Modified BIOS to get all cores working, For ASUS/MSI (and some other) laptops.. Options

[looser]

Hi, everybody, this is my first post in this forum.
This thread is really active and its doing a lot for the whole project.
I've been looking around, waiting for someone to come up with a solution for Dell's models, but couldn't find it yet.

Can someone explain in simple words,
why Dell BIOS can´t be modified?
does someone know if Dells problem is the same your are solving with these modified BIOSes?
Is someone working with the DSDT injection approach for Dells laptops?

Thanks.

[collac]

Hi Master! Could you please mod ASUS P5PL2 one?

link: http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket...5PL2/PL1805.zip

Thanks!!

[th3d00d]

Hey lioudow... Odd that you'd still have to do the cpus=1... firstly, did the flash go ok, ie, did it say it a)backed up your original bios erase your bios c) copied the new bios.... then did it say it was ok to reboot the machine.

If this is the case, then the bios settings i used, well, the ones that were relevent,

MPS table version [1.4]
IOAPIC [Enabled]
ACPI [S3]
HPET [Enabled]
EIST [Disabled]
Execute Bit [Enabled]


That should hopefully sort it

[glitchbit]

Hi, everybody, this is my first post in this forum.
This thread is really active and its doing a lot for the whole project.
I've been looking around, waiting for someone to come up with a solution for Dell's models, but couldn't find it yet.

Can someone explain in simple words,
why Dell BIOS can´t be modified?
does someone know if Dells problem is the same your are solving with these modified BIOSes?
Is someone working with the DSDT injection approach for Dells laptops?

Thanks.

Chances are Dells issues are no different. What is different is dells compression algorithm that they use and the fact that their developer tools for their BIOS have not been leaked or reversed engineers thus no one can save Dell through BIOS hacking. Only an on the fly DSDT patch during boot up will solve this problem.... Kabyl had been working on this but I am not aware of its status atm.

[devilhood]

We'd definitely need to know someone working in Dell, or maybe they're already reading this and would care to contribute anonymously

*prays*

[starblob]

well, I had to use your settings thedood, but it boots now.

well, gets past the stage where it would stop before anyway...

now it goes into a loop of found a transaction which hasnt moved in 5 seconds on bus 0xfd

no one knows anything about this error do they?

i get it with the dvd aswell

[hacman]

Modified BIOS: "success" then flashing cursor on reboot?

QUOTE(hacman @ Apr 7 2008, 05:07 PM) Asus U1E fix please?

Latest BIOS downloadable from http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/U1E/U1E203AS.zip

Kabyl, you are providing a sterling service, let me add my praise to that of everyone else and say a big thank you very much for your excellent work!

http://rapidshare.com/files/105762234/U1E203AS_mod.zip.html

Thanks hugely for the speedy turnaround, Kabyl

I have flashed the laptop with the modified BIOS; that went fine and I went back to trying to install from 1) iATKOS 1.0ir2 with the EqUaTe1 patch, 2) iATKOS 1.0ir2 with the EqUaTe1 patch and the BADBIOS patch and 3) Kalyway 10.5.1i, all of which had failed before on my Asus U1E (the only one of which had worked was Leo4Allv2, but with virtually no hardware components working and a screen resolution of 1024x768 instead of 1366x768).

All three distros now reported no ACPI errors on startup (hurrah!), and all the installations went through OK, each one giving me the big green blob of "installation successful". However, on rebooting, each of these three immediately hangs with a flashing cursor and a lit up hard disc light, not even displaying the Darwin bootloader message, whereas all three had done so before (I have tried all permutations of both x86 and EFI bootloaders, whatever was offered). The only way out is to reinstall Leo4Allv2, which again works, but not with enough hardware support to be satisfactory. Windows XP still works fine - identical before and after installation of the modified BIOS.

Does anyone have any ideas? My apologies if I am posting in the wrong place, but this is related to the updated BIOS (and thanks again, man, for providing such a great service to us all).

Thanks in advance

[lioudow]

Hey lioudow... Odd that you'd still have to do the cpus=1... firstly, did the flash go ok, ie, did it say it a)backed up your original bios erase your bios c) copied the new bios.... then did it say it was ok to reboot the machine.

If this is the case, then the bios settings i used, well, the ones that were relevent,

MPS table version [1.4]
IOAPIC [Enabled]
ACPI [S3]
HPET [Enabled]
EIST [Disabled]
Execute Bit [Enabled]
That should hopefully sort it

As I tried to make it boot with 2 cpus yesterday, i totally shot my hackinstosh ...
But i reinstalled it (without cpus=1 to launch DVD), recovered all the lost data, ut still had to boot with cpus=1 even if the DVD was booting without that option.

But with your bios settings, my 2 cores are now running !
ACPI mode was S1,
execute bit was disabled

I think that these are the only differences, if it can help...

Thanks a lot, i'll try to keep my current hackintosh more than a month this time

[starblob]

damn you two! why won't mine work?

dont suppose IDE works now does it?

[th3d00d]

Hey Starblob, sounds to me like a device has stalled or something silly... Try disconnecting all USB devices from your machine and boot again, see if you still get the same issue.

Also, make sure you have legacy support for USB turned on in the BIOS, I don't think MSI word it like that (they would be awkward) but it's something along those lines.

It's definetly a big step closer to getting it working though

Keep hacking at it and you'll get there.
Not sure if it's much help, but it looks like the genuine mac users are having similar problems. Your not using an external USB hub by any chance?

[starblob]

Hey Starblob, sounds to me like a device has stalled or something silly... Try disconnecting all USB devices from your machine and boot again, see if you still get the same issue.

Also, make sure you have legacy support for USB turned on in the BIOS, I don't think MSI word it like that (they would be awkward) but it's something along those lines.

It's definetly a big step closer to getting it working though

Keep hacking at it and you'll get there.
Not sure if it's much help, but it looks like the genuine mac users are having similar problems. Your not using an external USB hub by any chance?

yeah, sure am...unfortunately its got OS X installed on it

I get the feeling it is that as its been playing up a bit lately...but until IDE works on it im going to have to keep using it.

The only other USB device is the keyboard and mouse, which ive tried unplugging straight after pressing enter.

this is LAMEEE. but yeah, definitely a step closer. its annoying as ive had it working before though

[th3d00d]

yeah, sure am...unfortunately its got OS X installed on it

I get the feeling it is that as its been playing up a bit lately...but until IDE works on it im going to have to keep using it.

The only other USB device is the keyboard and mouse, which ive tried unplugging straight after pressing enter.

this is LAMEEE. but yeah, definitely a step closer. its annoying as ive had it working before though

Hey man, just a suggestion, why don't you pick up an IDE to SATA adapter, you can get them for about a tenner at maplins. That'll sort it out as the ICH9 sata controller is pretty much spot on for osx.

Worth a shot anyway

[starblob]

Hey man, just a suggestion, why don't you pick up an IDE to SATA adapter, you can get them for about a tenner at maplins. That'll sort it out as the ICH9 sata controller is pretty much spot on for osx.

Worth a shot anyway

ive come up with a better one...I'll move about 80gigs of stuff from one of my sata drives, put that onto the ide, then with the free space on teh sata, create a new partition, and try installing it on that...hope this works

[th3d00d]

ive come up with a better one...I'll move about 80gigs of stuff from one of my sata drives, put that onto the ide, then with the free space on teh sata, create a new partition, and try installing it on that...hope this works

Good idea mate, let me know how you get on with it

[HaX0r Jim Duggan]

Any update on the modified kext to get both cores working on MSI boards?

[robcad]

Hi Elkay,

Dell BIOSes are customized (I think they use _customized_ Phoenix BIOSes), I don't know of any tools to edit them..

And yes, it's not the same issue, but could also be in the ACPI Tables (I hope).

Check the first post..

I have written a kext that will "Inject" the DSDT without needing to mod the BIOS, so this should work for more people (with _less_ risk). Currently, it's functional (at least for me), will do more testing and will release it when it's ready

Maybe this thread can be of help on understanding the Dell Dual core Issue?
http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,43.0.html
I'm no expert but I have a Dell Latitude D820 and would like two cores badly!
thanks!!
Rob

[nawm]

Great job Kabyl..both cores working on Asus G1S-B2 with the 300 bios.

[SinThink]

can u give me modded bios for my mobo MSI VR700..
here is the link for my bios..
http://downloadx.msi.com.tw/files/download...xe/171c_116.zip

[Proud Bajan]

hey kabyl can you please try this bios for HP 530 please? i would definately love to work my machine with both cores
 sp38863.exe ( 1.22MB ) Number of downloads: 3


thanks in advance dude

[HaX0r Jim Duggan]

Modded MSI BIOS works fine as far as being able to use both cores on my E4400. Has caused a couple of issues though as I can no longer overclock to 3Ghz any more. Bit weird but it works fine otherwise.