TP xx20 Stock Bios Modding/ Coreboot für IVB Support

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Omicron

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I apologize for posting this in English, but I figured this would be more understandable than trying to translate my text from Google. Did anyone ever get Ivy Bridge working on the T420 BIOS? There are some posts earlier in this thread which talk about it and issues with testing, but nothing else since.

If I understand, the main change in the BIOS is adding the HD4000 graphics switch statement, and possibly adding microcodes for the Ivy Bridge processors. I would try to do this on my own using the new 1.48 BIOS, but I am not even sure where to start, or what tools are used. I would prefer the original BIOS over trying to fight with compiling Coreboot/Seabios.

Thank you anyone who can understand this, and any future replies. I'd post on English forums, but only you guys seem to care enough about older Thinkpads to actually work on modding BIOSes for them.
 
Adding the microcodes is a piece of cake, the real problem would be the HD3000/HD4000 detection and initialization. I haven't done a lot of work on it though, as I'm perfectly happy with Coreboot.
 
KungfuPancake schrieb:
Adding the microcodes is a piece of cake, the real problem would be the HD3000/HD4000 detection and initialization. I haven't done a lot of work on it though, as I'm perfectly happy with Coreboot.
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No. With the new Microcode running both HD3000 and HD4000 is no problem. The new VBIOS can handle both.
 
Raph schrieb:
No. With the new Microcode running both HD3000 and HD4000 is no problem. The new VBIOS can handle both.
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Please read the posts further above. Supporting HD4000 with a new VBIOS is not the issue, actually loading the appropiate part of the VBIOS is.
 
My opinion is that CPU ivy bridge microcode is needed, as well as GPU ivy bridge ref to replace sandy bridge gpu ref. Ivy bridge gpu is already supported on the latest modified bios: vBios-2170.

1. ivy bridge cpu device id (0x166) which is calling upon intel hd 4000 gpu
2. sandy bridge cpu device id (0x116) which is calling upon intel hd 3000 gpu

One has to hex edit bios cpu and gpu ref from 2 to 1.
 
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KungfuPancake schrieb:
Please read the posts further above. Supporting HD4000 with a new VBIOS is not the issue, actually loading the appropiate part of the VBIOS is.
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I read almost all post above, but all posts starting at the new VBIOS. With the new VBIOS both HD3000 and HD4000 ccan be loaded. The problem is the CPU microcode, because the right CPU microcode for both IVY and Sandy bridge isnt included in ohne T420 BIOS yet.
 
Who can change the cpu microcode to just include Ivy bridge on Lenovo_ThinkPad_T420_83ET76WW-83uj28us_NWL_LEN21_ADV_RAM_Speedo_AES_vBios-2170.zip ??

what happens if this fails?????

We need a cheap laptop, for test purposes, and the Ivy bridge support (sandy bridge will be replaced) on Lenovo_ThinkPad_T420_83ET76WW-83uj28us_NWL_LEN21_ADV_RAM_Speedo_AES_vBios-2170.zip

I think we should try this.
 
I did include the microcodes and it failed, because the supporting EFI module can only detect the HD3000 and load the appropriate part of the VBIOS. If there is no HD3000 it fails with a beep code.
HD4000 is being ignored, as there is no code path to detect it or load the VBIOS. The PCI ID is different, there's probably even more.

I wrote exactly that a couple of posts above. I'm not making this up.
 
Would it maybe help to try this the other way round, so we try to add just the chipset support for the t420 chipset to the t430 BIOS? Because the t430 BIOS works for both ivy and sandy bridge CPUs...
 
It' s a possible way to get it, but to make it work you have to recognize where all hardware initializations are, then try to copy modules from t420 bios. In fact, unless t420/t430 share mostly the same hardware, it' s likely to be very very hard.
As I' ve said before, I think that the easiest way to proceed it' s to find exactly where t420 bios initialize gpu/graphic mem, and then switch it to hd4000 PCI ID, switch VBT ( which could be taken from t430's bios ) to hd4000, and cross fingers. Of course you' ll lose snb compatibility doing this.

PS: After I' ve spent a lot of time on t420 bios, I' m going to be convinced that the task goes beyond my knowledge. On the other side, coreboot it' s almost full functional, it' s open and documented, has a active developing community, so it' s probably better to spend time and resources on it. Even only flashing it and reporting bugs may be more useful than consuming your eyes on a hex editors or a disassembler looking for patterns...
 
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KungFuPancake Did you try this with the modified bios which includes vBios-2170, thus Ivy bridge support? It is becoming an unrealistic bios hack however bios mod is the way forward, so no coreboot for me. I will stick with GDC Beast ExpressCard adapter and GT730 2gb GDDR5 unless bios mod becomes available. (with the money I have spent I could have bought a new I5 with a better GPU)
 
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No, I made it a point to test it with a video bios that does not have Ivy Bridge support.
 
Some of you are using coreboot with the T420. The Wiki says, mPCIe LTE/4G cards aren't working right now. Can anybody confirm this or is it just untested?

Einige nutzen ja Coreboot auf dem T420. Das Wiki sagt, eine Nutzung von mPCIe-LTE-Karten würde nicht funktionieren. Stimmt das, oder ist es nur ungetestet?
 
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