What do you know about BIOS NVRAM hacking?

[flintstone]

wagDj,

I have same BIOS version and this will be my last Sony VAIO.

I already called Sony for so many times and the answer I get is "Sony currently does not support Virtualization but check for the future BIOS release". I hate Sony .... no drivers for x64 OS + VT = "Dont buy Sony"

Anybody out-there can help us pleaseeeeeeee.

Thanks

[tea]

Let me add my $0.02 to the jar. To enable VT on Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pro V3505 with latest (and probably the last) BIOS v. R0G - which isn't offering VT support despite some relevant strings in its string section, set following tokens in NVRAM to 0001 (I used symcmos):

258 - this is the flag which enable VT support (that is, enable following flags to work); "symcmos -L" doesn't list it, one'll need to add it to LITERAL.TXT
25B - this one is VT-x enable flag; "symcmos -L" lists it

If you want to get VT working on Amilo Pro V3505, you need to set both flags to 0001

also there is token 279 which corresponds to bit 1 (mask 0x2) of MSR 0x3A, apparently this is VT-in-SMX support enable. Of course BIOS doesn't offer any means to turn this on and "symcmos -L" doesn't list it; I didn't touched this one but maybe it'll be useful for somebody.

[bughunter2]

Hey,

After reading this thread for a while, I began poking around in the code of my BIOS, and found this in BIOSCOD6.ROM, at offset 0xCCAB:

Code: Select all

    mov ecx, 0x3a ; MSR 0x3a
    rdmsr ; read the MSR
    mov ebx, eax ; save low-order 32-bits of the MSR value
    mov ax, 0x30f
    call word 0xf000:0x3d40
    jz skipVT ; skip enabling VT if token at offset 0x30f equals 0
    mov ax, 0x312
    call word 0xf000:0x3d40
    jz skipVT ; skip enabling VT if token at offset 0x312 equals 0
    or ebx, 0x4
    mov ax, 0x330
    call word 0xf000:0x3d40
    jz skipVT ; skip enabling VT if token at offset 0x330 equals 0
    or ebx, 0x2 ; set VMX bit
skipVT:
    mov eax, ebx
    test al, 0x1
    jnz 0x3e
    or eax, 0x1 ; lock MSR
    wrmsr ; write the MSR
    popad


Phoenix BIOS winphlash image filename: BL50360A.WPH (V3.60)
Laptop model: Acer5633 WLMi

With the symcmos utility I could control the 0x312 bit, so I tried setting it to 1, and it enabled VT-x.

Thought I should post this information here. It might just help someone someday.

[kizwan]

Hi guys,

Thank you so much for the information provided in this thread. With it I was able to enable Intel Virtualization Technology on my Acer Aspire 9420.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthr ... ost5991508

Also thank you to bughunter2, because of his statement, I was able to narrow down to the address which I need to set with 0001.

.............
With the symcmos utility I could control the 0x312 bit, so I tried setting it to 1, and it enabled VT-x.
.........

kizwan

[bughunter2]

You're welcome.

[Apoxioman]

I'm trying to enable VT-x ..
Model W220R ( Phoenix BIOS 1.10H ) / CPU is Intel T2130
after backup/disasm bios Ifound this code in BOISCOD04

Code: Select all

0000B371  66B93A000000      mov ecx,0x3a
0000B377  0F32              rdmsr
0000B379  668BD8            mov ebx,eax
0000B37C  B83606            mov ax,0x636
0000B37F  9A345A00F0        call word 0xf000:0x5a34
0000B384  7412              jz 0xb398
0000B386  6683CB04          or ebx,byte +0x4
0000B38A  B84101            mov ax,0x141
0000B38D  9A345A00F0        call word 0xf000:0x5a34
0000B392  7404              jz 0xb398
0000B394  6683CB02          or ebx,byte +0x2
0000B398  668BC3            mov eax,ebx
0000B39B  A801              test al,0x1
0000B39D  7506              jnz 0xb3a5
0000B39F  6683C801          or eax,byte +0x1
0000B3A3  0F30              wrmsr

So I think 0x636 is my NVRAM addres of VT-x enable
But after update NVRAM computer failed to start, (i repair it with batery remove recovery)
What else to do... ??

[kizwan]

I'm trying to enable VT-x ..
Model W220R ( Phoenix BIOS 1.10H ) / CPU is Intel T2130
..............

Please go to my thread to learn on how to locate the exact address. The link to my thread posted on my previous post.

[hippotek]

Hello everybody!

Thanks to you guys and the thread over here http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/18 ... aptop.html based on your work I managed to enable VT on both my VG-AR21S (upgraded to T7200) and my VGN-AR760U (T8100)... So far so good.

One thing that has been bugging me about my VGN-AR760U is the lack of RAID support... I believe there is a register set, which disables RAID ... but I do not have the slightest clue how to figure out, which register this might be...

Can you help me?!?

You can grab my bios package here: http://www.mediafire.com/?t0u6owdcahksd3e

I build a flashable version of my R2080J8 bios using a backup bios incorporating the platform data from R0032J8 with a hex editor...