Hello all,
I’ve been trying for a while now to try and understand the bios structure Dell uses for their Precision laptops, more specifically the M6600. Some of you may know, these are very powerful, very flexible machines with tons of features and usually great specs, that could stand to be even greater, providing we had access to the component whitelist, the ability to overclock the CPU (which is locked even with Extreme Edition CPU’s), and general tweaks of all kinds.
Afaik, nobody so far has managed to unlock a Precision mobile workstation bios and report results. I’ve found various reasons for this, ranging from the impossibility of dumping the bios from the machine, impossiblity of extracting the rom image from the .exe flashing utility, encryption, etc. etc.
Safe enough to say, I’ve managed to use python to extract the rom image from withing the most recent A15 bios exe from Dell’s website. The resulting file is an .hdr, which I can view with MMTool Aptio or UEFITool.
This is where I am stuck. I’m having difficulty comprehending the existing information on the net and in the forum pertaining to modifying the BIOS. I see various DXE drivers inside the file, but I don’t know what they do, which ones should be modified or how to modify them. If it were a book, I could say that I recognize the characters but don’t know the language.
I don’t expect others to do the work for me, but it’s clear to me I’m up against a brick wall and definitely need some help in climbing it. I’d greatly appreciate any help, advice or support in getting this bios unlocked, or at least gaining the ability to modify it and flash it to the machine without bricking it 
What I’d like to be able to do with this machine would be:
- unlock all hidden menus;
- remove the limitation on CPU multiplier setting (usually one would be able to overclock an Extreme Edition CPU in almost any laptop providing one had access to ThrottleStop/Intel XTU, but not on precision machines).
- gain the ability to modify the whitelist so as to be able to use non-dell-approved components inside the machine;
- gain the ability to control fans/voltages/power settings/etc.
Well, you get the picture.
I’m hoping one day most if not all Precision laptops will have unlocked bios’es available, allowing enthusiasts to really use such machines to their fullest potential.
Here’s a link to the extracted file, hope somebody can help.
@ sangemaru:
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
Although this Forum has not been started with the intention to help users, who want to unlock or manipulate system BIOS components, you may get some tips from our BIOS modding experts.
Regards
Fernando
P.S.: I have deleted the second thread you had started by mistake.
Did you ever get anywhere with this? I’d like to help, as I need to replace the dedicated video card in my M6600, but there is a whitelist such that only certain cards may be used.
Have you tried working with an app called RW-Everything ?
It shows promise.
@Grattle :
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
[quote="Grattle, post:4, topic:30559"] Have you tried working with an app called RW-Everything ? [/quote] To whom did you address your questions resp. whom are you trying to help?
Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)