BIOS Updates forum

But then what is the techique to locking memory (making it read-only)? Is this a chipset-specific thing? Are there well known flags/attributes to get/set this? yes, it's chipset feature. It's pretty easy to accomplish. You'll have to see the chipset datasheet and set the appropriate register (that ...

Perhaps some of us already know it, but I'll post it anyway. It's version 4.1 and can be downloaded at http://www.simtel.net/product.download.mirrors.php?id=29498. This is very helpful for guys like me who can not afford the price . I haven't see any important functionality missing yet, except for t...

I don't know for sure, but I think it's NOT located in ANY module for any standard award bios. I think it's implemented as an expansion ROM module, just like SCSI card ROM routine (SCSI "bios"), which traps the int 19h (bootstrap). Perhaps it's similar to my expansion rom os project. The difference ...

These are what I know: From what I've seen in the result of my disassembly on award 4.51PG, award bios components are decompressed by the decompression block which is located around F000:7000h in the ROM image. Before decompressed, the code itself (i.e. the highest 128KB / E000:0000-F000:FFFF bios c...

as what I can understand from my previous Bios reverse engineering experience, the video initialization routine is "embedded" in the EPA procedure. Read here to see my previous work. Near the end of the article I replaced the EPA procedure completely and have to do the video card initialization my s...

more on this later guys :D. I've successfully disassembled and understand the majority of the bootblock code :twisted: . Btw, what ruelnov said, seems to be right (not so sure yet, haven't finished with award version 6.0 bioses). The surprising thing is that boot block seems to be supporting boot fr...

Is your "Init Display First" set to PCI ? Is your Shared Memory set to a low value ? -> Bios shows 2 or 2+2 MB as the lowest possible I don't know for sure, but based on what I've discussed with ruelnov, it seems to me that he already try all of these alternatives. Also, from his BIOS binary I've b...

Here are some inputs that might speed up our bios hacking process to disable onboard video: I'm pretty sure that the PCI VGA Initialization Routine is pre-included with boot block, because my PCI VGA Card is functional whenever I force boot block to execute. I mean I always had video when I connect...

to help explaining what I'm saying above, here's the relevant snippet from the datasheet of the chipset itself (VIA ApolloPro 693A) : Device 1 Offset 3F-3E – PCI-to-PCI Bridge Control (0000h) .............................................................................. RW 15-4 Reserved ...............

I've just began dissecting it. I'm looking forward the part which programs the PCI to PCI Bridge. This is where the choice of using PCI or AGP VGA card done. I found it on my BIOS (yours haven't yet coz I've just receive it :( ), it looks like below : F000:C0AF copy_VGA_ROM_2_RAM proc near ; CODE XR...

yup right, I'm just fool enough right now, not being able to implement a better compression routine in assembly language other than variant of the "moving window" such as LZH to meet the small space requirement in the BIOS.

a better compression routine . AFAIK, bios is LZH compressed, so it must still a variant of the LZH. This BP is really interesting .

I've found a nice article regarding the possible romscan routine contained in the BIOS and also some BIOS password cracking scheme. I do know russian a little, but it's not as comprehensible as native russian speaking country people, I use babelfish to make sense of what it is talking about. Here's ...

I'm not sure if the link previously point to the "same" page in the link below : http://home.arcor.de/frogge/pepper/bmreport1.html nevertheless, I think it's worth to put this one in the collected wisdom area Mr. Moderator :D. The link posted in the collected wisdom currently is not functioning :(.

aha.., I see . I've been "studying" BP for several weeks. I haven't got anytime testing it, but it's a very nice software. Thx, for the info. BP didn't mention about that feature in its readme file.