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Dell Inspiron 15R N5110 Native Speedstep BIOS Modding

androdev

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androdev
androdev
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Dell Inspiron 15R N5110 Native Speedstep BIOS Modding

and possibly other AMI Aptio-based notebooks

Hi everyone. I'm here to share my bios modding experience. It was a long road before I had a native speedstep. I want to thank dgsga in general for his bios unlock guide, as mine is fully based on it. I also thank carlicous for his great post

http://forum.noteboo...88-post141.html up here, explaining UEFI bios MSRs modding. It was a pleasure working with guides from applelife.ru (hi Clover EFI!) and http://www.insanelym...howtopic=271573 Dell guide from Mohamed Khairy (IDT Apple HDA!). I would never change my opinion now: 15R is most hackintoshable notebook I ever had. Thank you all!

 

Lets start with the tools you need. It's basically:

- Latest (A10 on the moment) bios package from Dell site. Simply unpack the ROM file:

C:\Users\Владислав>cd "C:\Users\Владислав\Desktop\Dell 15R UEFI"
C:\Users\Владислав\Desktop\Dell 15R UEFI>N5110A10.exe /writeromfile

- Latest Phoenix Tool (202 included)

- Latest MMTool (or not latest, not important in fact, 4.50 is here)

- objdump tool

- HEX Editor (included one for you)

- Flash tool

 

I created an archive which I upload for you, with all essential tools included. I do not upload a modded bios as it's your responsibility if you brick something.

 

The process itself:

 

1. Start Phoenix Tool and select your ROM file. It has some information for you, press OK twice. Do not close it just now.

 

2. Use MMTool to locate your PowerManagement module. It's confirmed to have GUID

8C783970-F02A-4A4D-AF09-8797A51EEC8D

for all latest Aptio bioses.

 

3. Find this file (choose the largest one, mine is 16Kb), copy to another place and disassemble it:

 

C:\Users\Владислав>cd "C:\Users\Владислав\Desktop\Dell 15R UEFI"
C:\Users\Владислав\Desktop\Dell 15R UEFI>objdump -m i386 -b binary -D 8C783970-F
02A-4A4D-AF09-8797A51EEC8D_1_276.ROM > PowerManagement.asm

 

4. Take a look at the code in output file. We need to unlock bit 15 of MSR 0xE2. The 0xf is lock bit. Search for

0f ba e8 0f

and look above for

mov	$0xe2,%ecx

This is the place we need to mod.

 

5. As dgsga explains, we need to jump unconditionnaly, not allowing the setting of bit lock.

The requied change is

jne	0x2748

to

 

jmp	0x2748

 

6. This is a code from my bios in fact:

2724: b9 e2 00 00 00		mov	$0xe2,%ecx
2729: e8 8e 09 00 00		call   0x30bc
272e: 48					dec	%eax
272f: 89 44 24 30		   mov	%eax,0x30(%esp)
2733: 0f ba f0 0f		   btr	$0xf,%eax
2737: 89 44 24 30		   mov	%eax,0x30(%esp)
273b: 80 fb 01			  cmp	$0x1,%bl
273e: 75 08				 jne	0x2748
2740: 0f ba e8 0f		   bts	$0xf,%eax
2744: 89 44 24 30	   mov	%eax,0x30(%esp)

Open hex edit and patch the module file with

75 08 0F BA E8 0F 89 44 24 30

to

EB 08 0F BA E8 0F 89 44 24 30

and click on save.

 

7. Get back to Phoenix. Select Dell as manufacturer. In advanced tab tick

Allow user to modify other modules
No SLIC

and finally press Go.

 

8. It will ask you to perform your modifications to modules. Replace the module in DUMP folder with your edited one. Press OK.

 

8. It will create a new bios file, which you only left to flash. The flash tool is included.

 

Everything is done on Windows 8 Release Preview running in native mode.

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jkbuha
jkbuha
Posted
Posted

Great work androdev! I've followed your method to successfully unlock bit 15 of MSR E2 on the Dell XPS 15z (and XPS 15 - the BIOS structure is very similar). The BIOS module was different to the 15R, but with MMTool you can easily find the powermanagementefi module.

 

Have you tried to unlock the advanced menus in your BIOS yet?

 

Great work and thanks again!

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TimeWalker75a
TimeWalker75a
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Thank you,

This also worked fine with Pheonix SecureCore Tiano UEFI bios.

You have to use MMTOOL in order to figure out the UUID of the powermanagement efi module.

For a DELL Vostro 3450 (A11) bios the UUID of the the power management module is the following: F7731B4C-58A2-4DF4-8980-5645D39ECE58_1_626.ROM

For patching follow instructions in the OP.

For flashing however you use the stock winflash utility that comes with the rom package (exe) which you get from Dell's support page. Upon execution it will extract itself as well as the rom you are going to work with into a temp folder in the user directory.

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Albertraviss
Albertraviss
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Hey androdev. I downloaded the bios on that link above which i thnk is already modded but i cant flash my notebook cos with the tool u provided i get the message that bios is write protected. I believe i have an optio bios on Dell inspiron N5110 intel 2670qm core i7. Please tell me how best to use that tool and avoid those errors. I really need this cos am running some power hungry applications and speedstep would really do me some good. I bench marked my Laptop and got 8210 but i believe i can do better cos in windows i have 10200. Thanks in advance ,and for makin me feel that i made the right choice of a notebook.

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