Comments on: Enabling Intel VT on the Aspire 8930G (and other InsydeH2O-based laptops)

By: dummy

dummy — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:08:26 +0000

@jungleflow: The Fan-On is a trip value, I believe. It means full fan speed as from that temp. The fan speed is probably controlled by some ACPI table, but I do not have more precise info. I am presently looking into the ACPI table for the CPU power management. I want to undervolt the CPU’s to generate less heat. I have the tables, but I don’t understand them yet.

By: dummy

dummy — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:03:06 +0000

@tony: my observation about obsolete ‘Suppress If’ statements is true for my (Acer) bios, based on InsydeH2O. Not sure how HP have built there formset. In my case, the ‘Advanced Menu’ and other missing forms were not appearing because of missing references (IFR_REF_OP), not because of a check on a variable value. It meant in my case that you cannot just patch. You need to add the IFR_REF_OP statements. Look in the link of the post above by .NetRoller3D for a complete description of how to reassemble the modified bios.

By: jungleflow

jungleflow — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:25:46 +0000

@dummy
I followed your suggestion and checked the themal trip temperatures:

Fan On Temperature (0x19e) is set to 70 °C (0×46)
Throttle On Temperature (0x19f) is set to 85 °C (0×55)

Those are the default values. Nevertheless my cpu fan starts spinning at exactly 35 °C (medium speed). So there has to be some hidden mechanics someone might know about.

Thanks for any further help.

By: tony

tony — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 13:07:32 +0000

@dummy: Actually I’m using HP dv5t so that I cannot use your BIOS. I’ve already disassembled the setup utility and got the setup.txt. The thing is that from the text there are quite a lot of opcode 0×27 (2) which is EFI_IFR_VARSTORE_DEVICE suppressed the option. I want to patch it to 0×47 (EFI_IFR_FALSE) so that the detection of value would be void and menus would not be suppressed. Just wondering by what means you disassemble the BIOS? Uncompressed it with LZMA and use vardump? And how do you reassemble it? Thanks.

By: dummy

dummy — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 05:10:01 +0000

@tony,
Forgot to say that for each edit you need to add the same number of null bytes after the end-for-set opcode in order not to change the offsets of the data that is after the form set! An external edit is best, you can then copy/paste the correct number of bytes.

By: dummy

dummy — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 05:03:59 +0000

@tony
I made a complete disassembly of the setup executable, but you don’t need to do that if you can free up sufficient space by removing redundant code (suppress if is used a lot without any real effect). When you spot such redundant code, you delete all bytes until the next end-op opcode. All bytes following until the end of the form set will be moved up. You can do that with WinHex (I used HxD by the way), but it is more convenient to do that in a separate file that you can edit (and perhaps disassemble/reassemble for ease of interpretation). I have an Acer Aspire 7720. I you need the same you could use my version, but I don’t know how to post that here.

By: tony

tony — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:32:30 +0000

@dummy: just wondering, how did you remove the “suppress if” option? I’ve opened my bios using ezH2O and tried to use Winhex to modify opcodes(e.g., change opcode 0×27 to 0×47 which is EFI_IFR_FALSE to bypass the detection), but the changes won’t save. any help would be appreciated.

By: dummy

dummy — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 05:09:12 +0000

@jungleflow: The trip temperatures can be set in hidden forms. These forms are not available even in the ‘Advanced’ menu, but they can be added manually. See my post above. Alternatively, you can just change the values in the VSS variable.

By: dummy

dummy — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 05:01:24 +0000

@.NetRolller 3D: OK. The problem of the ‘Advanced’ Menu not appearing is solved. I got it all working without any compromise. It’s all a matter of adding the missing references to the forms that are not appearing in Setup. The I found out that the ‘Advanced’ menu is not so advanced, since there are about ten other forms or so that are not even referenced by the Advanced menu. I added those as well. Then I found out that some forms have so many options that the form browser needs to scroll but is not doing that correctly. So, I reorganised many items and distributed them appropriately over other forms to avoid scrolling. I even had to split one existing form (USB Configuration), creating one new form alltogether.

So a form assembler/disassembler would be a useful thing to have. By the way, most forms contain obsolete ‘Suppress If’ opcodes that can safely be removed. That created more than enough space for me to add all the missing reference. Even though I did assemble the whole Setup binary, it is not even necessary, since in there is enough space now to patch the forms directly. Also good is to improve the strings, correct some common translation artefacts and spelling mistakes. If your assembler/disassembler can do that as well, would be good. I did all this by hand which is tedious.

Only thing now, I don’t know how all this can be automated or scripted so that everyone can benefit …

By: dummy

dummy — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 04:45:13 +0000

My microcode problem is solved. I updated it in the distribution BIOS with a hex editor and updated the live BIOS (FLASHIT /FM). That worked fine. The weird thing is that Acer provided a microcode update in the latest BIOS distribution to support newer CPU models, but they did not bother to update the existing microcode for CPU models already sold. Strange, since Intel provides a complete file with actual updates for all CPU models. Acer support just turned the cold shoulder …