If you read my posts, you will see that I did not ask for a link to the tool, because I understand, that it cannot be legally obtained by anyone here, unless they work for a hardware manufacturer. In my first post, I was using a free tool (Aptio V UEFI Editor). You can see that in my screenshot. Then Sweet_Kitten points me to the AMIBCP Pro tool that nobody has access to, afaik. I have not seen any indication that someone claims they have the new AMIBCP Pro or have used it to edit a BIOS. An then you tell me to ask AMI.
I fully understand that the tool cannot be legally made available here. But I would like to know, which tools people are using to successfully mod Alder Lake/Alder Point BIOS ROMs.
Has anybody successfully used AMIBCP to mod a Z690 BIOS? And which version did you use? Or are people using free tools? I see in the screenshots, that they use AMIBCP to mod older BIOS versions (for Z390, etc.), but what about Z690?
I searched the forum for “Z690” and I see lots of requests for modding but all but one request are unfilled/unanswered. It makes me wonder, if anybody has even been able to mod a Z690 BIOS?
As you can see: unfilled request here, and here unfilled #2, another unfilled here.
I found one success here in which the BIOS options were confirmed unlocked/unhidden, but they didn’t say how they did it.
In the meantime, as I said in my first post, I hit a brick wall with trying to unlock hidden options using the free UEFI Editor tool. I don’t know if this is because I am doing something wrong, or if it is because of the custom menu that this BIOS has.
Another, more successful, avenue for me has been to completely ignore the BIOS setup and its options and instead to modify UEFI NVRAM variables. I hit another brick wall there because the varstores that I need to edit, are write protected. These are ‘Setup’, ‘AMITSESetup’, ‘PchSetup’ to name a few. My workaround for this is to edit NVRAM vars in the ROM image and then flash the image (instead of changing the variable directly in NVRAM from UEFI shell or in BIOS setup). Now, you can imagine that is not the most efficient workflow for testing but at least it works.
This way, I have been able to enable S0 power state (Modern Standby) by setting ‘Low Power S0 Idle Capability’ to enabled. It is disabled and hidden by default. I’m on Alder Point Desktop (Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Elite DDR4). Now it shows in Windows:
The following sleep states are available on this system:
Standby (S0 Low Power Idle) Network Connected
...
The following sleep states are not available on this system:
Standby (S3)
This standby state is disabled when S0 low power idle is supported.
...
With stock BIOS, it is the other way around. S3 is available and S0 is unavailable.
There is yet another issue I need help with. In the process of doing this, I had to enter manufacturing mode, because I had issues with Gigabyte’s and AMI’s flash tools refusing to flash unsigned ROMs (or at least refusing to flash unsigned BIOS region only ROMs). I tried the old version of AFU flash (with the ‘/GAN’’ option but it cannot see the EC on Alder Point.). Now I need help with exiting manufacturing mode. Currently, I don’t have ‘Intel(R) Platform Monitoring Technology Device’ in device manager anymore and Intel’s MEInfo tool reports.
PS C:\CSME ADP v16.0 r8\MEInfo\WIN64> .\MEInfoWin64.exe -VERBOSE
Intel (R) ME Info Version: 16.0.15.1829
Copyright (C) 2005 - 2022, Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.
General FW Information
FW Status Register1 0x80042044
FW Status Register2 0x39284106
FW Status Register3 0x00000020
FW Status Register4 0x00004000
FW Status Register5 0x00000000
FW Status Register6 0x40200000
Current FW State Disabled
Flash Partition Table Valid
FW Memory State CM0 with UMA
FW Initialization Initializing
BUP Loading state Success
FW Error Code Disabled
FW Mode Of Operation Unsecured mode by H/W jumper
SPI Flash Log Not Present
FW Loading Phase BringUp
FW Loading Phase Status CM0_TEMP_DISABLE
ME File System Corrupted No
Error 632: ME disabled.
PS C:\CSME ADP v16.0 r8\MEInfo\WIN64>
The problem with ’ FW Mode Of Operation : Unsecured mode by H/W jumper’ being of course, that the board does not have a hardware jumper. Currently, the only way that I know of to re-enable ME and to exit manufacturing mode is to flash the stock BIOS, but that defeats the purpose. I would like to keep the modded BIOS but exit manufacturing mode and re-enable Management Engine. Is the problem possibly, that I did not flash the entire ROM, but only the BIOS region?
So, what I need help with at this point is
- need help with unhiding BIOS settings
- I possibly also would like to be able to change setup/optimized defaults
- How can I exit manufacturing mode and re-initialize Management Engine (ME)?
- Lastly, How can I remove write protection from NVRAM vars that are write protected so that I can set them from UEFI shell? What is responsible for protecting UEFI vars, and how do I remove it? Is it a hidden BIOS setting perhaps (like “BIOS Lock”, Help: “Enable/Disable the PCH BIOS Lock Enable feature. Required to be enabled to ensure SMM protection of flash.”)? Or is it more deeply rooted? Perhaps in the flash descriptor?
