Resources for modding Sager Bios

Is there any guides for modding Sager bios(s)? I'm aware of Prema's work (Had a Prema P151EM1 back in the day) and didn't find out about the Prema Partner thing before I bought my P775DM3-G but I need something more custom than even a Prema partnered bios provides. I run Linux as my daily driver due to my line of work and I need to be able to control fan speeds with my function keys. Being able to toggle keyboard colors with function keys would be a bonus as well. I'm aware of the risks and I do have the equipment to recover from a worst case scenario, but if there's any resources out there on this subject it would be very helpful. All I've been able to find is old threads about pre-uefi bios(s).

Thanks!

 

There are resources out there for basic modding. But custom fan control is way beyond just plain old BIOS modding / unlocking.

 

System76 seems to have done it with their machines.. I wonder how they did it.

 

Maybe they wrongfully plagiarized Prema's work. I certainly hope not, but dishonesty is rampant. I think that is one of the reasons SVL7 is AWOL now, and Prema is not making it easy for people to access his firmware mods. Hard to say, but I suspect they may not tell you straight up how to do things. If they are actually producing original firmware mod work they would be smart to keep that kind of detail close to the vest for many reasons, some of which have to do with OEM interference on future firmware (like taking active steps for blocking valuable exploits that benefit everyone). The less that is known the better or we will end up all getting screwed by the OEMs.

Have you asked them for assistance?

 

Yep. They basically said "You should have bought a System76." I even offered them $300 just for the bios they use. No dice. I didn't even know they were a clevo reseller before I bought from Xotic (which I will never do again).

 

Well this is interesting... apparently they have a driver for their machines that works in Linux. I compiled it in Arch to see if that would do the trick but no dice. They have some kind of check to make sure it's an actual System76 machine. Grr.
Edit: I have many, many regrets about purchasing this machine. I wanted a bad-ass linux workstation not this finicky hot mess of throttle and regret

 

Their systems are way more expensive as well.
Also there are similar issues with most high end laptops out there.

 

Prema Partners aside, it seems just about universal that the notebook OEMs are all Nazi control freaks, so the firmware modders have to follow suit for self preservation. If it continues, "high performance" laptops will soon be unworthy of purchase. I've had a gut full of the nonsense from these bass turds and won't tolerate any more of such inexcusable behavior going forward.

 

Well that's one of the reasons why I peaced out of the whole game. I don't intend to give any laptop manufacturer even a single penny. Unless I absolutely have to ,I'll grab a thin and light disposable.
Things are just spiralling downwards. And people keep on supporting them with their hard earned money even after being burned.
ASUS Msi CLEVO RAZER , you name it. It's the same story everywhere.

 

I may see if throwing money at Prema yields me any results. I usually operate under the open source community so sharing is second nature. Seeing a reseller act like a nazi profiting on free software is making my blood boil. Which is why System76 wont be getting any of my money next go around. Will definitely get a Prema partnered machine when/if I decide to go for the dual GPU model Clevo. I really want to see how they handle VFIO and if KVM-VGA pass-through is possible. Would make life so nice for me.

 

Razer? What have they done? I was drooling on the blade pro

 

160W 1080 that gets **** on by notebook 1070's.
Poor cooling solution.
Bad drivers.
The GPU isn't even NVIDIA certified yet.
Oh and did I mention the $4k cost without even the highest end BGA processor.out there ?

 

Damn I knew it was too good to be true. Honestly I'd be willing to pay their premium for the thinness. But a 160w 1080 is madness.

 

KVM passthrough work on my P870 , I tried it at work.
VFIO I haven't tried. I can give it a shot in Jan.

 

Really?!?!?! Which display connectors does the second GPU use?

 

Well it was somewhat different than the traditional desktop setup, but IIRC there was a virtual display adapter setup to get it working.
After which it was a matter of toggling the VM display output.

 

What's the name of the system76 machine?

 

Serval WS 17

 

Moist. If you have any more info on the virtual display adapter please send it my way! It's starting to sound like I need to get in more debt and get the P870

 

To get around the model check, you can run this:

Code:

#./system76-driver --model serw8-17

There's also a model code serw8-17g but I am not sure of the differences.

Product codes are found in system76driver/products.py

Source code is available at https://launchpad.net/system76-driver

 

Sure thing, most of our peeps are off until new year's. It was one of out sysdev guys who got it working. I'll PM you as soon as he gets back to me.
But I'm sure it's not going to be limited to this system since the basic way of how the dGPU is implemented is pretty much the same for both yours and my system.

 

Thanks for that. Sadly,

"The drivers for your system are provided by Ubuntu"

So how did they edit the bios to make fan control/keyboard color switching work with FN keys... grrrr

 

Hrm... that's not much of a driver installer now is it?

I wonder where system76 BIOS updates come from... I can't find them on their website.

Where did you see the thing about the function keys working for system76?

 

https://system76.com/guides/serw10

 

But, isn't that pretty much par for the course with Razer machines? Those are the only examples that I can remember ever seeing and hearing... insane prices and ludicrous thermals, on top of sporting castrated BGA filth. It's a little bit late in the game to be torqued about that since their little empire is founded on those things. I've only heard positive comments about their build quality, but man... those other things... no thanks.

 

From what I can tell they claim an unmodified copy of Ubuntu can restore all functionality on their systems, so either there's some Ubuntu specific patches that make the keyboard work, or it's in their BIOS as you suspect. I still haven't figured out where or how system76 distribute BIOS updates.

 

It's pretty much always been about that. Build and the keyboard. Everything else just got worse with the latest iteration. At least the previous ones were priced better.

 

I have a feeling they usually need you to ship the system in.
Most of the people who know about them have gotten their systems through their work places.

 

Yeah even in Ubuntu those hotkeys dont work. It's got to be BIOS

 

So not even FN+1 isn't working. Last time I used Ubuntu on my system that was working .

 

Oh no that works even in BSD. I'm talking about keyboard color light toggle

 

Ah my bad.
Yeah I always use an external monitor with an external keyboard. And the lid down, poor man's solution

 

It doesn't have any.

VFIO does work on the P700/800 series, but you have use the unsafe interrupts boot option.

That being said, standard VFIO pass-through wouldn't be terribly useful on it's own since there's only 1 GPU which has any physical outputs (your primary). You could theoretically pass GPU2 in but you'd need to trick it into rendering to an offscreen buffer and transferring. Remember to disconnect the SLI bridge before you do this. I have no idea what weirdness could be caused by a passthrough GPU receiving data through the SLI bridge from effectively a different machine!.

You might actually be able to use the PRIME code to do this But instead of using it to render to the Intel frame-buffer, you'd use it to render to a SPICE buffer or similar. Or you could use a VirtualGL bridge. See here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/bumblebee#Using_VirtualGL_as_bridge
Basically the same concepts, except your target is a SPICE buffer rather than Intel one.

Unfortunately the Intel iGPU is disabled in the BIOS so that's out.

You may also want to look at the very recent KVM-GT/vGPU patches: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=VFIO-Linux-4.10-Mediated

I don't believe anybody has even attempted with a GeForce card yet, but theoretically it allows you to create a logical virtual GPU which can then be passed to VMs in discrete allotments rather than full passthrough. It's mainly for Nvidia Tesla cards to be divided up like is currently done by Hyper-V RFX and similar implementations.

 

The intended use is just so I can game in a VM while working in Linux. I don't know if SPICE would work well enough for this. I had a similar setup on my old x99 rig and played with SPICE so I wouldn't have to dedicate an entire display to windows and I recall hitting a roadblock where the driver would actively block some protocol. I have notes for what happened somewhere. When I get home I'll dig them up.

 

Reading that phoronix article about mediated VFIO makes me think this will likely be a GRID specific feature D:<

Hardmod an MXM gpu anyone?

 

You probably wouldn't use SPICE itself for the actual gaming/interface though. If it's a Windows VM you could use Steam Streaming or Nvidia Shield Streaming -> Moonlight client.

It's designed with GRID in mind, but that doesn't mean it won't work on a regular GeForce card. Quite often much of the same stuff works. Hell, Nvidia was adamant that PCIE passthrough shouldn't work with GeForce cards and they largely gave up that fight.

 

Correct on the BIOS side and EC. When we create our custom fan profiles we we design and test the fan profiles but we don't do the final fan table integration into a new EC. There's not complete free reign to to do all the work ourselves, plus as you said and as Prema has mentioned on occasions doing this work with the EC isn't just a case of changing numbers, click save and exit.

 

Is your custom bios/ec available for public download?

 

If we did get more AMD MXM cards I know they are going to be supporting virtualization of slices of the GPU.

 

Yes - I'm not allowed to link to our website on nbr but if you go to the mysn .de website and go to the driver page you'll find everything there ;-)

 

I wish they would allow that as an exception in the case of when doing so is in response to a question presented by another member of the community. Being helpful is totally different than unsolicited self-promotion.

 

Does this offer anything useful in practical application for the average user? I am not sure what that means or why I should care, but that could be due to my own ignorance.

 

To the average user? No, in those situations where you want multiple users to take advantage of a large pool of GPU performance you can split that up and dynamically share it as needed. It's more for those producing high performance VMs.

 

Thanks for the explanation. I appreciate it.

 

Not a problem, it is a niche use case running such a scenario with a laptop. It may be more for running a POC (proof of concept) I suppose.

 

For me mainly it means more gaming at work lol

 

So I found the BIOS but not the EC.. unless it's in the same ZIP and I'm just missing it

 

Well here goes nothing. I hope it's not in German or this is going to get sehr merkwürdig

 

It's of great use to anybody who uses VMs on a desktop as well. It theoretically allows you to have properly 3D accelerated VMs without the current hackjobs (ie Virtualbox's 3D converter). Since most DWMs are 3D accelerated these days it's very beneficial to get 3D support in VMs properly.

For gamers I could see it being useful for people who play older games which need older OS's like pre-WinXP.

 

Very cool. I'm all for better 3D Graphicalness in VM land.

Would it help me out with Zork or Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?