[PROBLEM] How to open/modify/flash an Intel mainboard BIOS?

omnis · August 4, 2013, 4:03pm

Hi, how do I go about flashing an intel dp67bg motherboard for raid 0 TRIM support? I couldn’t find a tool for flashing the Intel BIOS specifically.

EDIT by Fernando /dated 04/22/2016):
Since there are meanwhile a lot of threads about the topic “How to mod an Intel mainboard BIOS”, I have merged them all into this thread (to make it easier to find a solution, if there should be any) and gave it a meaningful title.

Fernando · August 4, 2013, 5:24pm

@ omnis:
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!

I am sorry, but I cannot help you to modify an Intel BIOS.
Intel BIOSes named .BIO are disguised AMI ones. Only the tool named BIO2AMI is able to convert the BIOS to an AMI MMTool compatible one, but I don’t recommend to download this tool, because your Antivirus tool will give you a severe warning regarding its content.
This is what I recommend to do:
Contact the Intel Support and tell them, that all owners of a non-Intel P67 mainboard are able to get TRIM activity within their RAID0 and that you want to get it as well. Ask for a BIOS, which gives you this feature.

Regards
Fernando

omnis · August 4, 2013, 6:42pm

thanks for the advice! In the meantime, will using ccleaner "erase free space" feature perform the same function as trim?

Fernando · August 4, 2013, 7:56pm

Not really. TRIM is a special SSD command and more than a cleaner.

CPL0 · August 5, 2013, 2:33am

omnis, would you look for Intels FPT flash programming tool (fptw64.exe for Win x64), open up an admin cmd box and at the prompt enter "fptw64.exe -D Backup.ROM -BIOS" then zip and attach the file here. Thanks.

omnis · August 10, 2013, 4:11pm

Is that safe to do? and is this to create a compatible mod?

seeking123 · August 30, 2014, 10:07pm

Hello,

I have a z68 based Intel mobo DZ68DB, I have a pair of SSD in RAID0 config. I have been reading around, it seems modding Intel mobo bios to enable trim isn’t possible for Intel mobo, can somebody confirm or guide me how to go about modding the bios to support raid0 trim?

thanks!

Fernando · August 30, 2014, 10:43pm

@ seeking123:
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!

It is not easy to modify an Intel mainboard BIOS. Usually Intel BIOSes have the extension *.BIO and are disguised AMI BIOSes. The problem is to convert them to a “normal” AMI BIOS, which can be modded easily.
Some years ago there was a tool available named “BIO2AMI”, which is able to convert the Intel BIOS to a normal AMI one, but all download links seem to be removed or broken.
You can find a short guide about how to modify an Intel BIOS within the chapter 6 of >this< start post.
I am sorry, but I cannot help you myself, because I don’t have any experience with the modification of Intel BIOSes.

Regards
Fernando

seeking123 · August 31, 2014, 12:28am

I see, thanks for the information.

I found intel2ami from chapter 6 mentioned above, but the antivirus tool flagged it instantly so I didn’t dare to try out that tool.

Would appreciate others who have mod’ed Intel BIOSes to give some pointers/help.

Thanks!

seeking123 · August 31, 2014, 1:17am

if anyone can help, this is the Intel BIOS that I am trying to enable raid0 trim on:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/confirm…g&Dwnldid=21496

it would be greatly appreciated if anyone with the Intel BIOS experience help me mod it.

Fernando · August 31, 2014, 10:51am

Although I didn’t have any experience with Intel BIOSes, I was able to open the BIOS file, to find the Intel RAID ROM v11.2.0.1527 and to modify it according to CPL0’s method.
What I do not know is, if you will be able to get the modded BIOS successfully flashed.

This is what I have done:

As first step I extracted the BIOS file completely by using Andy’s Phoenixtool to find the Intel RAID ROM module and its GUID.
After having opened all modules with a size between 60 and 130 KB, I found the Intel RAID ROM v11.2.0.1527 having the GUID E8441378-54D5-4D9D-B238-82343E6BA581 and a size of 120 KB.
Then I opened the BIOS file by using CodeRush’s UEFITool, searched for the module with the GUID E8441378-54D5-4D9D-B238-82343E6BA581 and extracted the compressed body of it.
As next step I opened the just extracted Intel RAID ROM module with the hex editor HxD, modified it according CPL0’s method to get TRIM in RAID0 support and saved the modded file.
Then I let the still open UEFITool replace the compressed body of the module GUID E8441378-54D5-4D9D-B238-82343E6BA581 by the just modified one and save the modded BIOS.
Just to verify the success of my BIOS modding I re-opened the modded BIOS with the UEFITool, extracted the compressed body of the meanwhile modded module GUID E8441378-54D5-4D9D-B238-82343E6BA581 again and checked the modification I had done.
Result: Everything seemed to be fine.

The modded Intel BIOS file is attached (has to be unzipped and renamed according the original BIOS file).
You may use it as own risk.

Good luck!
Fernando

EDIT: The attachment has been removed by me.

seeking123 · August 31, 2014, 5:07pm

Hi Fernando, thanks for your work. I was able to flash your mod’ed Intel BIOS attached and it booted up fine, but it doesn’t pass trimcheck (v0.7), any idea? I have latest RAID driver: STOR_Win7_8_11.7.0.1013_PV.

Or is it that i need to re-RAID the drive in order for trim to kick in?

thanks!

Fernando · August 31, 2014, 5:27pm

It is fine, that you succeeded with the flashing of the modded BIOS.

TRIM in RAID0 should work for you now.
Questions:
1. Are you sure, that your OS (which one?) is sending TRIM commands?
2. Which sorts of SSDs are the members of the RAID0 array?
3. Did you trigger TRIM before you have run the TrimCheck test?

No!

seeking123 · August 31, 2014, 5:38pm

win7-64bit, how to confirm TRIM commands was sent or the OS sees the SSDs, I previously have a gigabyte mobo with a p67 chipset and did the raid0 trim mod as well, and it passed the HxD editor check method.
2. it is a pair of identical Kingston in raid0.
3. how to trigger TRIM before running the TrimCheck test?

thanks again.

Fernando · August 31, 2014, 5:48pm

Open the Command Prompt as Admin and run the command: "fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify".
If you get "DisableDeleteNotify = 0", you can be sure, that the OS sends TRIM commands.

Look into the "Addendum" of the start post of >this< thread.

seeking123 · August 31, 2014, 9:02pm

DisableDeleteNotify = 0 was returned.

3. Tried the trim triggering mentioned, still didn’t pass TrimCheck. During the trim triggering action, it gave a message of not all drives respond to trim command, i am not sure if that’s referring to the raid0 drive of interest itself or just referring to other non-ssd drives in the system…

Fernando · August 31, 2014, 9:24pm

Usually the system drive (drive C:) is inside the RAID0 array (to get the best OS performance).
So you have to trigger TRIM on drive C. Drive C is the place, where you should copy the trimcheck.exe file and execute the Trim Check tool.

seeking123 · August 31, 2014, 9:36pm

yes, drive C: is the OS drive.

I just did the Hxd jpeg method and it confirmed that Trim isn’t working.

Do you mind double check the ROM was edited properly?

Fernando · August 31, 2014, 9:45pm

Yes, I double checked it with an hex editor. The modded BIOS, which I had attached, contains definitively the TRIM in RAID0 modded Intel RST RAID ROM v11.2.0.1527.
Are you sure, that your Intel mainboard is now using the modded BIOS?

seeking123 · August 31, 2014, 9:59pm

I am going to reflash the BIOS, I will go back to some old version of BIOS first then flash again with your mod’ed version just in case the flash step kept the original BIOS since the version number is identical.