Unlocking the BIOS

Unlocking the BIOS

In order for the Intel HD 4600 graphics to work with the 3200x1800 QHD+ screen, a BIOS unlock is needed. I hope another way can be found around this problem, but I have been unable to find any other method.

Additional bonus is though that the MSR 0x02 register can also be unlocked through the BIOS unlock.

** WARNING **

Unlocking the Bios is at your own risk and can brick your entire laptop permanently! Do the following steps at your own risk.

1. Ensure you are updated to the latest bios (Currently Rev. A06)

2. Download the AMI Flash Utility

3. Use AFUWin64, located in "Aptio\afuwin\64\afuwin.zip" to save your current bios to a ROM file

4. Download UEFITool by CodeRush

5. Open the dumped bios, expand the sections one-by-one and scroll down until you find Setup in the Text column

6. Right click on the Compressed Section just below the DXE Dependency Section, and select Extract body, save this as setup.bin (474,524 bytes in size)

7. Next open setup.bin in a hex editor and search for 01 01 00 01 01 01 01 00 00 00, note that there will be only one match.

8. Update this to 01 01 00 01 01 01 01 01 01 01, which will unlock all relevant menus.

9. Save this to setup_patched.bin

   For BIOS A06, the MD5 of the modified setup section is 7942fe152d8b0c05baf0a9fa88c551a1

10. Go back to UEFITool and right-click the section you just extracted and select Replace body and select setup_patched.bin for replacement.

11. Save the resulting ROM file to bios_patched.bin

12. Open a command prompt with administrative rights and execute: afuwinx64 bios_patched.bin /GAN

    Note /GAN is an undocumented switch allowing to flash unsigned firmwares

13. After rebooting enter the BIOS with F2 and see the new menu structure.

14. Now that the BIOS is unlocked, follow the steps in [Configuring the BIOS for OS X](BIOS Configuration).

Credits for this procedure to JRandomHacker (http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/54523-TUTORIAL-AMI-Aptio-UEFI-Advanced-Menu-Unlock-Bonus-MSR-unlock)