Help converting and older Gateway to Intel Bios?

Discussion in 'BIOS Mods' started by thatguychuck, Jun 10, 2011.

  1. thatguychuck

    thatguychuck MDL Member

    Feb 6, 2011
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    #1 thatguychuck, Jun 10, 2011
    Last edited: Jun 10, 2011
    I have an older Gateway 7310s with an Intel D915GAG motherboard. I've used various tools to try and modify the Gateway BIOS without success. Andy's tool looks like it can open the BIOS, but it is unable to add a SLP. Intel to AMI is also unable to open the file. I found a few posts on it here and there, but with the gateway version I may be out of luck.

    I have seen where others have had success with the version direct from Intel, so my next goal was to get the Intel bios to flash. I know normally this is a terrible idea, but it's an older PC that I'm just tinkering with, so I'm not out anything if it bricks. This is where I ran into another dead end.

    Putting the jumper into recovery mode is supposed to bypass flashing checks, I have tried with the bio file on usb, cd, and floppy and it has not worked.

    In DOS:

    Intel's IFLASH tool doesn't appear to have a "force" option, and won't let me flash a different bios.

    Running Uniflash with the forced chip number gets a failure.

    Phlash17 gives back an Flashinit.bin failure.

    The Gateway .bio file is larger than the Intel one. Tinkering around with HxD I see that the gateway file has entries for "fixed product certificate" and "fixed flashing certificate" that the Intel one does not have. Lately I've been trying to get the correct header added to the intel BIOS, and using the program that came with the file to initiate the flash from windows. No success.

    I do not have enough posts for direct links, but here are some modded ones:

    The orginal gateway bios:
    h**tp://support.gateway.com/support/drivers/getFile.asp?id=20120&dscr=Intel%20%28Augsburg%29%20915G%20Motherboard%20BIOS%20UpdateRevision:%20AG91510J.15A.0816&uid=308169466


    And Intel:
    h**p://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=10140&lang=eng&wapkw=%28915gag%29


    Basically, I'm just fishing for info, something I may have missed. Perhaps a different tool to try for flashing, or a different setting. Thank you.
     
  2. drewbug

    drewbug MDL Member

    Aug 15, 2010
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    Perhaps you might want to take a look at using the Linux 'flashrom' utility (perhaps with an Ubuntu LiveCD). Make a backup of your current BIOS with it, then see if you can find what parts of it are the same as the Gateway version, then just replace them using a hex editor with the Intel version. Just a thought, no idea if it will work.
     
  3. Tito

    Tito Super Mod / Adviser
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  4. thatguychuck

    thatguychuck MDL Member

    Feb 6, 2011
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    #4 thatguychuck, Jun 12, 2011
    Last edited: Jun 12, 2011
    (OP)
    Sadly, the integrator assistant is not compatible with my motherboard. I'm guessing it's just too old, sad and frustrating. Thank you though!

    Edit: I found a compatible version, going to tinker with it for a while. Thanks again.
     
  5. whitejohnny

    whitejohnny MDL Novice

    Mar 31, 2010
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    Hey, I recently went through the same thing trying to get a Gateway slic'd; IIRC, I used the Intel windows flash tool. At your link, its the third one, with file name EV91510A.86A.0482.EB.EXE. I was able to flash between intel versions in dos, but to go between gateway and intel i have to use the windows flashers. Didnt help in the end tho, I couldnt get it mod'd. Tried oa2intel to, still couldnt get it happening.
     
  6. thatguychuck

    thatguychuck MDL Member

    Feb 6, 2011
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    Yeah, it's proved to be a bear. Strange though, I was never able to go between gateway and intel at all! Currently, because I am such a smooth operator o_O, I managed to break one of my bios pins attempting a manual removal of the write protect, see here:

    h**p://pcproblemswithsolutions.blogspot.com/2008/04/disabling-write-protected-bios-chip.html

    I'm surprised it still runs, but the manual I downloaded from SST lists the broken pin as a "general purpose input," so who knows, maybe it isn't even being used.

    As for modding the bios, I used Intel2AMI.exe to extract the bios from the intel file, Mod it with andyp's AMI tool then package it back to together without an error message.
    *Edit: Something I was unable to do with the original gateway bios.

    But I never got a chance to test it, and I'm about to throw in the towel. Not sure why I can't go from gateway to intel...something I'm missing I guess. :confused: It would always error out saying it was invalid for my system, even before I broke the pin.
     
  7. thatguychuck

    thatguychuck MDL Member

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    #8 thatguychuck, Jun 15, 2011
    Last edited: Jun 15, 2011
    (OP)
    I had hoped it would be easy too, but I kept getting an "unable to add slp" error at the end. It's probably something I missed but I'm not sure what.

    *Edit: Gone from unable to add slp to "unable to insert slic."
     
  8. makondo

    makondo MDL Novice

    Apr 22, 2011
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    Hi, After many hours and days finaly was able to mod a Gateway 420Gr with a Intel 915 G motherboard!
    If you still need help tomorrow I can post the way I did it?.
     
  9. sebus

    sebus MDL Guru

    Jul 23, 2008
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    I would be interested (do not have the board any more, as years ago replaced with real Intel (which now gathers dust in a garage), but would be nice to know HOW

    sebus
     
  10. makondo

    makondo MDL Novice

    Apr 22, 2011
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    1st:Download from Intel Bios EV0478.exe (not the last up-dated one) and flash to convert to Intel D915Gev(no more Gateway version)
    2nd.CPU fan is going to be really loud ,just go to bios and change the way the cpu fan spins.
    3rd. Download the already to be use modded lates Bios EV0482P(Intel) from Sebus post #10, on Intel EFI (Sept 3 2009) I used the Dell version because I have a oem win 7 professional 32-bit.
    4th. Rename the bios either HP or Dell to EV0482p
    5th. Using Iflash2 flash the modded bios.
    run RW-everything and Slic_toolkit to comfirm
    last: Fresh install of win 7
    windows 7 is running 100% as OEM Dell
    Thanks to all for such a wonderfull tools!!:worthy:
     
  11. thatguychuck

    thatguychuck MDL Member

    Feb 6, 2011
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    Thank you for the update! I am glad that it worked for you! Either I have some other revision, or I damaged something messing around with it, I am still unable to switch to an intel bios. I get an error that the bios is not compatible with my system. I've pretty much given up, Trilogy is installed now.
     
  12. zexxus

    zexxus MDL Novice

    Jul 31, 2011
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    how did you change the .rom to .bio with the dell one
     
  13. Tito

    Tito Super Mod / Adviser
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    What do u mean?? Can u pls elaborate??
     
  14. zexxus

    zexxus MDL Novice

    Jul 31, 2011
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    i have an old gateway 915 ausberg. flashed it to intel evo482 . found NTEL_D915GAG--INTEL-0482-DELL_SLIC21_DELL_SLP but the modded bios is in a .rom icant install it from dos iflash because of the .rom . i tried INTEL_D915GAGL_INTEL-10140_HP_SLIC2.1_HP_SLP have flashed bios it will boot but not able to install windows 7 errors on install. reflashed with intel bios and windows installed . so i wanted to try the modded bios with dell slic but cannot flash .rom
     
  15. Tito

    Tito Super Mod / Adviser
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    Nov 30, 2009
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