Custom BIOS splash

Yeah, I'm a horrible geek. I got in and hacked the splash screen of my BIOS (111A for those who care). I have a small (1.4MB) video of it booting up, but I can't attach it to a post, and I'm not ambitious enough to put it on my webserver right now. I'll see if I can upload it later. Attached is a screenshot of it emulated in the BIOS editing program, though.

I lied. Here's the video.

And here is the BIOS itself.

Remember, I take NO responsibility for this! If it hoses your machine, well, too bad. It works on mine.

 

Hey, I know where you got that from!! I want a custom splash too, how do you do it? Don't know what it would be, but I want it! It'd be awesome if you could make it play music... Ah I just got an idea for what to make it, the back of my lid but mirror image so it's like you can see through it!

Malia

 

It's not terribly easy, and is very risky. I used the Phoenix BIOS editor from the Bizcom drivers and such, and hacked up the display image. It took me a while to make one that was correctly sized and all, so it wasn't too big for the BIOS.

Anyway, I'll provide the BIOS later here for anyone that may want to use it ( AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!!!!!!! I CAN'T STRESS THIS ENOUGH), but if you can't figure out how to do it on your own, it's really something you shouldn't be doing. I have a degree in Mathematics with a Computer Science emphasis, engineering minor, work as a programmer, etc., so I feel comfortable doing it (and completely understand the risks and how to mitigate them). Most people probably shouldn't do it because there's a VERY real possibility of screwing up your machine. The program won't tell you if you've imported an image that's the wrong size, too big, etc., I also had to edit a script that described how it generated the shadow for the image, and so on.

It's mostly a neato thing I did that I wanted to share

As an aside, if any company or individual would like me to make a custom HGL-30 BIOS for them, with their logo in place of the Phoenix one, feel free to contact me and we can discuss it. It's not easy work, so I'd like compensation for anything but the one I'm personally doing (which uses someone else's copyrighted image anyway, so I'd feel bad charging for it)

 

Very cool.

 

Thats awesome! How long did it take until you had the finished splash screen?

 

After doing all the relevant experimentation and research to figure out what was necessary (and I'm still not a complete expert in everything), probably 2-3 hours to get the image, do the conversions and such necessary, and compile it into the BIOS. If I had a source image given to me right now, it'd take me 3-5 hours of work to make the BIOS and test it.

I could of course have left the Centrino logos and such as well, but I wanted just a white splash with the 'shrooms

 

Somebody needs to find a woman

 

I have one, *edited by moderator to avoid jealousy * and loves me dearly (as I do her).

She's a computer geek, too

 

A custom splash screen -and- a woman? Oh man, you're lucky.

 

is it so DANGEROUS to change the splash image? the BiosEditor has a mount test so we can check if the splash is going to work ok...

 

troll: It can be. I would get messages saying the BIOS compiled fine, and it would load back up in the editor fine, but when I went to look at the splash screen it'd crash. There are quite real possible problems with it, and someone who doesn't fully test can get themselves into a lot of trouble, so I'd rather err on the side of caution, especially since recovering from a mis-flashed BIOS can be such a pain.

 

Really nice,do you think it's the same process for a hel80

 

From my understanding of the BIOS, it is within a reasonable range of inferance that the BIOS itself contains images to display for the boot-up screen.

Pitabred: I am assuming you are finding the location of the initial image itself then editing out this initial image for another image (with the same name and etc.)

However... umm... ... what tools did you use again for this purpose?

A custom screen bios is uuber cool... (combined with a XGL-compiz HGL30 )

 

Bummer. The video won't play for me . But I get the picture .

 

chrisyano: Video's in XviD format. Figured that was about as small as I could get it If you install the K-Lite codec pack it should play.

shadowing: Yes, it does contain the images inside the BIOS, which is why there's a size limitation. It's also limited to 256 colors, but it's not a fixed palette. There's a download on the biz-com site for the Phoenix BIOS editor installer, and that's the tool I used to compile and test (and take that screenshot)

jbizrico: More than likely, yes. I don't have an HEL-80 to test with, but the BIOS's and machines are nearly identical, so I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work in the same manner. Like I said, be VERY careful, and if you don't understand something, don't do, it or at least ask questions first.

 

Pitabred: Are there any other options/abilities that the Phoenix BIOS editor contains? I believe when one modifies the BIOS there are usually somewhat 'hidden' options.

Additionally, do you know the size limit?

 

I haven't seen any "hidden" options in the BIOS, at least nothing I wanted to play with. Didn't see any ability to open up a RAM timing setup or anything, if that's what you're asking. And for size limit, the image I have in there is 76K I think. I haven't experimented enough to find the actual limits.

 

Interesting.. Time to shape an image for my needs...

Btw, did you ever think of applying a GRUB screen image too?

 

I might. I've been working on getting Beryl working first, it's not seeming to be happy with my systems for some reason. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong, either, which is rather annoying (especially considering I'm a programmer... wtf). I'll just need to actually sit down and work at it.

 

Are you using Ubuntu? I remember my friend got his working with beryl + AIGLX nVidia drivers.

I was hoping enabling it wasn't going to be that hard.

 

I just needed to actually read rather than get ahead of myself You just need to make sure you install the beta NVIDIA drivers, not the included ones. Got a flashy, envy-worthy beryl desktop now :-D So everything's hunky-dory. We can talk about the BIOS some more.

 

Any chance you can link me to the BIOS editor? I can't find it on bizcom's site.

 

http://www.bizcom-us.com/support/TechSupportDriversDownloadPage.htm#GL30

There's a big 'ol link that says "BIOSEDIT". I'd think that's the one I'd try if I were looking for a BIOS editor Be careful.

 

Ok Cool. Downloading the version for HEL80... (man is it just me or are these flashing lights killing the eyes?)

 

Hey Pitabred, how did you flash your bios? Under Windows or DOS?

 

I used a USB key bootable from FreeDOS. Search the archives for a post I made on how to do it.

 

Hmm... I just used the Phoenix BIOS editor. I just took a look at the logos and etc. Can you fill me in on something here?

I think you mentioned something about testing the BIOS under the editor... How do you do that?

Btw, did you delete the other images to gain a higher image size limit?

 

I replaced the other images. I had to change the image script so it didn't throw a shadow. And you need to make sure that you can open the new BIOS in the editor, and that you can look at the new splash in the editor. Really, it sounds like you're unsure about what you're doing. It can be dangerous, so make sure you're absolutely sure the BIOS is good before you flash it.

 

Any news on your BIOS editing, shadowing? Hope you didn't brick your only machine

 

Been busy these days.

I still can't think of a good image to use... (I might go Transformers theme )

The thing is... I am actually looking for that part in the BIOS that determines the color of the startup screen... (I am doubting the Phoenix BIOS editor can find that :/)