Generic Bios How To

kogir · § #1 07-05-2004, 08:58 PM

Okay, here is a generic HowTo so you no longer need to wait for other people to release bios mods. I'm not going to cover adding new features or showing hidden ones by default, but I will show you how to upgrade embedded firmware (IDE/SATA Raid, PXE boot roms, etc).

WARNING! MODIFYING THE BIOS IMAGE PROVIDED BY YOUR MOTHREBOARD MANUFACTURER MAY NOT BE SAFE. IF YOU MAKE A MISTAKE, YOUR SYSTEM MAY BE DISABLED. THE FOLLOWING PROCUDURE WORKED FOR ME, BUT IT MAY NOT WORK FOR YOU. USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK. I AM NOT LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES THAT MAY OCCUR.

First, you need to identify what hardware your motherboard has, and obtain:
1) The latest BIOS from your motherboard manufacturer.
2) The latest firmware/bios for your onboard devices.

ITE RAID BIOSs may be found at www.ite.com.tw
Silicon Image RAID BIOSs may be found at www.siliconimage.com
For other firmware, just search around. You ought to be able to find it.

3) A recent version of cbrom (at the time of this writing, version 2.15 works well). NOTE: The 2.x versions are NEWER than the 6.x versions. Search on google for this one. It should be easy to find.

Extract everything and stick it all in a single directory. Open a command prompt ("cmd.exe" in XP/2000, and "command.com" in 9x) and change into the directory with everything in it.

For the remainder ofthe HowTo, I'll be using cbrom215 to refer to the cbrom executable. If you have a different version, use its name instead.

Now view what's currently in the bios image (which I'll call bios.bin)

Code:

cbrom215 bios.bin /D

You should see something like this:

Code:

 No. Item-Name         Original-Size   Compressed-Size Original-File-Name
================================================================================
  0. System BIOS       20000h(128.00K) 13BB6h(78.93K)  7nnxp.BIN
  1. XGROUP CODE     0E0A0h(56.16K)  09A35h(38.55K)  awardext.rom
  2. ACPI table          046ACh(17.67K)  01890h(6.14K)   ACPITBL.BIN
  3. YGROUP ROM      06660h(25.59K)  042CEh(16.70K)  awardeyt.rom
  4. GROUP ROM[ 0]   06380h(24.88K)  02826h(10.04K)  _EN_CODE.BIN
  5. PCI ROM[A]        0C000h(48.00K)  0585Bh(22.09K)  4200.bin
  6. PCI ROM[b]        0D000h(52.00K)  07C3Eh(31.06K)  540_pxe.bin
  7. PCI ROM[C]        10000h(64.00K)  07593h(29.39K)  NVPXES.NIC
  8. EPA LOGO          022C4h(8.69K)   0080Ch(2.01K)   logo.bmp
  9. OEM1 CODE       09770h(37.86K)  00C9Eh(3.15K)   BSMICODE.ROM
 10. PCI ROM[D]       0A000h(40.00K)  058EDh(22.23K)  ITE8212.ROM
 11. OEM4 CODE      0637Ah(24.87K)  030D7h(12.21K)  FINER.BIN
 12. OEM0 CODE      02549h(9.32K)   01B11h(6.77K)   DBF.BIN

  Total compress code space  = 5E000h(376.00K)
  Total compressed code size = 45D1Ah(279.28K)
  Remain compress code space = 182E6h(96.72K)

                          ** Micro Code Information **
Update ID  CPUID  |  Update ID  CPUID  |  Update ID  CPUID  |  Update ID  CPUID
------------------+--------------------+--------------------+-------------------

What we're interested in are the PCI ROM[] entries. I have a Silicon Image SATA Raid controller and an ITE Raid controller. They show up as 4200.bin (PCI ROM[A]) and ITE4212.ROM (PCI ROM[D]). PCI ROM [b] and [C] are the pxe boot roms for my intel and nvidia lan cards. None of this is incredibly important, but it's fun to know.

Next, we want to replace the old, included rom files with the new ones we just downloaded. So, to update my SiliconImage Raid controller, I would type:

Code:

cbrom215 bios.bin /PCI 4247.bin

Where 4247.bin is the new bios/firmware I just downloaded. You should see a message something like this:

Code:

CBROM V2.15 (C)Award Software 2001 All Rights Reserved.
Adding 4247.bin ..... 51.5%

Now when I view the debug output again, I notice that 4200.bin has been replaced:

Code:

 No. Item-Name         Original-Size   Compressed-Size Original-File-Name
================================================================================
  0. System BIOS       20000h(128.00K) 13BB6h(78.93K)  7nnxp.BIN
  1. XGROUP CODE       0E0A0h(56.16K)  09A35h(38.55K)  awardext.rom
  2. ACPI table        046ACh(17.67K)  01890h(6.14K)   ACPITBL.BIN
  3. YGROUP ROM        06660h(25.59K)  042CEh(16.70K)  awardeyt.rom
  4. GROUP ROM[ 0]     06380h(24.88K)  02826h(10.04K)  _EN_CODE.BIN
  5. PCI ROM[b]        0D000h(52.00K)  07C3Eh(31.06K)  540_pxe.bin
  6. PCI ROM[C]        10000h(64.00K)  07593h(29.39K)  NVPXES.NIC
  7. EPA LOGO          022C4h(8.69K)   0080Ch(2.01K)   logo.bmp
  8. OEM1 CODE         09770h(37.86K)  00C9Eh(3.15K)   BSMICODE.ROM
  9. PCI ROM[D]        0A000h(40.00K)  058EDh(22.23K)  ITE8212.ROM
 10. OEM4 CODE         0637Ah(24.87K)  030D7h(12.21K)  FINER.BIN
 11. OEM0 CODE         02549h(9.32K)   01B11h(6.77K)   DBF.BIN
 12. PCI ROM[A]        0A800h(42.00K)  056BEh(21.69K)  4247.bin

  Total compress code space  = 5E000h(376.00K)
  Total compressed code size = 45B7Dh(278.87K)
  Remain compress code space = 18483h(97.13K)

                          ** Micro Code Information **
Update ID  CPUID  |  Update ID  CPUID  |  Update ID  CPUID  |  Update ID  CPUID
------------------+--------------------+--------------------+-------------------

You can follow the same procedure to update other rom files. When you're done, bios.bin will have the latest firmware images included in it, and if you flash it and reboot, you ought to see that they have taken effect.

I hope this helps!

**Wild Child** · § #2 07-05-2004, 09:46 PM

This was done by the man who taught me to mod bios, the man is a guru.

Modbin Tutorial

Cbrom Tutorial

These links are for learning purposes nothing more. They are links to 2 different tutorials pretaining to the above topic.They are alil better explained on the tutorials provided then the one above, Although it is a descent explanation, I felt it would be better to show a more thourough one. No offense intended but when it comes to peoples systems it has to be as thorough as possible for they people whom are attempting these mods.

WC

**Vihsadas** · § #3 07-06-2004, 03:31 AM

This is awesome stuff. I hope it helps some people out!

**Wild Child** · § #4 07-06-2004, 05:00 PM

Well it'll take some of the demanding of things to be done to a minimum, folks can actually try it themselves, then we that mod bios can actually "help" instead of doing the actual mods, unless absolutely needed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vihsadas

This is awesome stuff. I hope it helps some people out!

Shadow_Craft · § #5 07-06-2004, 05:36 PM

perfect all I need now is a fix for the multiplier on my 7n400 Pro 2 Rev. 2 Board.

The 10 and 10.5 multi's dont work and Ive read that you can fix them by hexing the bios file....

But the turtuoral wassnt in good english and I had a hard time understanding it.

Sparks · § #6 07-06-2004, 06:43 PM

Good stuff, I only ask 2 things.

1. Could people who can add usefull things post them here?

2. Dafanman: could you add this to the sticky's (thread)?

Sparks

jot · § #7 07-10-2004, 03:02 AM

This is the kinda stuff i'm talking about. You can't find cool info like this anywhere, great links wc.

mattyman · § #8 08-25-2007, 01:27 AM

This is an old topic I know but I'd thought I'd blow the dust off it.
The links that Wild Child posted no longer exist - so this site seems to be the one decent spot on the web that shows how to use CBROM.

Something that Kogur forgot to put in his guide is that before adding the new component BIOS file to the motherboard BIOS file you have to remove the previous component BIOS first. I've edited the instructions above to reflect this below - the relevant bits are in Bold.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

What we're interested in are the PCI ROM() entries. I have a Silicon Image SATA Raid controller and an ITE Raid controller. They show up as 4200.bin (PCI ROM(A)) and ITE4212.ROM (PCI ROM(D)). PCI ROM (B) and (C) are the pxe boot roms for my intel and nvidia lan cards. None of this is incredibly important, but it's fun to know.

Next, we want to remove the old, included rom files. So, to remove my SiliconImage Raid controller, I would type:

Code:

cbrom215 bios.bin /PCI release CBROM V2.15 (C)Award Software 2001 All Rights Reserved. PCI ROM - - - A : 4200.bin PCI ROM - - - B : 8169pxe.082 PCI ROM - - - C : ITE8212.ROM Enter a choice:A

Next, we want to add the old, included rom file with the new ones we just downloaded. So, to update my SiliconImage Raid controller, I would type:

[quote]

Code:

cbrom215 bios.bin /PCI 4247.bin

Where 4247.bin is the new bios/firmware I just downloaded. You should see a message something like this:

Code:

CBROM V2.15 (C)Award Software 2001 All Rights Reserved. Adding 4247.bin ..... 51.5%

Now when I view the debug output again, I notice that 4200.bin has been replaced:

Code:

No. Item-Name Original-Size Compressed-Size Original-File-Name ================================================================================ 0. System BIOS 20000h(128.00K) 13BB6h(78.93K) 7nnxp.BIN 1. XGROUP CODE 0E0A0h(56.16K) 09A35h(38.55K) awardext.rom 2. ACPI table 046ACh(17.67K) 01890h(6.14K) ACPITBL.BIN 3. YGROUP ROM 06660h(25.59K) 042CEh(16.70K) awardeyt.rom 4. GROUP ROM[ 0] 06380h(24.88K) 02826h(10.04K) _EN_CODE.BIN 5. PCI ROM[b] 0D000h(52.00K) 07C3Eh(31.06K) 540_pxe.bin 6. PCI ROM[C] 10000h(64.00K) 07593h(29.39K) NVPXES.NIC 7. EPA LOGO 022C4h(8.69K) 0080Ch(2.01K) logo.bmp 8. OEM1 CODE 09770h(37.86K) 00C9Eh(3.15K) BSMICODE.ROM 9. PCI ROM[D] 0A000h(40.00K) 058EDh(22.23K) ITE8212.ROM 10. OEM4 CODE 0637Ah(24.87K) 030D7h(12.21K) FINER.BIN 11. OEM0 CODE 02549h(9.32K) 01B11h(6.77K) DBF.BIN 12. PCI ROM[A] 0A800h(42.00K) 056BEh(21.69K) 4247.bin Total compress code space = 5E000h(376.00K) Total compressed code size = 45B7Dh(278.87K) Remain compress code space = 18483h(97.13K) ** Micro Code Information ** Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID ------------------+--------------------+--------------------+-------------------

You can follow the same procedure to update other rom files. When you're done, bios.bin will have the latest firmware images included in it, and if you flash it and reboot, you ought to see that they have taken effect.

**Wild Child** · § #9 08-26-2007, 12:25 AM

Updated Links:

Modbin Tutorial

CBRom Tutorial

WC