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    Yoga 2 13 Bios Extraction

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by aymanhaq, Jul 31, 2014.

  1. aymanhaq

    aymanhaq Notebook Enthusiast

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    First of all, there isn't much love out there for the Yoga 2 13. Everyone seems to be talking about the Yoga 2 Pro. IMO, the Yoga 2 13 is superior. The 1080p screen means that there are less scaling issues across all interfaces, something that multiple reviews have confirmed. At 13 inches, the increased resolution will have a negligible increase in sharpness. On top of that, The Yoga 2 13 has a 6 cell battery while the Yoga 2 Pro has a 4 cell battery. That means the 13 actually has a longer battery life than that Pro. Oh, and did I mention that the Yoga 2 13 is cheaper as well?

    Now for my actual question. I am trying to get the bios modded on this laptop to unlock fan control and graphics card overclocking functions. However, there is no available BIOS download from Lenovo's website. Is there anyway to extract the BIOS from the computer directly? I downloaded this utility but when I run it absolutely nothing happens. Running Windows 8.1 64-bit.

    Thanks for any help!
     
    aymanhaq, Jul 31, 2014
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    L-W likes this.
  2. Savior

    Savior Notebook Consultant

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    When you figure out how to unlock the BIOS. I would love to unlock whatever lock lenovo put that prevents Intel Extreme Utility from increasing the TDP of the processor.
     
    Savior, Aug 1, 2014
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  3. aymanhaq

    aymanhaq Notebook Enthusiast

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    I've managed to extract the BIOS. It just kind of worked when I tried it a few days later, unsure why. Increasing the TDP control in XTU is actually already unlocked. Unlocking custom clocks, fan control, and turbo boost on/off are functions in XTU/SpeedFan would really help in over/underclocking. Interested?
     
    aymanhaq, Aug 1, 2014
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  4. Savior

    Savior Notebook Consultant

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    You can increase the TDP, but it actually does nothing. Run a benchmark and you'll see the TDP is locked to 15W. The Yoga 2 Pro has a BIOS setting that disables the TDP lock. I had a HP elitebook where there wasn't a TDP lock and the cpu would run at 23 W in a long test.
     
    Savior, Aug 1, 2014
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  5. aymanhaq

    aymanhaq Notebook Enthusiast

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    Well if you want to take a look at the BIOS, here is the link I uploaded it to:
    http://www.datafilehost.com/d/c0e17c5f
    Keep in mind this is not a Lenovo download, but a BIOS backup made using Universal BIOS Backup Toolkit 2.0.
     
    aymanhaq, Aug 2, 2014
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  6. L-W

    L-W Newbie

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    Hi I recently bought the Yoga 2 13 and agree with all your observations about it, including the noisy fan! Judging from your post, you are far more tech savvy than me so just wondering if you ever managed to find a way of controlling fan speed? If there's no easy software fix, is it possible to play with the hardware - maybe a resistor in series (i have no actual experience doing this)? thanks!
     
    L-W, Apr 10, 2015
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