Clevo P950HR/PCS DefianceXS - Custom Boot Splash Image

Hi everyone.

So I have a Clevo P950HR which I purchased from PC Specialist in the UK, all is great however I decided I wanted to update the BIOS from the version they supplied it with, to the latest Clevo release I could find. The laptop came with BIOS 1.05.05TPCS and 1.05.05 EC Firmware, and I have flashed 1.05.06 from here: http://rjtech.com/shop/index.php?dispatc...page_id=25 (if anyone knows a better place to find BIOS releases for these Clevo machines, please let me know).

However after flashing, I now have the stupid 'Style Notebook' splash screen on boot and would really like to change it to something else.

I am booting from USB and using afuefix64 to flash the BIOS which is what comes included with the new release I downloaded ( https://www.rjtech.com/Driver/Intel_Fix/...FI_OEM.zip).

I found a copy of AMI ChangeLogo v5 which was able to open up the BIOS file (there is a BIOS.BIN and an ALL.ROM) extract the existing splash .bmp image and replace it with a different image file, that part seems to work fine.


The issue is when I then attempt to flash the BIOS back again, using either `Flash` or `FlashMe` which look to just be wrapper scripts, or by invoking the afuefix64 program manually I am then given the following error:

"18 - Error: Secure Flash Rom Verify fail."

I have tried running:

Flash (this is just a wrapper for the afuefix64 BIOS.BIN /p /b /n command)
FlashMe (this seems to instead use the ALL.ROM file, which looks to include both the Bios and the Intel ME fw)
manually run afuefix64 BIOS.BIN /p /b /n

I've noticed with AFUDOS people use the /GAN flag which apparently allows the program to flash the file anyway, however this isn't a thing in afuefix64 I am using (neither is /gan). I'm guessing this is happening because the integrity of the original file has been changed or has modified the files signature.


This is about were my knowledge of BIOS flashing ends, and was really hoping someone could help me with this.

Also, the BIOS on these laptops seems very slimmed down with only minimal options - No hyperthreading options.etc is there any possibility of unlocking any extra features in this BIOS image?

 

1st STOP trying to edit the Bios/EC
2nd Seek advice from Prema or John@Obsidian
3rd DO NOT ATTEMPT TO REVERT TO A PREVIOUS BIOS/EC

If you have never owned a Clevo before there are some basic rules about bios updates. Don't use other vendors bios even if it for the same model, many make changes unique to them (that could come back to bite you).

Never attempt to downgrade bios, this will normally kill the machine which will require a new bios chip or reflashing with a chip programmer. And with PCS you will have lost any warranty if bios is not the one they supplied.

The stock Clevo bios are poor, its common all the models.

Talk to Prema or John

 

Thanks for the reply.

Don't worry I am not attempting to downgrade the BIOS, the unit came shipped with version 1.05.05 (with PCS splash screen) BIOS and EC Firmware, I have flashed version 1.05.06 of both. This works just fine and AFAIK this is only a minor upgrade but was unable to find release notes.

All I am now trying to do is modify the same 1.05.06 BIOS file, but replace the splash/boot image.

However as the BIOS has a signiture, any modifications will cause a 18 - Error: Secure Flash Rom Verify fail

 

Clevo never seem issue release notes.

Have a word with Prema, he's the best to talk to about such things bios. I'm not if he's made a P950HR bios but you can only ask.

 

Thanks, Prema seems to be a bit of a legend in the world of Clevo BIOS and Firmware. I'll message him and see if he has any suggestions.

 

Just request the latest BIOS from your reseller and their logo (and warranty) will be back.

 

Thanks for the reply @Prema

Yes I am aware the warranty situation, and should anything happen i'll ensure their BIOS is the current BIOS on the machine. I'm more looking to be able to apply my own custom boot screen, and if possible enable any features such as HyperThreading.

Do you think this is something you could help with?

 

After looking though many, many forums and online discussions I think I may have reached the conclusion that this cannot be done on most modern laptops using Aptio V (at least not without using an SPI programmer) due to various security implementations, i'm also guessing that's why most of the forum discussions about this topic are all from a few years ago.

Prema, if you can help I will be willing to pay for your time. Otherwise I think I will have to put up with the ugly boot logo, I suppose there are worse problems to have

 

So for anyone who is looking to modify the boot logo on their Clevo P950HR and probably the majority of other more recent Clevo/PC Specialist/Saber.etc models, as well as unlocking additional features in an otherwise very minimal BIOS, this is how you do it.

1. Update to the latest Clevo BIOS for your specific Clevo model ( https://repo.palkeo.com/clevo-mirror/). Upgrade to the latest BIOS, and corresponding EC and Intel ME firmware respectively following the normal steps. With newer Clevo this is a case of formatting a USB disk to FAT32, then copy all of the files from the BIOS package to the root directory, booting from it and using the afuefix64 program included with the BIOS.

2. Once you are running your chosen BIOS/EC/ME firmware, now we can begin. I chose to just do all this within Windows 10 x64 using the AMI Win64 GUI programs, then using the Windows CLI for Intel FPT, however you can do most of this in a bootable DOS or UEFI environment.

3. Download the required files from here, this includes AMI AFU, BGT, BCPv5, ChangeLogo 5 and Intel FPT. I have also included my own custom splash image on there, as well as the latest P950HR OEM Bios and all drivers:
https://hobbo.co.uk/index.php/s/2mAreZDiLRgYkwH

4. Close any open applications, open network connections and unplug any unecissary USB devices. To be honest I did this with a Chrome window open and whilst downloading something off Steam... but for the purposes of this tutorial, please close things

5. Open up AFUWINGUI.exe ("AMI Bios Aptio Tools\AMI AFU for Aptio V\afu\afuwin\64\AfuWin64"). Click on the 'Setup' tab, tick only 'Main BIOS Image', then click 'Save' this will dump your existing BIOS flash image as a .ROM file. Whilst you can also check the other boxes for a complete dump, for the purposes of what we are doing, only select 'Main BIOS Image' as this is the only file we need to work with.

6. Now that you have a dump of your BIOS image (this was 6MB on my P950HR), now we can change the boot logo. We do this using ChangeLogo_v5.exe in the 'AMI ChangeLogo Tool v5.0.0.2' directory.

- Click 'Load Image' and open up your BIOS image
- Click 'Save Logo' to save your existing logo. If your splash image won't save or is corrupt then <b>Stop Here</b>, something has gone wrong.
- Now we click 'Browse' and find your new splash image. The original on my laptop was a Bitmap file with a resolution of 640x480. I haven't tested to see what happens if you use a larger image in a jpg format for example.
- Click 'Replace Logo' then click 'Save Image As' with will give you a new BIOS file, but with your new splash logo. A quick test of this would be to open the new file, dump the image and ensure that you see your newly created one.

7. (Optional) We can also unlock any otherwise disabled features. We use AMIBCP to do this, there are already several guides on various forums on how to do this. But we basically open the BIOS image in AMIBCP_5, then change from 'DEFAULT' to 'USER' any options we can't already see, then save the BIOS. I followed this guys tutorial: http://voltground.com/haven/threads/102/. Your mileage may vary with this, my P950HR had quite a few locked items, but not all BIOS are the same.

8. Now that we have created a new BIOS image, now it is time to flash it. AFU won't work, at least not on the P950HR, as the BIOS image is signed and AFU will not allow you to flash the modifications (even using the older 4.x release with the /GAN flag). So instead we use Intel FPT (thanks to this post: https://www.win-raid.com/t1805f16-Problem-with-Clevo-P-RE-BIOS-mod.html).

9. I used the command prompt in Windows, so open up the command prompt as administrator then:

cd \<path>\<to>\<IntelFPT>\WINDOWSX64
FPTW64.EXE
In DOS or in the Windows Command Prompt,
fptw -f <BIOS_NAME.bin> -BIOS --> lets you flash your BIOS region
fptw -d <BIOS_NAME.bin> -BIOS --> lets you dump your BIOS region
NOTE: DO NOT attempt to flash using fptw -f <BIOS_NAME.bin> without -BIOS, you will be flashing ALL firmware files accessible through FPT! Remember to make backups regularly and note what you are flashing.
On Clevo P650RE3 (and P950HR) models, you can also DUMP the ME and FD regions using -ME and -FD command-line flags respectively. More on this later.

Again... I will reiterate. The '-BIOS' flag at the end is very important if you are only flashing BIOS. If you don't specify this, you will most likely corrupt the BIOS, EC and ME regions thus bricking your laptop.


That's pretty much it, just power off, power on, prey it worked then bask in your new splash screen and additional BIOS features =D

 

Hello habbo 91

I have the same laptop, and I have a problem with 4101 error
video memory does not work at the sink frequency, it is necessary to reduce by 300, after that no flights are observed
help!!!(((

 

This is what BAKED did on techinferno, he was bashed and reported for copying prema's work