What do you know about BIOS NVRAM hacking?

Recommended by Wim's BIOS...

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

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.

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.

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.

bughunter2 wrote:

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

kizwan

You're welcome.

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... ??

Apoxioman wrote:

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.

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...