[Request] Gigabyte Aero 16 XE5 Bios Unlock

BIOS/UEFI Modding BIOS Modding Requests
1

Hi all,

I have recently purchased an Aero 16 XE5 with 12700H. The chip is locked by intel and couldn’t be undervolted, so I thought if I can unlock the bios and change the AC/DC loadline, I can then undervolt the CPU, and can probably increase the thermal limit to avoid throttling.

Upon trying to backup and reflash the bios using FPTW64, I came across the error:

Error 167: Protected Range Registers are currently set by BIOS, preventing flash access.
Please contact the target system BIOS vendor for an option to disable
Protected Range Registers.

I then tried to change both Flash Protection Range Registers (FPRR) and Bios Lock variable to 0x00 using RU.efi but the 167 error still persists.

I also tried to read the bios chip with the ch341a programmer but the software couldn’t detect it. The bios chip is a W25R256JV in WSON8 package. I couldn’t get my SOIC16 clip to clamp onto it so I decided to solder the cable straight to the chip but still couldn’t get it detected. I have ordered an external 3.3v power supply with 2A output current, hopefully, it could provide enough power to the chip and the 3.3v rail on the motherboard. My last resort would be to desolder the chip from the board which would be kind of dangerous since I only have a cheap hot air station which would struggle with heating up the ground plane.

I also noticed there’s a DEBUG connector on my motherboard which seems to have 8 pins, I cannot find any documentation regarding the port. If anyone can provide any info regarding the DEBUG connector, it would be greatly appreciated.

Here is my bios backup using FPTW64
biosreg.zip (5.2 MB)

Thank you in advance for your help.

2

Did you ever figure this out? I’m in the same situation but with a AERO 5 XE4. Can’t seem to get past the error 167 no matter what I set in the grub menu. I have the same BIOS chip, thought about getting this to read the chip.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005451951957.html?algo_exp_id=97673659-fd35-4379-a012-5be2d69d889b-0&pdp_npi=4%40dis!CAD!17.43!14.82!!!12.74!10.83!%402103010f17068926036078029e0b1c!12000033138019411!sea!CA!3442649684!&curPageLogUid=1zNaH5QwlUqL&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch|query_from%3A

3

Hello. What exactly you tried to set?

4

I dug through my Section_PE32_image_setup IFR file and got the offsets for: bios lock, bios guard, fprr, cfg lock and smm blocking and set them to 0x0, I did one at a time and had no luck getting past error 167

5

Yeh I figure out some of the sections but no matter what I cannot set them to 0x0. It has basically some sort of EFI protection as well. I get errors via all the EFI loaders… It just won’t set anything. The ONLY thing I think is with the official bios you get from Gigabyte they somehow trigger RECOVERY to flash the bios, the BIOS Guard has things to get around and disable it’s protection, offsets or something… If you look into the BIOS Guard flashers.

But there’s absolutely no way I can find to even temporarily disable the protection to flash the bios.

We can just edit the bios using one of the editors set everything to user etc but we can’t flash it. Frustrating. I wrote to Gigabyte to winge about it… The fact we can’t set BASIC things for this CPU, I just wanna set like a target temp, adjust the turbo’s lower the clocks etc.

For gods sake they even have OVERCLOCKING disabled in the bios so when you install Intel’s Extreme Tuning utility you have NO OPTIONS!

Gigabyte should be ashamed of themselves, this is a GAMING LAPTOP that runs a million degree’s. Mine’s either 90 degree’s after like 10 mins just sitting there or it’s NOISY.

I wouldn’t be hard to fix if I just had all the settings in the bios available to me.