P6831-FX - Turn on Virtualization

Just following up with the info on the token/values in the bios to enable Virtualization.

Now I got both Virtual PC and Hyper-V working but not at the same time with the same bios tokens. Also, I have worked heavily in both and nothing else on this laptop waivered by setting either of those. Note, the original chip DOES NOT HAVE VIRTUALIZATION CAPABILITIES. I upgraded my cpu to the T8100.

Note: this was tested on windows 2008 server, but I i'm 99% sure virtual PC will work on XP or vista with the same token/values set

bios tokens/values for Microsoft Virtual PC Hardware virtualization capable:
0213 set to 0001 (originally is 0000)
0219 set to 0001 (originally is 0000)


bios tokens/values to run Hyper-V (windows 2008 server):
0213 set to 0001 (originally is 0000)
0216 set to 0001 (originally is 0000)
note: 0219 keep it at the default of 0000 (setting to 0001 and Hyper-V fails)

Other thread that started this all with my review of windows 2008 server running on the 6831 and the convo that lead to this discovery can be found on this thread.

windows 2008 "workstation" is the best development operating system I have ever used!

Justy

 

Justy,


You rock! Thanks for all the hard work on this. I know I want to test this out after I upgrade my CPU.

I want to make sure I'm following this correctly though:

The bios tokens/values that you posted about, do those get put into the emulated bios in Virtual PC or in the Gateway bios?

If its in the Gateway BIOS, how is that accomplished?



Thanks again!
-K

 

yes what he said ^
can you edit the gateway bios ?

 

I posted in the original thread this one was created from by justified. But it's probably much better to post it here as the title reflects it a bit better. So, sorry for a repost.

------

Has anyone done this on a Gateway P-6860FX laptop? I upgraded to a T9300 in order to get the VT support (and play games better >_> <_<), but now I'm peeved that the BIOS won't even let me activate it without hacking the thing.

I've figured out everything all the way up to dumping my symcmos bios text file stuff. But I have no idea what to change inside of it because the entries 0213 and 0219 (doesn't even have it) are different. Specifically it has:

(0210) [0001]
(0213) [0002]
(021C) [0001]
(022B) [0001]
...

and so on.

I'm really not comfortable changing 02xx values from 0000 to 0001 because I just spent $1500+ on this setup and don't wanna totally screw it up. So I'm hoping someone's already done this?

I've actually changed 9 or so entries of [0000] to [0001] before (0210). Don't mess with (01EF) through (0201) if you don't want a botched boot and it to be in french >_<.

 

royk50 - This should help with trying to figure out the process.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=189228

Basically, create a bootable flash drive to get into DOS, the use symcmos to read the current BIOS settings to a file, edit them either in DOS or Windows, use symcmos again to upload your changes. But be careful, cause you can screw up your laptop being able to boot. Worst case I read is you have to take out the battery to reset the CMOS if it's really undoable.

Edit: Obviously DON'T copy the same addresses mentioned in the link, they're different for every model.

 

thanks

what version is your bios? as i would be very surprised if the 6860 and the 6831 are any different.

 

Looks like it's 94.29.00.

From the addresses mentioned by justified though, they don't match at all. So it seems that the 6860 has something different in it.


So I just got done testing a block of 4 addresses... (023A), (023D), (0240), and (0246). It caused Vista to not be able to boot all the way in. So I undid the changes, and rebooted again. It went through a system repair that took way too long, checking the harddrive as the only "repair". I boot into Vista, and test VMWare Player with my 64 bit Linux test OS... and voila, it works now...

WTF?

Not sure what happened. So I dumped out the current settings and diffed the original settings to the current ones. There's a few differences:

Code:

orig                     tweaked
---------------------------------------------
(0282) [0007]       (0282) [0083]
(028B) [0001]       (028B) [0000]
(0294) [0000]       (0294) [0001]

No idea what really happened, but hey it's working... so can't argue that.

 

interesting, my bios is 94.26.00

 

Well, I've got a little bit more info...

After a reboot VMWare stopping working with the Virtualization Technology. Odd. So I dumped the cmos settings again, and they match exactly to what it was. So I revert everything to the standard bios, still doesn't work. I try a few more addresses (294, 24C-255, 264-26D) and still nothing. So I try 2 of the 4 addresses I tried right before Vista couldn't boot in (23A and 23D) and does the system repair.

So after it fails to boot, I revert to the original BIOS before tweaking, skip the Vista system repair, and test VMWare... aaaand VMWare works.

So something about a failed boot with system repair is the only things changing here...

 

And another update:

So once VMWare is working, I can reboot around 4 times just fine with some usage between each. Once I shutdown and then try to boot back into Vista to test VMWare, Virtualization no longer works.

 

/bump

Does anyone know how to enable virtualization on a 6860 FX? Any tips for finding the right address in symcmos to edit?

 

I think I finally figured out this issue for the 6860 FX users out there. The registers that the original poster said correspond as such:

Code:

6831 FX                 6860 FX
---------------------------------------------------
(0213) [0000]       (023A) [0000]
(0216) [0000]       (023D) [0000]
(0219) [0000]       (0240) [0000]

So all I did was change the 23A and 23D registers to 0001 for VMWare Player. The trick to it all is that you gotta power down the machine for the registers to really take effect it seems, or else you can't boot into Vista correctly.

 

so its works and it stays on after system is turned off ?

 

So far so good on it. I powered off completely and went back in, still workin'.

 

ok finally got to do this
rep to you all my x7800 vt is now enabled !

 

After a couple more weeks testing the 6860fx, it seems that enabling vt causes issues with booting still, mainly when not connected to the power adapter. It's a pain, but I flash it to vt enabled when I need it, and flash it back when it can't boot...

 

thanks for the warning,
lets c how my notebook behaves.

so far no problems.

 

btw i only enabled the 213 219 as justified pointed out, did you try 23A and 240 ?

last note is that if you use the symcmos.exe to produce symbolic report file it shows you can overclock the extreme cpu up to 3.6ghz !!!

still need to put a lot of time to find which registers are the one that enables it, moreover this requires more risk than i willing to take

 

Yea I tried them, but didn't do as much testing, it's been long enough that I don't remember if it was different at all, though I think it did the same thing. It just seems that the 6860FX behaves differently than the 6831.