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Lenovo Y400 / Y500 - unlocked BIOS / wlan whitelist mod


svl7

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I have the model Y400, put 1866MHz memory he recognized however is restarting and presenting problems, tested the memory in another notebook and it is not faulty, I believe the problem is with the notebook, my bios was upgraded to v2.0 for little v2.02 but still the same way, they would tell me if any of these versions v1.x change something in the memory? thank you

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So it is not safe to update to modded v1.03 bios from a v1.02 bios. I've PM you my Y400 BIOS 6BCN30WW(v1.02,

but can I disable hyperthreading once a flashed to a modded bios? Does it lower the temps?

Not sure, I can't remember all the settings, someone else might know. You might see slightly lower temps in certain scenarios, but also less performance. If the temps are an issue I'd recommend re-applying the thermal paste.

Is there an option to adjust the system shared memory in the modded bios? Can't seem to find it other than for the IDG.

Possibly, maybe an Y500 user can check.

Hey svl7 I'm planning to take apart my Ultrabay GPU. What are you looking for and did the images in my previous post help at all?

It would be interesting to know for sure whether the vbios is in fact on a separate eeprom on that thing. So I would be looking for a certain 8-pin chip.

I have the model Y400, put 1866MHz memory he recognized however is restarting and presenting problems, tested the memory in another notebook and it is not faulty, I believe the problem is with the notebook, my bios was upgraded to v2.0 for little v2.02 but still the same way

Well, it's possible that the bios doesn't handle the profiles properly, or that the mem controller of your CPU has issues with 1866, but I think that's rather unlikely.

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Only flash a mod of the same version as you're using. If you want to go 2.02 then use the leaked stock update linked above, and once you done this flash the mod according to the instructions. Whatever you do, don't flash a mod of a different version than the one on your system.

Read the instructions and your Win8 cert and activation will be fine.

I have Bios 2.02, sli... whether yours will work fashions? I here read that fashions not the worker for sli

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svl7

bios v2.02 I used was a Chinese site that automatically updates already, however I did not see any difference for the v2.0 version that came with my original Y400, do not know if I used this v2.02 unlocked, you saw posted a mod bios v2.02 was thinking of passing it over the v2.02 I'm just I'm not getting the download link that you passed, I think it's because I'm new User.

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svl7,

I did notice one "problem" with the vbios after spending a little more time with it. It looks like it only flashed on the first card.

I can overclock card 0 as high as I like, but card 1 caps at 924 (+135).

In NvidiaInspector, Card 0 shows a modified bios as expected, but card 1 shows stock.

Any suggestions?

Thanks again, everything else looks solid.

Hey LewsTherin05, when you attempted to overclock both cards did you adjust their clocks separately or sync them? I know that in SLI one of them is the "master" card and the other is the "slave" card. I thought that if you sync them the clocks on the slave card will always match those of the master. So even though the +135 limit hasn't been unlocked on the second GPU shouldn't it still be able to bypass that as long as it has been unlocked on the first GPU? Have you tried using MSI Afterburner?

Let me know if I'm way off-base because I haven't flashed to modded 2.02 yet, just waiting on the outcome of this whole thing.

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Alright, upgraded from 2.00 to 2.02 and ran into problems. Y500fix ran through, no problems so far. Now i tried to flash the new "fixed" bios file.

"Error 28: 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."

did you remember to run prr.exe? I forgot on my first run through and got the same error. double check your instructions.

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It would be interesting to know for sure whether the vbios is in fact on a separate eeprom on that thing. So I would be looking for a certain 8-pin chip.

Does the EEPROM chip say something specific on it? I've got my GPU disassembled here in front of me right now and there are ten "8-pin chips" on both the top (where the GPU core is) and bottom. Some of them are so small I can't read the writing without a flashlight and magnifying class. Want to get this right because this thing was a pain to take apart and I don't want to have to do it again.

I'll take pictures of everything and put them in my next post.

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svl7, explain to me please, what on Y500 to lift gt650 frequencies, modified Bios or vbios is necessary?

You need to use a modded BIOS because the vBIOS is part of the BIOS on this system.

Or you can use the Nvidia Inspector and .bat files method.

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I'm bumping this up for all those people asking questions about modding their particular BIOS version.

For everyone who owns a Y400/Y500 and wants a modded BIOS and vBIOS, regardless of whatever version modded or unmodded you're currently on:

First go to here and download the latest official Lenovo BIOS update which is 6BCN42WW(V2.02). Even though it's from Baidu (AKA Chinese Google) I have scanned it with multiple malware scanners and it checks out.

Then, run the .exe and it will restart your PC and flash your BIOS to V2.02 unmodded. It will also reset any BIOS changes you made previously, but don't change them back yet.

Now, follow svl7's instruction in the OP and use his modded V2.02 BIOS I've attached.

Once that's finished flashing you can change all the BIOS options to what you had before.

I was able to use these steps to flash my modded V1.05 BIOS to modded V2.02.

Svl7, if you want to update the OP with this information, I think it will help a lot of people asking to get their particular revision modded.

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I'll see what I can do when I'm back at my main system, about at Friday... let me know in case I forget.

Hi SVL7,

I'm not sure how much time you have or when you are available, but I sure could use your help.

[Quick recap:]Here is what I can do so far:

Windows

backup my bios: fptw64.exe -d old.rom -bios

create fixed bios: y500biosFix | old.rom | v202.rom

modified file name:v202fix.rom

boot into dos

prr.exe = ready to flash

attempt to flash: fpt -f v202fix.rom -bios

ERROR (see previous bios screenshot) with funky codes.

attempt to flash from windows: fptw64.exe -f v202fix.rom -bios

ERROR:28

I even removed the wireless card just in case it was causing issues, but I still have the same problem.

This is a LENOVO y500 mfg 3-5-13 with no extra graphic card in the expansion bay

Anyhow, whenever you're around, I'll try to make myself available. I'm in [GMT-7] time zone, but if you name a time, i'll do my best to be there.

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You need to use a modded BIOS because the vBIOS is part of the BIOS on this system.

Or you can use the Nvidia Inspector and .bat files method.

many thanks for the answer, instead of you, what such could explain me a.bat files method and how to use it?

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I'm bumping this up for all those people asking questions about modding their particular BIOS version.

For everyone who owns a Y400/Y500 and wants a modded BIOS and vBIOS, regardless of whatever version modded or unmodded you're currently on:

First go to here and download the latest official Lenovo BIOS update which is 6BCN42WW(V2.02). Even though it's from Baidu (AKA Chinese Google) I have scanned it with multiple malware scanners and it checks out.

Then, run the .exe and it will restart your PC and flash your BIOS to V2.02 unmodded. It will also reset any BIOS changes you made previously, but don't change them back yet.

Now, follow svl7's instruction in the OP and use his modded V2.02 BIOS I've attached.

Once that's finished flashing you can change all the BIOS options to what you had before.

I was able to use these steps to flash my modded V1.05 BIOS to modded V2.02.

Svl7, if you want to update the OP with this information, I think it will help a lot of people asking to get their particular revision modded.

I already have Bios 2.02 but while I can't download anything from this site yet... and one more small question, what opportunities opens modified Bios 2.02?

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Hey LewsTherin05, when you attempted to overclock both cards did you adjust their clocks separately or sync them? I know that in SLI one of them is the "master" card and the other is the "slave" card. I thought that if you sync them the clocks on the slave card will always match those of the master. So even though the +135 limit hasn't been unlocked on the second GPU shouldn't it still be able to bypass that as long as it has been unlocked on the first GPU? Have you tried using MSI Afterburner?

Let me know if I'm way off-base because I haven't flashed to modded 2.02 yet, just waiting on the outcome of this whole thing.

I've tried separately and synced, did not seem to make a difference.

The master will easily exceed the +135 limit, but the second card caps at the 135 limit.

I've tried both NV Inspector and MSI Afterburner

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I already have Bios 2.02 but while I can't download anything from this site yet... and one more small question, what opportunities opens modified Bios 2.02?

You only need 5 posts to download files on here.

This BIOS mod removes the hardware whitelist which allows you to use third-party WiFi cards, which are blocked on the stock BIOS. Also, it shows a bunch of advanced BIOS settings that were hidden before. Lastly, it mods the vBIOS of the internal GT 650M GPU so that the artificial +135 MHz overclocking limit on the core is unlocked. However, if you are using SLI, it won't mod the vBIOS of the Ultrabay GPU and that looks to be unsolvable for the foreseeable future.

- - - Updated - - -

I've tried separately and synced, did not seem to make a difference.

The master will easily exceed the +135 limit, but the second card caps at the 135 limit.

I've tried both NV Inspector and MSI Afterburner

Thanks for the info. Man that sucks. The Ultrabay GPU is basically limiting the performance of main GPU then. The core on this GPU can go so much higher than +135 MHz.

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Thanks for the info. Man that sucks. The Ultrabay GPU is basically limiting the performance of main GPU then. The core on this GPU can go so much higher than +135 MHz.

Well there is an alternative. For whatever reason, with Nvidia Inspector and the 310.90 drivers, the +135 limit did not seem to be an issue (stock BIOS, haven't tried w/ modded).

I was able to get up to 1,100mhz on each core and had not yet reached the limit. The only drawback is you obviously don't have the newest drivers, which have some additional tweaks for some of the newer games (Farcry 3, Bioshock, etc...). That said, I'm not so sure the driver improvements offset the overclock performance.

Knock on wood SVL7 will come up with some genius to allow us to have the best of both worlds :D

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Well there is an alternative. For whatever reason, with Nvidia Inspector and the 310.90 drivers, the +135 limit did not seem to be an issue (stock BIOS, haven't tried w/ modded).

I was able to get up to 1,100mhz on each core and had not yet reached the limit. The only drawback is you obviously don't have the newest drivers, which have some additional tweaks for some of the newer games (Farcry 3, Bioshock, etc...). That said, I'm not so sure the driver improvements offset the overclock performance.

Knock on wood SVL7 will come up with some genius to allow us to have the best of both worlds :D

But even with 310.90 still have to use the .bat files to force P-states which is a really cumbersome way to overclock since you have to manually switch to the lower power states or else you're running at full clocks and voltage 24/7. If the vBIOS on both GPU's got modded then we could just use something very simple like Afterburner to set some OC profiles and forget about it.

I've been corresponding with svl7 for the last couple days since this issue came up and even took apart my Ultrabay GPU so that he could take a peek at the EEPROM that holds the vBIOS on it. It looks like Lenovo's implementation of SLI on this system leaves little to no hope for it ever to get fixed. :(

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You only need 5 posts to download files on here.

This BIOS mod removes the hardware whitelist which allows you to use third-party WiFi cards, which are blocked on the stock BIOS. Also, it shows a bunch of advanced BIOS settings that were hidden before. Lastly, it mods the vBIOS of the internal GT 650M GPU so that the artificial +135 MHz overclocking limit on the core is unlocked. However, if you are using SLI, it won't mod the vBIOS of the Ultrabay GPU and that looks to be unsolvable for the foreseeable future.

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for the info. Man that sucks. The Ultrabay GPU is basically limiting the performance of main GPU then. The core on this GPU can go so much higher than +135 MHz.

thanks for answers. I have too a konfiguryation SLI

- - - Updated - - -

I already downloaded everything, but I can't understand as with it to work how to make the copy Bios? I Russian, and stir a language barrier a little... maybe you will help screenshots?

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@LewsTherin05 what method are you currently using to overclock in SLI with matching clock speeds? I just flashed to modded V2.02 and can't figure for the life of me how to get the two cards to match core speeds. The internal GPU's default core has been bumped up to 835 MHz due to the vBIOS mod but the Ultrabay one is still at 790 MHz and this is giving me all kinds of problems.

When I use Inspector and individually set each card to match one another (using +45 MHz on the second GPU to compensate), they both go up but don't match what Inspector shows they are set to. When I use Afterburner I don't have control over each card separately and no matter how I mess with the settings I can only get the first (internal GPU) to increase while the second is always at 790 MHz.

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Ok, I've read the original post over and over again and can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong. When trying to backup my bios, I got the 104 error a few others have mentioned so I replaced the fparts file with the one found in the fix zip but now I'm getting the following error:

"Error 103: There are no supported SPI flash devices installed. Please check connectivity and orientation of SPI flash device."

Whether I use the backup.bat or attempt to backup via command prompt, I always get the error. Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated. If it matters, I'm on a Y500 with bios version 1.05.

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