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Modified BIOS to get all cores working

Kabyl

By Kabyl,
in Hardware Components and Drivers

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CyberEvil
CyberEvil
Posted
Posted
Hi Folks,

 

Thanks for the hand you're giving us on this.

I have a MSI P965 Platinum Motherboard.

Everything was working great (using the BIOS default).

Suddenly my computer started to shutdown by itself (all OSes, not only my Kalyway 10.5.3). Thought it was the PSU, then replaced it. Did the same, then cleaned every fan. Did the same, then changed the video card. And so on...

Thought about updating the Mobo's Bios, and chan! it worked!

Now it works without shutting down, on all OSes.

But Leopard didn't like the new Bios and gets stuck at login at the same point seen some of you are getting stuck.

This is the updated Bios for my mother:

http://download1.msi.com.tw/files/download...exe/7238v18.zip

Video Card: XFX 8800 GTX

 

Is it possible to patch this Bios?

 

Thank you a lot!

 

~Cyber

I'm desperate for this (actually, I work from my "Mac"). If anyone has a fix for my BIOS problem, I'll be grateful forever :)

 

Thanks!

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limini
limini
Posted
Posted

Seeing as there's an overload of requests and as I'm a firm believer in "teaching to fish..." as well as a DIYer by nature, I found David Tsu's excellent post in this thread and I'm trying to mod my own BIOS. It turns out this HP machine as an AMI BIOS so the tools suggested by David seem to work fine.

 

However being a BIOS and inherently a sensitive component, I want to make sure I'm doing it right: when I re-insert the DSDT.aml file back into SingleLink.dat, my SingleLink.dat file is exactly 1 byte shorter than the original (413,729 instead of 413,730). I've followed procedure to the letter twice with the same result. Is this ok? Or should it be exactly the same file size? Should I subtract a byte from the offset size before I remove the old block from SingleLink.dat to end up right?

 

TIA!

 

**Update: when I re-insert DSDT.aml, the end "2E" byte is missing. If I INSERT "2E" it at it's expected position instead of just changing the "00" byte after "WAKh", I will end up with the exact same size file. Should I do that? All the old data after the insert would now be in exactly the same position it was originally.

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glitchbit
glitchbit
Posted
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I also recently have done the same as you and yes the reason why yours was slightly smaller was due to the lack of 2E and like in his guide you do need to add 2E at the end if you have not.

 

2E apparently lets it know that, that location is the end of the file, but it is not compiled into the .dsl file that is created.

 

Also not all BIOS ends with WAKh like David Tsu's guide suggest, however it does seem like most and maybe all of them have the WAKh location (once or twice, near the end) and if you follow his guide then you will receive an error when you try to decompile, however the error does let you know where it is expecting the end of the file. In my case it expected it to end at 57CC but I only copied it down to 57B8 so I knew I needed to copy a little bit more data (57C0 row, and 12th column I think to equal 57CC).

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limini
limini
Posted
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Well, despite everything done to the letter, it looks like I fried my BIOS. The system still turns on and off but won't do anything else; it seems to want to load a replacement ROM via floppy, but it doesn't seem to accept any of the files I've tried. After read failure it settles into a cycle of three long beeps/silence. I don't know if I can recover from this yet, but let it be a lesson to all.

 

Soooooo... what's a good mini-ATX for a hackintosh :D

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saintckm
saintckm
Posted
Posted

Hi!

 

I have Asus F3jc-AP103

Where can I find bios for it to mod it?

On Asus site there are just versions 304,305,306,307 but nothing about my version of f3jc

If I use one of these, will I hurt my laptop?

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Order2Chaos
Order2Chaos
Posted
Posted
Well, despite everything done to the letter, it looks like I fried my BIOS. The system still turns on and off but won't do anything else; it seems to want to load a replacement ROM via floppy, but it doesn't seem to accept any of the files I've tried. After read failure it settles into a cycle of three long beeps/silence. I don't know if I can recover from this yet, but let it be a lesson to all.

 

Soooooo... what's a good mini-ATX for a hackintosh -_-

 

Have you tried the AMI bios recovery method?

 

 

Recovery procedures for AMI BIOS

 

1. Download the latest version or your choose version of BIOS file for your computer or motherboard from the manufacturer’s support site.

2. Rename the downloaded file to AMIBOOT.ROM.

3. Copy the file to a floppy disk.

4. Insert the floppy disk to the floppy drive.

5. Turn on the system.

6. The system should automatically access the floppy drive (indicated LED will light up). If no floppy access occurs press and hold Ctrl-Home to force update. Follow any on screen instruction to restore and recover the good BIOS from the floppy disk.

7. When 4 beeps are heard or a reboot prompt you may remove the floppy disk.

8. Restart the computer.

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limini
limini
Posted
Posted
Have you tried the AMI bios recovery method?

Recovery procedures for AMI BIOS

1. Download the latest version or your choose version of BIOS file for your computer or motherboard from the manufacturer's support site.

2. Rename the downloaded file to AMIBOOT.ROM.

3. Copy the file to a floppy disk.

4. Insert the floppy disk to the floppy drive.

5. Turn on the system.

6. The system should automatically access the floppy drive (indicated LED will light up). If no floppy access occurs press and hold Ctrl-Home to force update. Follow any on screen instruction to restore and recover the good BIOS from the floppy disk.

7. When 4 beeps are heard or a reboot prompt you may remove the floppy disk.

8. Restart the computer.

Thanks Order2Chaos. I did try that. What happens is that the system boots up, the floppy drive light comes on, there's some initial floppy reading which stops after a couple of seconds after which the drive light stays on but there's no seeking/reading activity from the floppy. Then after 10 seconds or so, the same initial floppy seeks happen again and then the system starts a slow-3-Beep/silence cycle. The monitor stays off no matter what.

 

If the same thing happens if I use Windows + b or all 4 directional arrows, which are other key combinations used to force the BIOS to load a ROM image from floppy.

 

Since there is floppy activity, and since I can turn the computer on and off using the power switch, I suspect that what I'm supplying the BIOS on the floppy isn't what it's looking for. I've tried taking a look at the BootBlock to find what it could be looking for, but I can't seem to de-compile it the same way as the DSDT. From what I've been reading, HP is quite secretive about recovering busted BIOSes (good $ in that, I guess). There's an SPI header on this mobo with a Jumper marked "BIOS RECOVER" but from what I've been reading I'd need a special programmer to do anything with that.

 

Thanks for the help :rolleyes:

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Sakacoco
Sakacoco
Posted
Posted

Hi :)

 

I would like to know if you could do the same for my bios, Acer Aspire 5520G: this is the link for the original bios : ftp://ftp.work.acer-euro.com/notebook/asp.../Bios/v1.32.zip

 

For the full specs, i have a AMD Turion 64x2 TL-58 1,9Ghz, a nvidia 8600M GS 512VRAM.

 

For the issue, it blocks at the load of firsts HFS+ Files... with Leo4AllV2... so i think that it's a bios issue and hope you could do something for me :)

 

Thanks a lot :)

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kwjenkins
kwjenkins
Posted
Posted

So Limini, 1. Sorry about your current problem, hopefully you will be able to get it restored, w/o buying a board, the one I picked out if I screw up mine is Intel® Desktop Board DG33TL, it looks compatible with the HP size, and looks very mac friendly.

until then, I am either gonna get my bios edited here, or try to do it myself [then buy the replacement when I #$#$ it up]

2. What did you use toe extract your bios from the exe that HP supplies them? I read about something called universal extractor, and got a copy, but I am trying to compile as much info + resources before I actually sit down an try this. Off topic, anyone know why when I try to save this topic as a html, or a printed item, it only runs until the middle of april?!

anyway, more info as it comes, and if any kinder soul out there wants to try my bios, its here:

 

 

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwar...0550&dlc=en

 

 

the board is:

ASUS IPIBL-LA / Berkeley-GL8E

and the link for the current sucky HP bios:

 

and the problem details,

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=98145#

 

anyway, still reading up on this

Kenny

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kwjenkins
kwjenkins
Posted
Posted

hey thanks for the info, I will check out those resources, I currently have been just compiling the windows based editing tools [from the usual sources] while I read up [mac user] on the whole process. I'l definitely be over to megatrends. thanks again, talk to you later.

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limini
limini
Posted
Posted
So Limini, 1. Sorry about your current problem, hopefully you will be able to get it restored, w/o buying a board, the one I picked out if I screw up mine is Intel® Desktop Board DG33TL, it looks compatible with the HP size, and looks very mac friendly.

until then, I am either gonna get my bios edited here, or try to do it myself [then buy the replacement when I #$#$ it up]

2. What did you use toe extract your bios from the exe that HP supplies them? I read about something called universal extractor, and got a copy, but I am trying to compile as much info + resources before I actually sit down an try this.

...

Kenny

Hi Kenny. After on and off tinkering for a day, I gave up and got a P5K-VM because it was the closest match available locally (G33/ICH9). I just finished installing it and I'm trying to find the best BIOS settings for it before I do anything else. It's quite refreshing to have too many BIOS options compared to the @#!$#% HP one. It's too bad really because the IPIBL-LB is was actually decent motherboard. I'm about to boot into Vista for the first time on this system and I'm very curious as to how it and all the pre-canned HP software is going to react to a foreign motherboard. It has Marvel Lan, Realtek Audio which work fine; I'd check compatability with Audio and Lan for the Intel board if I were you, though it looks like a great board.

 

As for the BIOS: after my experience I don't think I'd try anything again with an OEM mobo. The BIOS on the IPIBL is actually an Amibios version 8 and you can get the current v8 flashing tool which can save your bios to a file, off the AMI website. But I REALLY was totally careful to follow David Tsu's tutorial to the letter, and yet... Someone in this thread posted that he found 'other' dependencies in the BIOS relating to the lines that are erased in the DSDT. It's entirely possible that that's the case with the HP BIOS. One thing I regret not doing is making sure I didn't flash the Bootblock. I used an older flasing utility than the current one on AMI's site, so it's very possible that the older tool was the wrong tool and it erased the Bootblock, preventing recovery. See if you can make sure that doesn't happen. The only way to recover this mobo now would be to have the equipment (and technique) to use the SPI header and reprogram the chip that way. The BIOS chip is soldered on this mobo.

 

So that's my tale. Let me know how it goes!

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limini
limini
Posted
Posted

BTW: Vista just won't run with a changed mobo!!! The system is locked down in so many ways. I can't recover because I don't have recovery disks... This is the first and last time I ever buy an OEM system. I think they're fine for Joe Sixpack, his wife, girfriend, etc... but not for tinkerers...

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kwjenkins
kwjenkins
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BTW: Vista just won't run with a changed mobo!!! The system is locked down in so many ways. I can't recover because I don't have recovery disks... This is the first and last time I ever buy an OEM system. I think they're fine for Joe Sixpack, his wife, girfriend, etc... but not for tinkerers...

 

Hey, if I were you, I would put the old motherboard back in, and get on the phone with tech support @ HP. Both me and igotshoe or however he spells it, have had mulitple encounters with their tech support, and believe me, if they'll take my factory refurb m9040n back twice [on their dime both times, for a refurb] for things I did to it [ugraded the bios, and was trying to get them to downgrade it] just tell them it won't boot vista anymore and you don't know why, and I bet you they will fix it for you. Seriously, its worth a try.

Kenny

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Fuzzy_Logic
Fuzzy_Logic
Posted
Posted

Sorry, but I want to be sure:

I have flashed the BIOS made by Kabyl and nothing changed, so I wanted to know if there is anybody with a AsRock 4CORE1600 Twins P35 mobo (maybe e2180 ,sata HDD and DVD-RW) that can confirm this BIOS working on this motherboard.

 

I used kalyway 10.5.2 ,vanilla Kernel and Netkas SMBIOS .(now 10.5.4 ,first kalyway combo update, with same kernel, then software update, and new kernel)

 

If there is a confirmation, I would appreciate if I could get some info about the optiones needed to be done in the BIOS and also which distro was used.

 

Thank you very much.

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limini
limini
Posted
Posted
Hey, if I were you, I would put the old motherboard back in, and get on the phone with tech support @ HP...
Thanks I thought of that already, but there's a few problems: one I had to modify (cut wires/resolder) the system switch/LED connectors for the new motherboard, and then the unit accidentally fell off the workbench when my foot got caught in the network cable :( , so there's some minor though quite visible cosmetic damage (the grey HP plastic logo strip got smashed into 5+ pieces). Miraculously everything seems to be working. So I don't know how much of this I can throw at HP :hysterical: It's really been a comedy of errors!!

 

But the good news is that the P5K-VM I got is running 10.5.4 like a champ! It's ultra fast and almost everything including all 4 cores are working (haven't finished patching yet). It's a faster than my MBP and tons faster and more responsive than a practically identical system my girlfriend has running Vista.

 

So now my question is: do I really care for Vista enough to go through any further hassles. At the very least maybe I can use this license as a stepping stone to buying an upgrade to the next big proper MS thing (but only if it can run on this hardware though...). I've been reading that you can patch your BIOS with an OEM string that will allow OEM vista to install and seeing as I have a serial.... wait... did you hear me say "patch your BIOS"??!?

 

Run for the hills!!!!! :)

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