trias10

Hi Prema, May I ask if there will ever be a pathway for people who did not purchase their laptop from a Prema Partner to obtain the Skylake/Pascal Prema Mod BIOS once they become available? In my case, I received the P650RS-G as a gift, so I personally did not have the choice to select a Prema Partner when purchasing, however, I would be very willing to either pay a Prema Partner directly for a one-time flash of the BIOS, or donate via your Wordpress site. Is there any chance that any such potential options will be available in the future? Both myself and many others in the community greatly appreciate your work, but unfortunately some of us just don't have the possibility/chance to obtain our laptops from Prema Partners, and are desperately hoping that we won't be left behind with future BIOS mods.

What was the OS problem? Was it the same issue I'm having, where everything worked fine except for Safe Mode? Also, is there any danger in downgrading my BIOS from your v2 to 37_34 stock?

Did this fubar-corruption occur within the BIOS itself, or did playing with CSM in Legacy corrupt something in the OS which you were subsequently able to fix with a fresh OS install? I'm considering trying out the stock BIOS for the P650SG posted on this site, to see if I still get this issue. Problem is, I am currently on v2 of your Prema BIOS which is based on Clevo version 37_39, but the stock BIOS you have posted are only 37_34. Is there a danger of bricking my laptop if I downgrade like this from 37_39 to 37_34?

Sorry, can I ask you for a bit more detail about this? What do you mean by "it may have already been corrupted"? You mean the default Clevo offboard sata part of the BIOS may be corrupted at the source, from Clevo itself? What do you mean that the BIOS did not forgive you booting once in mixed Legacy mode versus pure UEFI? I have had my CSM configured to boot in Legacy since I did a fresh install of Windows 7, as I didn't want to install Windows 7 in pure UEFI. Does booting the system in Legacy mode possibly corrupt something?

Just an update to this, I noticed today that I also cannot run the scheduled disk check (chkdsk /F) on the C: drive which you can normally run prior to Windows starting up. Both of these issues have to do with various boot/startup sequences, and I have a guess at what might be tying these issues together -- the offboard sata controller in the P650SG. I have my C: drive located on an M.2 PCIe SSD, the Samsung SM951, and I've read how the boot loader for this isn't on the SM951 itself, it's actually a string of BIOS hacks in the Clevo BIOS itself. Prema, may I ask if during your exploration/hacking of the BIOS for the P650SG you see any bootloader or unlockable options for the offboard sata controller?

Hi Prema, Sorry to trouble you, but I've found something quite odd with my P650SG and the PremaMod BIOS you have released. This morning I upgraded from v1 to v2 of your PremaMod BIOS, but noticed that I could not get into Windows 7 Safe Mode anymore, upon trying to load C:\Windows\system32\drivers\classpnp.sys, the Safe Mode login screen would appear and then immediately reboot the machine. Doing a quick Google search for this appears that is a common problem for some users, called the "classpnp.sys Safe Mode boot loop issue". Further research indicates that it is almost always a hardware issue. I then reverted back to your v1 PremaMod BIOS, and disconnected all peripherals from my laptop, but I still cannot enter Safe Mode -- I keep getting this classpnp.sys issue. Normal booting into Windows 7 works fine with both v1 and v2, just Safe Mode doesn't work. I have tried to get into Safe Mode with your Optimised Default BIOS settings for both v1 and v2, but neither work. I have tried disabling the dGPU, but that doesn't work either. Am not sure why this could possibly be happening, but just thought I'd bring it to your attention. Have you by any chance encountered this issue before? Any possible fixes for it?

Hi Prema, Small question, but on the P650SG, on each reboot, the BIOS puts all attached hard drives into a frozen state, which is quite annoying for some tuning operations (secure erase and such). I can bypass it with PartedMagic, but have found no way to bypass it in Windows. Is there a BIOS option in the PremaBios v1 which disables this freeze-lock on reboot?

Great info, thanks for this! One final question: do you know if I need to have the Nvidia drivers installed in Windows before I run the nvflash to flash the new vBios? Have just done a fresh install of Windows, have not even installed the Nvidia drivers yet, hence my question.

Doh! I'm such an idiot, sorry, it was right there: "HOW-TO: - Double click "update.bat" in Windows and follow on-screen instructions - Be Happy, Enjoy & support our project with a Donation :)" Sorry, am so used to always using nvflash only from an MS-DOS USB. I read before somewhere though that you should never flash vBIOS from Windows though? Is it safe to do in this case because of Optimus, and the fact that the desktop is run by the Intel HD4600, so the Nvidia card is not technically "active"?

Hi Prema, Sorry to trouble you, but I think there might be something wrong with the NVFLASH packaged inside P6xxSG_33_34_PM_v1, which is the PremaMod BIOS for the Clevo P650SG. Whenever I try to use this nvflash from an MS-DOS USB stick, I get the error "This program cannot be run in DOS mode". I have the nvflsh32.sys and nvflsh64.sys in the same location as your nvflash.exe An older version of nvflash on the same USB stick works fine, but it does not support Maxwell cards. I know that when you compile nvflash you can set it for Win GUI or DOS, perhaps the version inside this package was compiled for Win GUI? Or perhaps I'm doing something wrong? The USB stick is a FAT32 MS-DOS stick made with Rufus 2.2 Would greatly appreciate any help you can provide.

Thank you kindly! And also that is very interesting: so for the Windows software drivers for Intel Management Engine, it does not matter which version you install, the 1.5MB or 5MB version? It will still interface correctly with the IME Firmware level?

Very sorry to ask this, but could not find this info via the search tool :-/ When getting the latest Intel Management Engine drivers for the Clevo P650SG, should I use the 1.5MB or 5MB version? I'm fairly sure it's the 1.5MB but not positive, and would really appreciate confirmation. I know the size corresponds to the flashable EEPROM IME chip on the board, but not sure which size this board uses. Thank you most kindly in advance.

Hi Prema, many thanks for the reply! Sounds like the internal components are okay, as my benchmarks are still the same as ever. One question, in your opinion, do you think this incident may have damaged the LCD screen? As I said, it _seems_ to me that there is more light bleed now in the bottom right corner, but to be fair, I never really measured it from before the incident, and maybe I'm just more nervously noticing these things now. I don't know much about LCD screens, but I seem to recall light bleed is caused more by bad binding between the crystals and light source in the screen itself? So maybe heat like I experienced wouldn't affect it?

For a long time now, my W230ST has been turning itself on all by itself for no reason, although it happens rarely, maybe once out of every 1000 shutdowns. I have spent a lot of time trying to find the cause, and nothing fixes it, Wake on Lan is disabled, in fact all Wake settings are disabled in the OS and the BIOS, and any windows services or cronjobs which would wake the laptop have been disabled as well. Anyway, a few days ago, the laptop turned itself on while in my backpack, which was closed (no airflow). I use TrueCrypt, so after it starts up it goes to the TrueCrypt boot password where for some reason it goes to 100% CPU usage. So my laptop was in the backpack for an hour straight, with no ventilation, running at 100% cpu and 100% fan. Eventually, the low battery BIOS beep started sounding which is how I finally found out about the problem. When I opened that bag, it was like an oven, hard to describe how hot it was. The laptop itself was so hot to the touch, that the stickers in the lower left hand side of the keyboard all peeled off, and some parts you couldn't even touch with your bare hand. The LCD screen (which showed a black image, the truecrypt password prompt) had weird LCD effects in the centre corners, like the crystals were leaking or something. It was bad. I turned the laptop off and let it sit untouched, in a cool area, with the screen open for 24 hours. Things _seem_ okay now, the LCD discolouration is gone (although there seems to be a lot more light bleed now in the bottom right corner), and I'm still getting the same benchmarking scores as ever. My question is, does this laptop (running with Prema v2 BIOS) not automatically shut down when a thermal trigger is reached? The laptop only started beeping from low battery, I would hope that it would automatically shut down at the BIOS level before it got so hot that it damaged anything? How hot can these laptops get before permanent damage occurs? Should I be worried?

Hi Prema, cheers for the latest release of the W230ST v1.1 BIOS! May I ask if you tested the HDD password with this release? Were you able to get the mSATA drives to become password protected? I remember that the v1 BIOS were only able to protect the regular 2.5in SATA drive, not the mSATA ones.

Cheers, I think this is my issue as well. The other day I fiddled with some bolts and the sound is less now, but not quite gone. Do you by chance remember which bolt you tightened to fix the issue completely on your end? Was it on the fan assembly?

Currently, my Clevo W230ST occasionally drops into a fan state where the fan makes a very strange clicking noise, which in all honesty sounds just like the sound a 7200RPM hard drive makes when it is being subjected to tortuous consecutive read/write operations (like during a disk defragmentation). It sounds just like that. Anyone who heard it would probably think the sound was the hard drive in ordinary spin operations, however, I only have SSDs in my laptop, so that spin noise cannot be coming from a hard drive. The only thing with moving parts in the laptop is the fan, so it must be making that noise. However, it only seems to make this sound in a particular state, which only seems to happen when the laptop is in the BIOS. In normal Windows 7 operation, it never makes this sound. In Windows, the fan is either off, running at low rpm, which makes the sound you would expect from a fan in low rpm, or running at max rpm, like during gaming. All those fan states sound okay, but it is this weird BIOS fan sound which has me puzzled. It's not a huge deal, but I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed something similar on their W230ST?

Thanks for the help. I tried it out and it was just like you said, it only encrypts the SATA3 attached disk, not the mSATA disks. Maybe the newer 1.03 BIOS allow this.

Thank you kindly for the link. It's a bit unclear: does the User Password have to be the same as the HDD Password? Also, do you know if creating a password wipes the existing data on the drive?

May I ask how many characters the HDD password allows? Once you enter a HDD password, do you then have to reenter it again for each boot? Do you know if entering a password wipes the SSD drive? Regarding the HDD password not working with the mSATA, could this be because the mSATA disk you had does not support HDD password?

Hi Prema, Question about setting the HDD password in your v1 BIOS for W230ST: if I have two disk drives in my W230ST, and I go to set the HDD password in BIOS, will your v1 BIOS apply that HDD password to both disks, or just the boot disk? Or will it let me choose which disk I want to apply the password to?

Hi Prema, I've been able to narrow down a state where I get the auto-startup bug 100% of the time. It's very strange. It also happens on the Stock 05 BIOS as well as your v1 BIOS. Here is how to reproduce perfectly, at least on my W230ST. Please note, I run Windows 7 x64 Pro. 1) Shutdown your laptop. Wait 1 minute, then startup into Windows. Wait 2-3 minutes to ensure Windows has finished loading everything. 2) Put the laptop into Hibernation. Wait 2-3 minutes, ensure the laptop is off. 3) Turn the laptop back on. BIOS will say "Resuming from Hibernation". Wait to load into Windows. 4) Now Hibernate again. Wait for the computer to turn off. Do not touch anything. Immediately after shutting down into Hibernate, the computer will turn itself back on. It will now automatically turn back on after every hibernate and even after a regular Shutdown. The only way to make it run correctly again is to do 2 shutdowns in a row. I am running Intel Management Engine Components 9.0.5.1367 in Windows, and my IME FW (as reported in BIOS) is 9.0.21.1462. I installed the IME software from Intel's website because it had a newer version number than the IME software which came with my computer. If you are also running Windows 7 x64, could I please ask you to try and see if you can replicate this issue on your end? I'm curious if other people are getting this too. I'm running a fresh installation of Windows, and my laptop is brand new, so am not sure what could be causing this, but I suspect it might be the IME Software. Am going to try uninstalling that and see if it fixes things. Update1: Just tried the latest 06 BIOS and I still get the same problem. Update2: Uninstalling IME does not fix the problem.

Hi Prema, many thanks for all your hard work with these BIOS! I just flashed your v1 BIOS onto my W230ST, but I've noticed a strange issue, sometimes after turning off my laptop with either Shutdown or Hibernate from Windows 7 x64, my laptop turns itself back on. It usually happens 5-10 minutes after the shutdown/hibernate, and after I've closed the lid. The problem does not happen always, maybe 1 in every 5 shutdowns. It's very bizarre. I was not getting this problem with the BIOS which came from the factory, which were 1.00.002 BIOS/1.00.001 EC. I went from those BIOS straight to your v1 BIOS (based on EC 5). Later today, I will try flashing the stock EC5 BIOS and see if I still get this problem. I admit that when I first installed your v1 BIOS, I did not flash the changed Nvidia vBIOS which you included, as I planned to flash my own custom vBIOS later on, so I skipped calling xx.bat and went straight to xxx.bat in your update.bat file. Could it be possible that not having your new vBIOS would cause this? It would seem odd that differing vBIOS would cause a system to turn on all by itself 5-10 minutes after it was shutdown. Have you ever encountered this issue? Any help at all would be greatly appreciated!