Razer BIOS Mods - Potential to Unlock All Hidden Options

The 11th Gen has a totally different style bios chip that's much flatter and wider that can't be clamped onto.

 

Was just poking around the Synapse folder and saw this DLL in this folder.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Razer\Synapse3\WPFUI\SystemDependencies\Razer.Synapse3.CommonPerformance

https://i.imgur.com/WISJrhJ.png

wonder if there's anything we can do to mod synapse itself to get a few more watts out of "gaming mode"

 

Nope it is hard coded in management controller, even bios and cpu registers does nothing. That's why IMON hack works at all.

 

Does anyone know if there are any hidden BIOS commands that would allow me to completely disable (turn off) the discreet graphics? I know I can turn on and off optimus, but I actually want to completely turn off discreet.

 

Why?

You simply set the maximum processor state to 99% (at power options for the given power profile), this turns off the turbo. Then check the Undervolting possibilities if the Bios is opened for that, then the laptop runs 8-10 hours from battery for Web/YT/Office related tasks. At least mine does (Advanced with 2070 Super).

Do you need more than 8-10 hours from battery?

 

I have the advanced 2020 model I was looking to see if someone could unlock everything for me. The menus are were they should be I am on 1.06. I would pay If I could have this done. I am having issues doing this on my own as some things are hard to find.

Willing to send my 1.06 OEM bin dump. If someone can unlock all the options available for overclocking. Also willing to pay for the time. I also do not have a programmer with me at this time.

I'm used to using the programmer to fix macbook bios issues. But it only required a single line edit for some fixes. This type of programming requires a lot of experience over mine.

 

I was hoping someone could confirm I have the correct chip before I make my 2021 a brick....

I have read in the chip, but the chip on the motherboard is a 25B127DSIG - On Page 45 Raidriar mentions this as well, and used the GD25Q128 in asprogrammer. I did the same, but the asprogrammer I have has two GD25Q128 - GD25Q128B and GD25Q128C. I read in both just in case, but before writing back a modified BIOS, I thought it would be safer to confirm here first.

And out of curiosity, if I read the BIOS in using afuwin, its 12MB, but the GD25Q128 are larger, they read in as 16MB (and the Datasheet for the 25B127DSIG also says 16MB) - so, Im not sure if this is due to the limits of afuwin and the BIOS on the motherboard?

Ive attached a picture of the BIOS just to triple check Im thinking correctly....

Thanks for any clarification.

 

I am trying to figure out how to use the integrated graphics when I am using an external monitor. While at work, there are many times I have to connect my laptop to do presentations, and when I connect, my power consumption jumps by 15W. I am trying to get feedback from Razer, but as of now, I have not received confirmation that the HDMI port and Thunderbolt ports are ONLY tied to discreet graphics. I was hoping to test this by completely disabling the discreet graphics and seeing if the power draw remains the same and if I could still get video from HDMI. My current work around, which is not that great, but I can use a Miracast device connected to the projector, and then wirelessly connect and extend my display without the increased power consumption.

 

They are connected to Nvidia for sure, but you can uninstall nvidia drivers and disable device in device manager. Just stop network before reboot to prevent windows install driver again.

 

Can't you try a USB port connected Lenovo display output? Not a simple USB-c displayport or HDMI output. That would use the built in display.

I have somewhere one of this device.
It installs a driver and then it is working through the USB port.
This one will not use the Nvidia for sure

I have no clue about the power consumption - I used it plugged in.
But it was working on every laptop where I tried.

Maybe a device like this would be the solution to your problem.
For sure consumes less than 15W - as a USB port cannot handle 3A load.

 

Doesn’t work as power is still being routed to PEG0, is just windows cannot utilize the device or change its power state.



@faustiano
there is a weird switch case in the BIOS setup code that makes it switch only between SG and PEG. I’ve modified this switch to use IGFX but it ignores it, so there must be a second check or switch someplace else that I couldn’t find.

as a test you can leave graphics mode in SG and then go to chipset -> peg port configuration and disable peg port 0 which is connected to the Nvidia GPU and see if you find a drop in power consumption. I haven’t bothered with checking the power consumption, but the RTX GPU will be completely absent in device manager as the root port has been disabled.

 

@Raidriar your right, disabling the Nvidia does not change the power. Even though the drivers are not loaded, it will still pull full load when a display is connected to the HDMI or Thunderbolt port.

I will try your suggestion this weekend regarding the change on the peg port configuration (I did not enable that feature in BIOS, so I will need to reflash the BIOS with those options available).

 

On my Advanced 2021, I have read in the chip, but I only attempted to use the GUI edit to add the Undervolting options, and once I wrote them back, I can see the overclock option in the advanced options, but there are no options under it to undervolt. Im guessing this means I will need to hex edit to add the option??

 

@faustiano, as far as I know the HDMI and DisplayPort connectors are hardwired to the GPU. There's no muxing going on in the Blade. When you use the ports, the output of the integrated GPU gets routed to the dedicated GPU, from which it is then sent to the ports and out of the device. Unfortunately, there's no way to get the integrated graphics to output to an external display without utilizing the dedicated GPU. The device would need a muxer for that, which both GPUs send their output to.

By the way, for the built-in screen it works the other way around. When the dedicated GPU is in use, it will send its output to the integrated graphics, which will output it to the screen, foregoing the use of muxing.

 

2020 300 hz model have a mux, so not entirely true.

 

That is true, both USB C ports and HDMI are hardwired to the dGPU. Only the internal screen can be muxed either way. I would have like to see the left side USB c on the iGPU or at least be switchable in the bios but that takes extra hardware so I get it.

 

Thunderbolt is connected to CPU so maybe an option?

 

Ok I did the mod on page 26 down to the letter but still ain't getting nothing in bios menus. I've went though just about every page of this 57 page thread. Seems like a few people had the same issue. And never got an answers.

I've got an early 2020 razer studio running 1.06.

I've even read the bios again to verify the flash and all the options are in the amibcp menu as "user" so I think the flash is good. Computer boots. But no new menus when I boot into bios. Help, please!

 

Some mods requires to load 'Optimized settings' at the Bios before saving it. This loads the 'User' you modified.
So go to the BIOS, Load optimized defaults, save, exit and go back after the reboot.

I never completed that complicated things - my 3 changes enabled the overclocking/undervolting/flashing from Windows.

At 1.06 I modified only the following:
Setup -> Chipset -> PCH-IO Configuration -> Security Configuration ->BIOS Lock (User / disabled)
Setup/Advanced/Power&Performance/Cpu power management control/View configure cpu lock options/CFG Lock : set to user/disabled/disabled
Setup/Advanced/Power&Performance/Cpu power management control/View configure cpu lock options/Overclocking Lock: set to user/disabled/disabled

After these the BIOS is flashable from windows and also Trottlestop/XTU able to adjust the Cache/Core voltages.
Don't forget to Load optimized defaults.

(with these mods there is new new menu at the Bios, only the overclocking/undervolting/flashing possibility enabled from windows - which is more than enough for me).

 

I tried to load optimized defaults. I will say something changed as now it won't allow me to use my pen and I'm pretty sure the camera no longer works as it won't let me log in that way either. Luckily I setup a password. I figured that with the BIOS flashing with the programmer that I did not have to do the initial bios interrogation from page 1 have this thread. Have you all had to do that? For some reason I'm thinking there's something that I'm missing. But I've walked through that guide three or four times. And everything looks right on my end. Maybe I'll try uploading and see if someone can look over it? It would mean a lot to me.

 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zgi_JO4aAkxSnZsNPv3REndl-tdR9STY?usp=sharing

are the copy of my bios. I may be asking a lot but maybe someone could take a peek and see what I need to do?

 

someone! lol Help!

 

Help with what??

 

Hello everyone, i am quite new to the razer blade and i am currently reading alot about the bios modding with that notebook. Might anyone provide me with the 1.06 unlocked bios for flashing with the hardware flasher? I am using a Blade 15 Advanced 2020 with a 2080 Super and i7 10785H.
Thanks in advance!

 

Not necessary to fully disable turbo to get a silent RB Adv. I use TS to limit turbo to x36 and my blade runs dead silent for most operations with the Balanced/Auto fan profile.

 

Thanks all for this legendary thread!!! Spent a lot of time last night with my RB15 advanced 2020 with 2080S MaxQ. Wasn't brave enough to do the TDP trick and I couldn't get the BIOS menus to show up so I settled by disabling the locked undervolt items so I can use throttle stop. Not impressive results tbh (-125mv on core and -40mv on cache) but temps do seem a little better. Also tweaked the turbo limits and created a profile for 'quiet' (something I miss from my lenovo) that has turbo disabled entirely. It's a lot nicer to work with this way for sure although the flipping thing still seems to spin up for no good reason at times.

I was already running the RBP17 2080S vbios which gave me a few extra points/frames and wondering if the BIOS can be changed to avoid the annoying custom VBIOS warning on boot? Or is that a vBIOS thing?

Thanks!!!

 

Hi All,
I have a Blade 15 2020 Base and messed it up with BIOS update 1.06 few days ago (BSOD during upgrade then didn't start anymore). I could manage to manually flash the BIOS with a CH341A Programmer (only to version 1.03, 1.06 still killing my machine) but after that my touchpad is not working anymore. When I check BIOS I could see proper main version but for EC FW and MCU FW versions I see version 1.0.x. (which seems to be incorrect for me). I extracted the BIOS image from official updater (it contained 2 BINs, Dana5_0106.bin and Dana5_0106_FWUpdate.bin, I used the first one which is 16 MB). Anyone has any idea what am I doing wrong? Should I apply both BINs (if so how?).

Thanks for your help in advance.

 

Hey! Has anyone/Is anyone willing to take apart a 2020 Razer Blade 15 Advanced and take some picture of some ICs on the back? I need to know the markings on the USB-PD controllers (should be located super close to the USB-C ports). I'm pretty sure these ICs are on the keyboard-facing side of the PCB, as I couldn't find them on the easy-to-see side. I would do it myself, but I don't actually have any thermal paste on hand, and I think removing the board would also require removing the cooler.

I'm trying to see if I can gain access to the USB-PD controllers over I2C to get around some Razer proprietary crap. For more info, read my post here: https://insider.razer.com/index.php...lade-advanced-usb-c-pd-charging-issues.74883/


EDIT: The 2020 Razer Blade Advanced uses TI TPS65987DDJ USB-PD controllers. Each one has it's own SPI Flash chip. Both TPS65987DDJ's are on the back of the board (the hard-to-see side), and the SPI flash for the non-Thunderbolt Type-C plug (left side USB-C Port) is also on the back of the board. The SPI flash for the Thunderbolt-compatible port (right side USB-C Port) is on the front of the board. Note that this SPI flash is shared between the TPS65987DDJ PD controller and the JHL340 Titan Ridge Thunderbolt 3 Controller that this model laptop uses.

 

Wow, this sounds a lot like one of the issues I've been having with my Blade Stealth (late 2019 and late 2020), and this is the first time I've really seen anyone else mention it (I made a thread here, although I didn't really go into the third-party charger issues much there, but that part is pretty much the same as your experience). I can't really help, as I'm in the same situation of not wanting to take the board completely out (I'm pretty sure too that the charging IC is on the top-side of it), but also obviously the Stealth might use a different IC anyway and I'm probably going to be sending this particular one back for a refund while I still can (due to other issues it has) so don't really want to be opening it up at all. I would be very interested if you do manage to do anything though.

I absolutely agree with you that Razer's apparent stance that you should only use their original USB-C charger completely defeats the point of it using USB-C, and it's particularly an issue with the Stealth when their charger is so bulky and heavy relative to the laptop itself. My old Sony VAIO ultrabook's charger is least 90w (which is less than the Stealth uses in almost all circumstances) but is noticeably less heavy/bulky, and that's 11 years old. And I could also use it with easily-available third-party laptop chargers with no problem at all. So somehow USB-C is far more restrictive and less compatible than the existing alternative in this case.

So in my case with the Blade Stealth, it doesn't even seem to take the proper amount from lower powered USB-C chargers either - when I tested with a 60w charger, I could only get it to take an absolute maximum of 35w, and most of the time it was taking even less than that while draining the battery at the same time (due to the issue mentioned in my thread above). What you've said about USB-PD profiles is interesting, I didn't realise that was how it worked exactly. So I guess mine isn't recognising the profile of the 60w charger correctly, and my 90w charger gets counted as 60w (I see a maximum of 62w on my USB-C power meter). At least that means that if I could find a third-party 100w USB-C charger (which still don't really seem to be a thing in the UK yet), it should work correctly (or at least as well as the original Razer one does - even with that it still drains the battery instead of taking power from the charger in some circumstances, which is kind of a different issue but I suspect it's caused by the same IC).

I see someone in your thread on the Razer site said "same as Apple that recommended using their original usb C power brick" - but it's actually a lot worse than Apple, because their laptops don't have this issue and can apparently even manage to charge some amount from a 9v USB-C supply, whereas there's absolutely no chance of that with Razer (I've tried it, it's like there's nothing connected at all) and they can't even manage to use a full 20v supply properly.

One thing I've noticed is that one of the requirements for Thunderbolt 4 certification (which the Blade Stealth late 2020 apparently has) is that it has to have at least one USB-C port that can charge the laptop. So in the current situation, I'm thinking either Razer must be breaking that requirement, or the requirement doesn't actually mean it has to charge properly from third-party USB-C chargers which would surely defeat the whole point of such a requirement?

 

I can't link it here due to forum rules, but if anyone would like a 15" gtx2080 OLED blade Adv with 1.04 bios and undervolting enabled, i just threw mine up on fleabay. Just search for "razer blade undervolt" and it should come up. Rock solid with -180mv core and -90mv cache.

 

Hi, I have Blade 15 base 2021, rtx3070 and I want to make Razer silent while on ac and low load. I read, that it can be changed in moded bios with add c1 state. Is that right? And is possible to mod bios on this Blade? Thanks.

 

It is CPU lottery not your BIOS

 

So getting ram profiles to show it's only via editing the hex yes ?

 

@stranula this is a great resource, I have a Razer 2018 Base 15 running 1.02 Bios. I updated to 64GB also with Samsung early on.

My reason for this post is to find out if the unlocked menus contain similar to Dell XPS BIOS the Assist Enumeration and Native Enumeration.

This is related to the fact that when I use a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter, Windows 10 can recognise the Apple Thunderbolt Display but it does not all the connection and as such screen remains black.

I am using an Apple Adapter but plan to try the StarTech one.

Are you able to confirm what the unlock tools would offer in the way of the ThunderBolt settings?

I am struggling to find or purchase the AMIBCP tool also.

Thanks in advance.

 

This confuses me. So is flashing with AfuWin64 not possible? Also, the edits suggested in this post do not include the core voltage offset settings from this post. How does this unlock undervolting (the only thing I want on my blade).

 

By default the flashing from windows is disabled - only the factory images can be flashed due to a protection.

To be able to flash the modified bios from Windows it needs only one change in the original Bios configuration.
- Setup/Chipset/Security Configuration/Bios lock : set to user disabled disabled

After this you have to flash the modified BIOS back (with the hardware programmer, I used CH341A).
(If I remember correctly, it is necessary to load optimized defaults at the BIOS)

After this change it is possible to flash the bios from windows. I tried only once, it worked.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If you do the following, you'll be able to adjust the CPU voltage from Intel XTU or Throttlestop:
- Setup/Advanced/Power&Performance/Cpu power management control/View configure cpu lock options/CFG Lock : set to user/disabled/disabled
- Setup/Advanced/Power&Performance/Cpu power management control/View configure cpu lock options/Overclocking Lock : set to user/disabled/disabled

No new menus will appear in the BIOS - this is just enabling the voltage control from a Software. Opening the system for the PlUndervolt vulnerability.
I never wanted to have additional menus at the BIOS - that is a way too complicated. Reboot, change, reboot, test, repeat, etc.

Now I am able to adjust the core/cache voltage from Windows (Throttlestop handles them independently - XTU use the same values).
Also a side note: Core and Cache maximum difference is approximately 100mV on Intel 10th gen CPU (10875h). It is possible to set more UV, but it is not effective.
(my working values are -105mV Cache and -251 mV Core - above these there is no change in results, even if I set -400mV UV on Core.)

Please remember: Throttlestop directly writes to the registers of the CPU - the only way to delete the values is a full shutdown.
Sleep or reboot is not enough.

 

Oh, now I get it. Then I suppose that the other guide either does something different or also requires the hex edits discussed somewhere around page 20 for the flashing to work.

So just to be clear: you dump the bios from your blade, edit only bios lock as described, save this on the hardware programmer, and use the latter to flash the bios. Then you can add all possible bios edits and flash it with e.g. AfuWin64.

 

Right. Unlock the Bios lock, then flash it back.
After that you'll be able to flash a new Bios from Windows.

I never tried the other mods.

 

did you try this on 1.6 ?

every time i try to modify 1.6 , when i turn it on , it always shows as battery disconnected , even running on battery .

 

Yes.

BIOS Version: Razer 1.06, 16/09/2020
System Manufacturer: Razer
System Model: Blade 15 Advanced Model (Early 2020) - RZ09-033

 

Has anyone tried this on the Razer Blade 14 with success?

 

Subject is a Razer Blade advanced (2021-mid) with Intel 11800h. Throttlestop worked just fine until now. Its just says "locked" now. I was able to save BIOS and check with AMIBCP. However I've inspected the motherboard of the machine and i cannot really decide which one is the BIOS and how should i proceed to flash it.

Here you can find all pictures of possible BIOS chip. https://share.icloud.com/photos/0bQf1nocIB3cLkTPSB15gQw7A

When i saved BIOS with AFUWINGUIX64 "Winbond 25X/Q series"

My bet is: "Winbond 25R256JVEQ". However this is bigger and sleeker than rest of the chips. (see pics on icloud link above)

Which hardware programmer should i buy? Do i even need it? In AFUWINGUIX64 there is an option to "override secure flash policy"

Thanks is advance!

 

I was able to unlock CFG lock and overclock in Bios with RU.EFI method without ANY hardware flasher. Based on this with my own extended method:

https://homanhuang.medium.com/how-to-hack-pc-bios-cfg-unlock-412d7128d0e3

CPU undervolt work as a charm!

 

Hi Laszlo,

I follwed your guide step by step and I was able to unlock the bios - at least that's what V2.efi says - however the option to undervolt via TS is still locked.

Any idea of what is wrong?

I'm using a Razer Blade 15 Base 2020 - Bios 1.06

Thanks a lot!!

 

You have to change 2 parameters: CFG Lock and Overclocking Lock. see pic --> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Nx9oTLfekQ89pSv88KrmUNyP-UFmDB2s/view?usp=sharing

PLEASE NOTE THAT YOUR HEX VAULES PROBABLE DIFFERENT, please inspect your extratced .txt well.

Let me know if u succeed!

 

Interesting find. I have an early 2021 RB15, but I don't think Razer has released any downloadable bios files that I might use to try this method unfortunately. How were you able to do it with a mid 2021 model if I may ask?

 

There is no need for any downloadable BIOS file. RU.EFI is an UEFI Application that can assist in the examination and modification of System BIOS on a running machine.

In General with RU.EFI, you are able to change "adjustable parameters" even if it is hidden in regular BIOS. It does NOT flash your BIOS, it creates a new configuration.

 

I understand that, but the instructions you linked to state you need the bios file to read it and be able to find the CFG Lock and Overclock Lock address locations. IF you didn't have the bios file, how did you read the address locations?

 

oh, okay i got your point. I supposed that you checked this thread from the beginning. There are tools which can save BIOS to a file from your working Laptop. AFUWINGUIx64.EXE.

I could write a detailed step to step guide if you recommend.