[Guide] HP Pavilion dv3540es - 3500 series. Leopard Retail 10.5.8

[Ed_Saxman]

Thank you very much, superfluke, but I still have some doubts:

 

The processor of your dv3525 seems to be a P7350, whereas my dv3540es model is a T5800 (which is the same as the T7250, renamed) As you can see here (mine is numbers 59-60, yours is number 49.)

Are you sure that this BIOS also supports my CPU?

 

 

Regarding the new bios, why is better than the previous one, the Asus?

Is there no problem in putting a phoenix BIOS, when our laptop has a insyde BIOS? It is not an uEFI bios?

 

I want to try, but you haven´t mentioned anything about making a backup of the BIOS previously, or how to restore it if something fails.. I´m afraid..

[superfluke]

Thank you very much, superfluke, but I still have some doubts:

 

The processor of your dv3525 seems to be a P7350, whereas my dv3540es model is a T5400 (which is the same as the T7250, renamed) As you can see here mine is numbers 59-60, yours is number 49.

Are you sure that this BIOS also supports my CPU?

 

 

Regarding the new bios, why is better than the previous one, the Asus?

Is there no problem in putting a phoenix BIOS, when our laptop has a insyde BIOS? It is not an uEFI bios?

 

I want to try, but you haven´t mentioned anything about making a backup of the BIOS previously, or how to restore it if something fails.. I´m afraid..

The HP bios is the same for all DV3500series

It support cpu until T9400, insyde bios in hp has not EFI feature, it's not used because the EFI partition don't exist on constructor install.

[Ed_Saxman]

You can tell us something about making a backup of the BIOS previously, or how to restore it if something fails.?

 

I cant´find useful info from the thread you´ve mentioned here:

Second: A recover procedure is possible, you need an usb floppy device and original bios.

You can see on that thread, one of them recover his insyde bios.

 

And, by the way, we must run 110.bat or phlash.exe?

[SnoopKatt]

Thank you very much, superfluke, but I still have some doubts:

 

The processor of your dv3525 seems to be a P7350, whereas my dv3540es model is a T5400 (which is the same as the T7250, renamed) As you can see here (mine is numbers 59-60, yours is number 49.)

Are you sure that this BIOS also supports my CPU?

 

 

Regarding the new bios, why is better than the previous one, the Asus?

Is there no problem in putting a phoenix BIOS, when our laptop has a insyde BIOS? It is not an uEFI bios?

 

I want to try, but you haven´t mentioned anything about making a backup of the BIOS previously, or how to restore it if something fails.. I´m afraid..

In my friend's dv3510nr, there's a P7350. Laptops generally can have interchangeable CPU's as long as they're using the same socket, so different CPU's will most likely not cause any problems.

 

That topic didn't really point out any obvious recovery for an insyde BIOS, how exactly did you make your recovery floppy? I'm definitely not going to try this until I can get a working floppy backup.

[Ed_Saxman]

This afternoon I tried to run the phlash in my USB bootable pendrive and it worked (although I haven´t run the flash process), while the asus Aflash utility did not works on a pendrive.

 

The USB floppy drive isn´t needed now to flash it, but we still needing some more safeguards, and to know which is the right file we should run. (.exe or .bat)

 

If any of you is brave enough to try, we say so

[SnoopKatt]

So alternate wifi cards fully work I assume?

 

Glad to hear it didn't brick your laptop I'm a lot more comfortable hearing it working on a second laptop, but I still would like to have a working floppy disk that could restore a bricked laptop.

[Ed_Saxman]

Uh?

 

man, I think you confused...

 

 

I just tried the phlash software, but I have not run the flash process.

I am too scared, man, so we still needing a brave man to try the whole process.

[SnoopKatt]

Ohh, yeah I thought you flashed it. Yeah, not a good idea until we can make working backup disks. I'm going to try changing the device ID's with Linux before trying any of this.

[53ph1207h]

I was looking up bios recovery options for insyde bios and came up on this forum basically if we do kill our laptops from flashing we need to put the bios onto the flash drive, when you turn on your computer hold windows key + B. It will then search the flash drive for bios files and flash it. The problem is that they are not sure how to name the bios so that will have to be a guess and check kind of thing. But I have tested turning on my laptop holding windows + b and have confirmed that the laptop beeps just as the guy says in the post, so i am pretty certain that this is a way to recover our bios if flashing were to fail.

[Ed_Saxman]

You must flash all blocks.

 

THE NO WHITELIST BIOS

 

OK, how can I flash all the blocks?

 

I must run .bat file as it is?

 

EDITED: In Your new compal BIOS The size of the flash ROM is 2MB, while insyde BIOS seems to be 1MB...

 

By the way, compal manuals are excellent, althought it don´t have any remarkable mention about bios flash process..

 

http://www.compal.com/index_En.htm

[SnoopKatt]

I was looking up bios recovery options for insyde bios and came up on this forum basically if we do kill our laptops from flashing we need to put the bios onto the flash drive, when you turn on your computer hold windows key + B. It will then search the flash drive for bios files and flash it. The problem is that they are not sure how to name the bios so that will have to be a guess and check kind of thing. But I have tested turning on my laptop holding windows + b and have confirmed that the laptop beeps just as the guy says in the post, so i am pretty certain that this is a way to recover our bios if flashing were to fail.

 

Great find! 0.0 from there there said with a different BIOS:

Renamed the file 30F7F04.FD to 30F7.BIN and placed it on a USB thumb drive.

If we rename the BIOS like this, it might work. People seem to be hitting and missing with it going from a USB thumbstick though :/ Oh well, means there's hope at least!

[Ed_Saxman]

But if you continue reading the same thread, you will notice that method not work for everyone. We don´t know the specific filename to us, and HP isn´t colaborating at all.

 

Today I phoned HP again:

 

ME -"Hey, if I brick my laptop, how much is the cost to repair?"

HP - 360€ EXCLUDING VAT

ME-

[SnoopKatt]

Ouch :/ that's almost like paying for the laptop all over again.

True, but it's definitely a start. Since we know for sure that there is a recovery option (I talked to HP a few days ago and they told me the only way to restore it was by sending it in...liars). It's probably the way they restore bricked laptops... Hopefully superfluke can post back and fill us in about restoring a backup...

 

If you have a Broadcom card (BCM4311 or something like it), this method might be a better choice as it is much less risky, and I believe it can easily be done with an Ubuntu live CD:

from http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43

ssb-sprom

 

* A tool for the modification of the Broadcom Sonics Silicon Backplane SPROM (e.g. you can permanently change the MAC address or the PCI IDs of your wireless card – useful on some (e.g. Compaq/HP) laptops where the BIOS checks these at boot. It's now part of b43-tools:

 

git clone http://git.bu3sch.de/git/b43-tools.git

 

* To use the sprom tool, it is necessary to get a disk copy of your sprom from the /sys file system. The file path for the sprom contents depends on the bus layout of the specific computer being used and will be something like

 

/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:0d.0/0000:04:00.0/ssb_sprom

 

* It is not recommended that you try to type the name. Instead, you should use the following commands to get the working copy:

 

SSB_SPROM=$(find /sys/devices -name ssb_sprom)

echo $SSB_SPROM

 

* If the echo command only results in a single instance of "/sys/...", you may proceed. For systems with more than one SSB-based interface, there will be such a string for each, and the command that sets the SSB_SPROM symbol will have to be changed. In the name above, the sequence states that this device is attached to the 0'th PCI bus via bridge 0d.0 and is device 04:00.0 on that bridge. To find which of your SSB devices to select, use the 'lspci -v' command. On my system, the first line of such output for my interface is "04:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 02)". For this device, one would use

 

SSB_SPROM=$(find /sys/devices -name ssb_sprom | grep 04:00.0)

echo $SSB_SPROM

 

* Of course, the "04:00.0" needs to match your system, and check the output value to determine that there is now a single instance of "/sys..." and that the path matches the device whose SPROM is to be changed. If not, adjust the string after 'grep' accordingly.

* Once the SSB_SPROM variable matches the path to ssb_sprom for your device, get a working copy of the sprom contents with

 

sudo cat $SSB_SPROM > ssb_sprom_copy

 

* You may now look at the contents of your sprom with the command

 

ssb-sprom -i ssb_sprom_copy -P

 

* As an example, let us suppose that you have purchased a Dell mini-pci card to use in an HP laptop. The HP BIOS refuses to use the card when the pcivendor is Dell (code 0x1028), not HP (code 0x103C). From the information provided by an "ssb-prom –help" command, we learn that the switch needed to change this vendor code is "–subv". To change that code, we use the command

 

ssb-sprom -i ssb_sprom_copy -o new_ssb_sprom_copy --subv 0x103C

 

* to write the HP vendor ID to our working copy. I use different input and output files so as not to destroy the original. If further changes are needed, for example the PCI product ID, the command

 

ssb-sprom -i new_ssb_sprom_copy -o new_ssb_sprom_copy --subp 0x137C

 

* would be used. Note that the input and output files may be the same.

* Once you think you have updated correctly, use the following to check the contents:

 

ssb-sprom -i ssb_sprom_copy -P

 

* Once the sprom contents are the way you want them, and presumably correct, you are ready to rewrite the file. First, use

 

echo $SSB_SPROM

 

* to ensure that this symbol still contains the SPROM path. If not, then it will have to be reloaded as discussed above.

* You are then ready to rewrite the sprom with

 

sudo cp new_ssb_sprom_copy $SSB_SPROM

 

* Once again, you are urged to be absolutely certain of the contents of the working copy BEFORE taking this step. If your interface becomes unusable as a result of writing incorrect data into the sprom, the responsibility is YOURS. Once again, you have been warned.

I've heard of a lot of success stories with this method, and since it just changes the deviceID of the card instead of modding anything on the laptop, it's much safer. Unfortunately this only works on Broadcom cards.

[Ed_Saxman]

I´ve received a Dell 1490 Wireless today, with broadcom chipset (BCM4311KFBG). I bought in Justopeshop, an UK ebay powerseller.

 

direct link

3 days, from UK to Barcelona!

 

But this method seems a bit confusing to me... if superfluke post back a more detailed procedure to flash with phlash, (I don´t know how to flash all blocks) maybe I would give it a try... even assuming the high risk.

[SnoopKatt]

It does share the chipset, so it might work. It is very confusing at first, but once you get into Linux (I have Ubuntu on my desktop), you'll see everything and it'll all make sense. If it works when I try it, I'll write out a full tutorial :pirate2:

[Ed_Saxman]

I executed the 110.bat in my usb bootable pendrive formatted in fat32.

Has been stopped in the third step "check flash memory type " of the phlash software and at the bottom of the screen appears "call device function ip flash enable..."

After 10 minutes I shutdown the laptop, and fortunately has not been bricked. Just did not work, has not even begun to flash.

Maybe I was about to break it.. superfluke please, explain things in more detail!

 

 

Snoopkat thank you very much, if you succeed with this deviceID method, would make me very happy!

[SnoopKatt]

I think you're supposed to run it. Since the BAT file says:

phlash16 /x /c /mode=3 /bbl /force 110.WPH

It looks like it's running a command to load the BIOS, so it looks like yes, but it's hard to tell.

 

We definitely need more instructions for this risky procedure before trying any of this please. And by flashing all of the blocks, that's just a fancy way of saying to flash the whole BIOS. Almost every utility out there does it automatically.

 

Hopefully I'll be able to try out the deviceID method this weekend. It seems like a fairly promising method

[SnoopKatt]

Alright, I tried the deviceID change and it didn't work. I turned on the laptop, paused the boot sequence after the BIOS screen loaded, and switched out the cards, and I didn't get the 104 error. Unfortunately, it seems like the BIOS switches off the mini-PCI-E port if it doesn't detect anything, so the card was not detected in Ubuntu, OSX, or Vista. The card needs to be activated for this fix to work, so this may work if the card is put in a laptop with no wifi card restrictions. My friend has a Sony Vaio, so next time I hang out with him I'll try to change the deviceID with that.

[Ed_Saxman]

I have also tried, and has given me the same result: doesn't detect anything.

 

I could see with everest software that there is another free pci-e slot on the laptop, although it is not easily accessible.

I tried to open the laptop, but I think it should be removed entirely (keyboard included). Nor do we know if the white list will also affect this other slot.

 

We are exhausting the possibilities, and superfluke has been missing since the day 11...

I no longer know what we could do.

[SnoopKatt]

I have heard of using a second mini-PCI-E slot as a quick solution for this. I can't confirm it 100%, but it should work for just being plugged in (you probably won't be able to go online because there's no place to hook up the antenna). If it indeed does exist and if it gets power you should be able to flash the card from there. I really don't want to take apart the laptop to that degree, so I'm going to try it on a Vaio and see if it works.

[53ph1207h]

I was looking at the disassembly guide on HP'S site and from the pictures it does not look like the motherboard has another pci slot that I can see. It is not documented anywhere in the pdf as well. So I don't think that there is another pci slot on the mobo. I am going to try flashing dell wirless card in my acer aspire one to see if it will get past the bios error.

[SnoopKatt]

Cool, please post back with results I probably won't be able to try it again until this upcoming weekend. If it doesn't work and you're 100% sure you correctly changed the two ID's, then try changing the 8-digit subsystem ID. Some of the BIOS's store those in the whitelists, so keep that in mind.

[53ph1207h]

I just flashed the card following this Guide while the card was in my acer aspire one. I rebooted the acer it booted into mac and still and still had wireless. The bad part is that i put the card into the hp laptop and still received the 104 error . Im not sure if this process is goign to work for us, cause it seems odd that hp would still add these older wireless cards into there newer laptops, but i am not certain. If you guys have any questions you attempt this you can msg me on my aim it is posted in my profile thing.

[SnoopKatt]

Change the deviceID to the card that's already in there (Intel 5100). I'm using the dv3510nr, and the info for that is:

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_4237&SUBSYS_12118086&REV_00
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_4237&SUBSYS_12118086
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_4237&CC_028000
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_4237&CC_0280

Device Id	Chip Description			Vendor Id	Vendor Name
0x4237	Intel (R) WiFi Link 5100 AGN	0x8086	Intel Corporation

All of your cards are probably exactly like this or similar, but double check with the device manager. If changing the VEN and DEV id's doesn't work, try changing the SUBSYS ID's as well (some BIOS's check this, and since this seems to be pretty secure, we probably need to change our Broadcom cards to the EXACT ID as the Intel 5100's that are already in there). If that doesn't work with the method from the topic you tried, try this:

 

From http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43:

ssb-sprom

 

* A tool for the modification of the Broadcom Sonics Silicon Backplane SPROM (e.g. you can permanently change the MAC address or the PCI IDs of your wireless card – useful on some (e.g. Compaq/HP) laptops where the BIOS checks these at boot. It's now part of b43-tools:

 

git clone http://git.bu3sch.de/git/b43-tools.git

 

* To use the sprom tool, it is necessary to get a disk copy of your sprom from the /sys file system. The file path for the sprom contents depends on the bus layout of the specific computer being used and will be something like

 

/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:0d.0/0000:04:00.0/ssb_sprom

 

* It is not recommended that you try to type the name. Instead, you should use the following commands to get the working copy:

 

SSB_SPROM=$(find /sys/devices -name ssb_sprom)

echo $SSB_SPROM

 

* If the echo command only results in a single instance of "/sys/...", you may proceed. For systems with more than one SSB-based interface, there will be such a string for each, and the command that sets the SSB_SPROM symbol will have to be changed. In the name above, the sequence states that this device is attached to the 0'th PCI bus via bridge 0d.0 and is device 04:00.0 on that bridge. To find which of your SSB devices to select, use the 'lspci -v' command. On my system, the first line of such output for my interface is "04:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 02)". For this device, one would use

 

SSB_SPROM=$(find /sys/devices -name ssb_sprom | grep 04:00.0)

echo $SSB_SPROM

 

* Of course, the "04:00.0" needs to match your system, and check the output value to determine that there is now a single instance of "/sys..." and that the path matches the device whose SPROM is to be changed. If not, adjust the string after 'grep' accordingly.

* Once the SSB_SPROM variable matches the path to ssb_sprom for your device, get a working copy of the sprom contents with

 

sudo cat $SSB_SPROM > ssb_sprom_copy

 

* You may now look at the contents of your sprom with the command

 

ssb-sprom -i ssb_sprom_copy -P

 

* As an example, let us suppose that you have purchased a Dell mini-pci card to use in an HP laptop. The HP BIOS refuses to use the card when the pcivendor is Dell (code 0x1028), not HP (code 0x103C). From the information provided by an "ssb-prom –help" command, we learn that the switch needed to change this vendor code is "–subv". To change that code, we use the command

 

ssb-sprom -i ssb_sprom_copy -o new_ssb_sprom_copy --subv 0x103C

 

* to write the HP vendor ID to our working copy. I use different input and output files so as not to destroy the original. If further changes are needed, for example the PCI product ID, the command

 

ssb-sprom -i new_ssb_sprom_copy -o new_ssb_sprom_copy --subp 0x137C

 

* would be used. Note that the input and output files may be the same.

* Once you think you have updated correctly, use the following to check the contents:

 

ssb-sprom -i ssb_sprom_copy -P

 

* Once the sprom contents are the way you want them, and presumably correct, you are ready to rewrite the file. First, use

 

echo $SSB_SPROM

 

* to ensure that this symbol still contains the SPROM path. If not, then it will have to be reloaded as discussed above.

* You are then ready to rewrite the sprom with

 

sudo cp new_ssb_sprom_copy $SSB_SPROM

 

* Once again, you are urged to be absolutely certain of the contents of the working copy BEFORE taking this step. If your interface becomes unusable as a result of writing incorrect data into the sprom, the responsibility is YOURS. Once again, you have been warned.

[53ph1207h]

Alright I attempted again with those values you supplied i changed both the VEN and DEV and it still failed to boot. I am not certain how to or what to change the SUBSYS ID to. If you can supply more information about that it would be greatly appreciated. Hered a supplied picture of the values flashed onto the card currently.