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[tested & working] - M14x *unlocked* BIOS A07 and A08


svl7

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Here are the M14x BIOS revisions A07 and A08 with all the menus unlocked, just as previously with A05.

This has not been tested so far, as I don't own an M14x, if you want to test it flash it with the tool in the attached archive and please report back!

Thanks in advance!

After flashing I highly recommend to go to the BIOS menu and load the default settings!

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If you like these BIOS releases, please consider a donation to Tech|Inferno.

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As always with such mods... you're responsible for your machine and what you do with it.

Edit: A08 confirmed to work, A07 as well. Thanks a lot for testing @alroar !

M14x [unlocked] BIOS A07.zip

M14x [unlocked] BIOS A08.zip

Edited by svl7
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Great work svl7, I am happy to test once I get home from work tonight - on GMT time.

Just one question before I do, I am currently using the unlock A05 with Vmod on the GT555m - my GPU overclocks are not stable without this Volt increase. Do these new Bios have the vmod as well? If not can you add and I will definately test and report findings - usual temps, noise etc etc....

Oh I am currently using an m14x with the i7 2630m, 1.5GB GT555m, 8gb ram 1333,

Many thanks again

Ash

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Just one question before I do, I am currently using the unlock A05 with Vmod on the GT555m - my GPU overclocks are not stable without this Volt increase. Do these new Bios have the vmod as well?

The ones posted here don't include the voltmod, but I'll upload the unlocked BIOS including the voltmod as soon as the plain unlocked BIOS A07 and A08 is tested and confirmed to work.

However, I already uploaded a voltmodded version of A07 and A08 in the -voltage-increase-nvidia-gt-555m-7.html#post12003"]voltage mod thread, they contain the modified VBIOS but aren't unlocked.

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Your the Man!

I've posted a link here to the guys on the m14x thread at notebook review - I imagine a few guys there will jump at the chance to test this.

I will test the voltmodded versions later and look forward greatly to the unlock volt modded ones.

Thank you again

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@svl7 great job on unlocking that bios you are a very accomplished person... You've done so much here for everyone, great advice, unlocking bios, making custom vbios, fixing peoples comps based on just a limited amount of details, forging the way for 6970m, 6990m for M15x and more, making a way to mod 6990m to a CAD excelling beast. There's too much to mention but if there is such a thing you should be considered Mod/Editor of the year for Last Year. =)

Edited by mw86
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@mw86: Thank you very much! I try to do my best, it's cool to learn new thing, and I can only do very basic things when it comes to BIOS editing... but so far it works :)

Also it seems that people are really interested in such mods, I'm glad to see that the work gets appreciated.

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Guest pcd1n0saur

Just installed the unlocked A08. Already had installed the A08 from Dell this morning, but was still unable to gain access to the frame buffer setting. By using your unlocked BIOS I was able to change the setting on the Intel GPU from 32mb to 128mb, allowing the nVidia Gt555m 3gb GPU to work properly with The Witcher. Any one out there with an m14x who can't get the textures to display at a "high" setting after appending "-donotforceminreqs" on the shortcut need only to do what I have done and then use a normal shortcut to the exe for the game.

You are a genius and when I am paid next month, I will donate. Thank you so very, very much for all your hard work. The BIOS works awesome.

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Still running A05. Does A08 plain/modded also lock SATA speeds at SATA II? My SSD works just fine at 6Gbi/s, so no reason to mess that up.

Was that a rhetoric questions or perhaps nobody really knows what's new in A08? A07 is supposed to limit Sata speeds at 3Gb/s, hence my question is this limitations are also present in A08. Thanks for help.

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A07 isn't supposed to limit SATA speeds, but apparently they changed some things there so that some of the drives which don't adhere completely to the SATA III specs will be bound to SATA II speeds...

OCZ drives for example seem to be affected by this, but other drives like the Kingston HyperX seem to work still fine at SATA 3gbps speeds, at least that's what I've seen and heard so far.

For some drives firmware updates can fix this, e.g. for the latest Samsung drive. Some SSD manufacturers will probably say the M14x has a crappy SATA controller... Dell says their SSDs are crappy, I can't really say what's true, but fact is that some drives are still working at full speed (apparently, can't test it for myself).

And there have been tons of bugfixes which Dell doesn't mention, as always... but certainly not a new VBIOS, LOL.

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  • 2 months later...

First i have to thank you svl7 for the nice work youve done and that you shared it for free!

But i cannot get the fanspeed mod to work in the unlocked A08 BIOS. I tried to change from 55 degree to 60 degree for low fan speed and 70 to 75 degree for high fan speed. But when i monitor the behaviour of the temps and fans in windows with hwinfo64 it still remains at the fixed rates of DELL. And yes i saved my BIOS settings and restarted some times but still no effect from the BIOS mod.

Any idea why that is ?

M14x Stealth Black || i7-2760qm || 6GB RAM || GT 555m 1.5GB || Samsung 470 256GB SSD || 1600x900 HD Display

Edited by thanats007
wrong specs
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Any idea why that is ?

Well, I don't have an M14x myself to test it, so I can't say whether this is normal or not. But When it comes to hidden BIOS menus you can't be 100% sure whether they are actually functional or not. Sometimes there are some hidden menus which aren't actually implemented on a certain system since most BIOS aren't written for a single system but often have a common base frame of code.

Best would be if another M14x owner could take a look at this and confirm whether it should work or not. My guess is that it doesn't actually work. Or the settings doesn't get saved.

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First i have to thank you svl7 for the nice work youve done and that you shared it for free!

But i cannot get the fanspeed mod to work in the unlocked A08 BIOS. I tried to change from 55 degree to 60 degree for low fan speed and 70 to 75 degree for high fan speed. But when i monitor the behaviour of the temps and fans in windows with hwinfo64 it still remains at the fixed rates of DELL. And yes i saved my BIOS settings and restarted some times but still no effect from the BIOS mod.

Any idea why that is ?

M14x Stealth Black || i7-2760qm || 6GB RAM || GT 555m 1.5GB || Samsung 470 256GB SSD || 1600x900 HD Display

Your better of using that program HWiNFO for the fan control you were seeking from the bios :) we have a whole section devoted to HWiNFO fan control.

http://forum.techinferno.com/hwinfo32-64-discussion/65-alienware-fan-control-new-post.html

also my review here has most of the instructions all in one guide here: Products and User Reviews -- Tech|Inferno Forum just click HWiNFO from there :)

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Your better of using that program HWiNFO for the fan control you were seeking from the bios :) we have a whole section devoted to HWiNFO fan control.

http://forum.techinferno.com/hwinfo32-64-discussion/65-alienware-fan-control-new-post.html

also my review here has most of the instructions all in one guide here: Products and User Reviews -- Tech|Inferno Forum just click HWiNFO from there :)

Of course im using HWINFO for fancontrol but its very unstable and incompatible with M14x. The EC mode produces lockups and freezes and the Dell Factory Mode with the only 3 fanspeeds 0, 3000 and 5000 at A08 produces extreme high latencys, so every applications hangs for about 1 sec every 5-10 seconds - thats very annoying.

The only use for HWINFO when it comes to fancontrol of M14x is when im surfing, chatting or reading i can set it to the EC mode as long as i dont use any CPU intense applications or i get the lockups/freezes. When i want to start a game etc. i have to manually set EC to none off then set to system auto to prevent any lockups/freezes. Thats the best workaround yet.

Anyway this is a bit complicated it helps to make my 2 Alienwares very quiete when temps are only at about 50-60 degree with low workload.

Hope these infos help you Pros to advance your nice tools for us thankful Users :).

Greetings

M14x Stealth Black || i7-2760qm || 6GB RAM || GT 555m 1.5GB || Samsung 470 256GB SSD || 1600x900 HD Display<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

Added after 3 minutes:

Btw would be great if anyone has an idea but to repaste how to cool the M14x enough so i can enable Turbo in BIOS again^^.

2,4 ghz is plenty for most apps but i would love to use the Turbo if needed for longer than till it throttles. I also dont want to wreck my lovely Toy :<.

edit: and yes i crafted some feet for it so it has better airflow below ;) 4 cm at the backside and 3 cm at the frontside - but it only gives me about -5 degrees.

Edited by thanats007
forgot to mention
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Of course im using HWINFO for fancontrol but its very unstable and incompatible with M14x. The EC mode produces lockups and freezes and the Dell Factory Mode with the only 3 fanspeeds 0, 3000 and 5000 at A08 produces extreme high latencys, so every applications hangs for about 1 sec every 5-10 seconds - thats very annoying.

The only use for HWINFO when it comes to fancontrol of M14x is when im surfing, chatting or reading i can set it to the EC mode as long as i dont use any CPU intense applications or i get the lockups/freezes. When i want to start a game etc. i have to manually set EC to none off then set to system auto to prevent any lockups/freezes. Thats the best workaround yet.

Anyway this is a bit complicated it helps to make my 2 Alienwares very quiete when temps are only at about 50-60 degree with low workload.

Hope these infos help you Pros to advance your nice tools for us thankful Users :).

Greetings

M14x Stealth Black || i7-2760qm || 6GB RAM || GT 555m 1.5GB || Samsung 470 256GB SSD || 1600x900 HD Display<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

Added after 3 minutes:

Btw would be great if anyone has an idea but to repaste how to cool the M14x enough so i can enable Turbo in BIOS again^^.

2,4 ghz is plenty for most apps but i would love to use the Turbo if needed for longer than till it throttles. I also dont want to wreck my lovely Toy :<.

edit: and yes i crafted some feet for it so it has better airflow below ;) 4 cm at the backside and 3 cm at the frontside - but it only gives me about -5 degrees.

Join the conversation in the fan control thread maybe the issues can be worked around more. Btw having the fan rpm readings shown at all in the sensor window causes latency on the Dell ec me and Mumak suggest disabling those via Sensor window config. Just give a read the the tale end of the HWiNFO fan control thread. AZNPOS posted there and is using your M14x with fan control and no latency issues but on rare occasion he had fan speed drops and is working with us to solve it. Using not the Dell EC cpu temp reading might help solve some fan drop probs we are currently seeing if IntelCPU#0 sensor with cpu temp may run the temp based fan profile you set up better. Either way you would benefit reading that thread more towards the end of it.

The bios fan control hasnt worked for any of these generation Alienware laptops i have same settings in mine and they have no effect since the EC controls all fans in our rigs.

If you want an alternative thought is enable turbo again but set up "Throttle Stop" and tell it tohave two profiles. Normal use and overheating... In the overheating profile set it to non turbo ranges have it be profile 2 and the normal speeds profile 1. Enable alarm on the bottom left in Throttle Stop options and set a DTS temp to switch to the non turbo if you heat up that much... its going to work great like that. Then you have turbo but it runs safer clocks based on a temp you set to switch to that profile. So DTS is the temperature distance from your current temp to the cpus thermal protection temp most are 100c-105c. So set this to what you think is fair. You could set it to 20DTS and it would turn turbo off at 80c+. Then set the profile to switch to under the DTS number you set for the alarm so profile 2 in this case. make sure Throttle Stop is on and now it should be active as soon as 80c is reached youll be on profile 2 now turbo but under 80c it will automatically run profile 1 and can switch very quickly on demand between the two profiles as needed.

In this thread post two i describe the process again and with pics... we have different cpus but it will all work the same.

http://forum.techinferno.com/alienware-m18x/1491-2920xm-overclocking-guide-detailed-results.html

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