BIOS modding for GPU OC fun and profit!!

[jmkiang]

Run RW Everything on the toolbar across the top, there are several icons. One near the middle there is a icon that looks like a desktop computer with a monitor, it has ACPI written on it. Push that button, then press the 'save all' button, it's the one that looks like 3 floppies stacked on top of each other.

Yes, reflashing with the standard Dell BIOS will put everything back to normal.

Run GPU-Z, it will tell you what the clocks are after the flash.

Ahhh I was looking at that before... in my version of RW, its called ACPI Table. PM sent.

EDIT. Nvm uploaded RW file here as a zip file.

[seeker_moc]

Ahhh I was looking at that before... in my version of RW, its called ACPI Table. PM sent.

EDIT. Nvm uploaded RW file here as a zip file.

Modded BIOS added to first post. Enjoy

[jmkiang]

Modded BIOS added to first post. Enjoy

Wow that was extremely fast! Trying now.

Success!

[seeker_moc]

This would be wonderful if you could manage it, im sure the many 1645 4670 owners would much appreciate it

Modded BIOS added to first post. Please, let me know how it works.

[JKleiss]

Modded BIOS added to first post. Please, let me know how it works.

Thanks alot, seems to work as expected... so far.

VBIOS version in ccc says

BIOS version 011.022.009.003
BIOS part number BR036993-001
BIOS date 2010/03/28

[error-id10t]

This is a great thread.. haven't tried it myself yet (interested about the A12 BIOS with A09 vBIOS).

Maybe the OP could look up the BIOS recovery thread from somewhere here and attach it as a link.. just incase anything goes wrong, it should be recoverable via that same method..

add:
This is the original post I think (at least the one I found), but the link to the ZIP doesn't work anymore:
Bricked XPS 1645. Help!

That file is still here (flash tools and the crisis recovery):
Up and Downgrading your 1645 BIOS

[seeker_moc]

Thanks alot, seems to work as expected... so far.

VBIOS version in ccc says

BIOS version 011.022.009.003
BIOS part number BR036993-001
BIOS date 2010/03/28

Awesome, it worked then, as the standard A12 4670 vBIOS is dated 5/17/10

[daver160]

just for the hell of it, i tried OC'ing my 5730 using the AMD GPU tool. i set it at 750/1000 and ran 3dmark in the background of my machine for a few hours solid. didn't notice anything (though my machine was a little bit laggy while i was using it). GPU-Z says that my max temp was 70.5C (with cooler and screen closed). that's a whole half degree higher than my original temperatures before OC'ing....

i take it that i can handle the modded BIOS without any problems?

[seeker_moc]

just for the hell of it, i tried OC'ing my 5730 using the AMD GPU tool. i set it at 750/1000 and ran 3dmark in the background of my machine for a few hours solid. didn't notice anything (though my machine was a little bit laggy while i was using it). GPU-Z says that my max temp was 70.5C (with cooler and screen closed). that's a whole half degree higher than my original temperatures before OC'ing....

i take it that i can handle the modded BIOS without any problems?

Yeah, you should have no problems at all. The 5730 takes to OCing very well, even when boosting my clocks up to 830/1105 I only have a 3C difference from stock clocks. If anything your temps with BIOS OC will be lower than with a software OC, as the GPU will still downclock itself when not running at max load, something it won't do with a software OC.

[Da_G]

Been doing some further studying on potential BIOS mods yesterday, I tried re-compiling the DSDT after dumping it from the BIOS (using the kernel in linux, but RW Everything outputs the same thing)

Upon trying to recompile it, I noticed a handful of bugs in the stock BIOS! It took quite a bit of reading of the official ACPI specifications, but it's very well written, and I've got those bugs fixed up now, by changing it to meet the spec (several of the issues were with how the system describes the virtual usb ports the bluetooth chipset creates to allow bt mouse/kb control prior to the OS booting/bt stack loading) What i'm really looking for in here is how to bump up the TDP/TDC values to allow some more headroom for turbo boost (since judging by the intel_ips driver reports, somewhere in the BIOS the chips TDP is being overridden to lower it as I mentioned before)

There are also functions in here to determine the temperature levels that the fans are kicked on to intermediate, high, or passive, which might be useful to tweak. I'm sure there's many more interesting things, the specification is 720+ pages, still reading

I'll try out the fixed up DSDT after I add the _BQC function (I noticed the linux ACPI backlight driver reporting that the BIOS is missing the _BQC function, which tells the system the current backlight level, so linux can set the backlight level but it isn't ever aware of what the current one is, it just guesses as to what it was last set at) - From what i'm reading Windows is much more leniant with BIOSen that don't quite meet the specification and so that bit works fine.

Fortunately the linux kernel allows a software-override of the DSDT by either recompiling the kernel or setting up an initrd/initramfs - so I don't have to mod the BIOS each time I make a change. I have my bootloader set up with an easy menu to boot a known good kernel in case I break it too. That makes the fiddling much easier

Errors I ran into on the stock BIOS:

DSDT.dsl  4119:                     0x00000000,         // Length
Error    4122 -                               ^ Invalid combination of Length and Min/Max fixed flags

DSDT.dsl  4133:                     0x00000000,         // Length
Error    4122 -                               ^ Invalid combination of Length and Min/Max fixed flags

DSDT.dsl  8696:                             Name (_PLD, Buffer (0x10)
Error    4080 -              Invalid object type for reserved name ^  (found BUFFER, requires Package)

DSDT.dsl  9512:                             Name (_PLD, Buffer (0x10)
Error    4080 -              Invalid object type for reserved name ^  (found BUFFER, requires Package)

DSDT.dsl  9529:                             Name (_PLD, Buffer (0x10)
Error    4080 -              Invalid object type for reserved name ^  (found BUFFER, requires Package)

DSDT.dsl  9546:                             Name (_PLD, Buffer (0x10)
Error    4080 -              Invalid object type for reserved name ^  (found BUFFER, requires Package)

The first 2 are memory allocation errors, they are intended to allocate a block of memory of size xxxxx, and instead allocate nothing. I didn't yet pay attention to what particular function those memory blocks belong to, just fixed the allocator to actually allocate the memory. The other 4 errors are descriptors for the USB ports (EHCI Bus 1: Port 2, EHCI Bus 2: Port 1, Port 2, Port 4) - Those errors are in non-critical fields used to describe the physical location and size of the ports on the machine. (Section 6.1.6 Page 203 _PLD definition)