Okay, I got the idea of modding my bios to enable fan controls (under thermal configuration, alongside trip point) because my fan running even at low temps of 45 and I could hear it. So begins my journey.
I did plenty of googling and found the first tool, AMIBCP. It looked so easy, I extracted my current bios with AFUWIN and tried to open it with AMIBCP v4.53. Unfortunately it only showed BIOS features, and no other tabs (Setup, etc). I then downloaded AMIBCP 4.55, and it worked! All tabs are present and I am able to change the Access to USER. However, when I tried saving, first popup it shows is “Saving secure rom as unsigned”, I figure this is normal. Next error that pops up is “Error occured in BIOS rebuild (#80000015)”, and the file ends up becoming 0kb. God damn it!
Just to be sure, I also tried an old version of AMIBCP, 3.xx. Couldn’t even open the bios.
I continued. I found the manual method of enabling the chipset tab using Universal IFR Extractor and UEFITool. Followed this guide.
First problem I run into is I don’t have the “Compressed section” under the Setup module. So I extracted the entire Setup module body, and converted to text with the IFR extractor.
Second problem I ran into, I open the txt (attached below) and the top doesn’t show multiple offsets and titles like in the guide, only “Setup”. Bummer.
I read through the txt file, comparing with the available options from AMIBCP and I searched for “Thermal Configuration”. Success! Found the line, and through this guide I can roughly tell that just by editing the suppress if and/or grayout if variables eg
2
3
4
5
6
Suppress If: {0A 82}
Variable 0x462 equals 0x1 {12 86 62 04 01 00}
Not {17 02}
End {29 02}
Ref: Thermal Configuration, Variable: 0xFFFF {0F 0F EC 07 ED 07 15 00 00 00 FF FF 00 35 27}
End If {29 02}
to
2
3
4
5
6
Suppress If: {0A 82}
Variable 0x462 equals 0x0 {12 86 62 04 00 00}
Not {17 02}
End {29 02}
Ref: Thermal Configuration, Variable: 0xFFFF {0F 0F EC 07 ED 07 15 00 00 00 FF FF 00 35 27}
End If {29 02}
I can enable certain sections under the tab, for example Thermal Configuration is under the Advanced tab which is already enabled. Changed the 01 to 00 by using HxD on the setup.bin file.
If I remember correctly, this is all I did. I replaced body of the Setup module, and flashed it with AFUWIN. It flashed successfully and I had access to Thermal Configuration. Sadly the config didnt affect fan noise at low temps, EC probably overrides it.
After that I tried doing a few more changes. Some similar like above, but for different options under the Advanced tab like Graphics Configuration, USB configuration etc. I also tried to enable the Chipset tab by doing the change below.
2
3
4
Suppress If: {0A 82}
True {46 02}
Ref: Chipset, Variable: 0xFFFF {0F 0F 20 00 02 00 03 00 00 00 FF FF 00 15 27}
End If {29 02}
to
2
3
4
Suppress If: {0A 82}
False {47 02}
Ref: Chipset, Variable: 0xFFFF {0F 0F 20 00 02 00 03 00 00 00 FF FF 00 15 27}
End If {29 02}
However, after I replaced body and flashed again. No new options were shown and I was confused, because it worked before? I tried flashing my stock bios back, downloaded from the website. With Asus EASYFLASH, it says the bios is too old. With AFU it says file size too big, 6,466kb while the dump and the modified ones were all 6,464kb (which i thought was kinda weird, dump is smaller than stock?)
I then extracted the Setup module from the stock bios and placed it into the dump, and basically flashed back to stock. Thermal configuration disappeared.
I repeated the entire process, however this time with the PE32 section of the Setup module, reflashed modified bios, and even thermal configuration does not show up anymore. Is there anything I'm not doing right? Is there any solution for the lack of Form Sets in the IFR txt?
All files I used are attached. Thank you all so much :)
K501LXAS206-STOCK.zip (2.38 MB)
Setup PE32.rar (146 KB)
K501LXAS-LATEST.rar (2.34 MB)
K501LXAS-THERMALCONFIG.rar (2.34 MB)