get better performance gains too , i am runing the 0,83V/1V version and i think i am the first one running 900 MHz on the core !!!

All seems OK , but the hard test is just commin .

I am off to play some games , if you not hear from me by tomorow night , that means the machine is dead , ( feeling bit mad tonight ) .

 

@ZXRaziel
I will add you to the first post

900 mhz is crazy!

if it run stable you may be the one with highest OC ever for this card

well done

anyway put an eye on the temps , 1V can give high temps ^^

 

hi capitankasar. i put back ur 09 525 85-85 bios some weeks ago... yes 3 days after my dell was back and all was really good. no because the a10 isnt fully tested can someone please test it for me? cuz if i call dell twicedunno what they will do

GT525m bios mod for L502X DOWNLOAD LINK
MD5 checksum: F05F9294A9C54F9180BBF780BC41FE92
BIOS version used: A10
this bios mod has not been tested yet, plz give feedback!
2D PROFILE: 0.85v
3D PROFILE: 0.85v
notes: this is the new undervolted A10 BIOS version for gt525m users, it should be stable for most people
that's what im looking for. with the 09 i was able to oc my 525m @ gt550m

and with an i5 2410m hit 9670 point at 3dmark 06