[Q] Flashing Modified BIOS - GE72-6QD

Intro:
I have flashed quite a few AMI BIOS's with modified (updated) modules to Desktops and NAS device's (some better performance by a % or 2, better stability, or some i had to revert due to instability), but never a laptop (outside of "unlocked" BIOS from HP and such to kill whitelists and unlock actual BIOS options).
Thus, I want to give this GE72 an update!

I don't do the mod's myself, most of the modules cannot be updated VIA an easy method so there's someone who's done it for me and I am super-grateful for him, BUT, he has no experience here, so after a mod, and trying to flash with BIOS update option and Windows option, I came here and found:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-clear-cmos-and-prevent-common-issues.812372/

Great stuff, changed the option, it stuck, BUT I had questions and posted there, but felt after I woke up today and sleeping on it that I was being a cross-threading poster, so decided to make a new thread.

Long Story:
I am a bit concerned with how I am going about this, the BIOS that was modified was based upon the downloaded from the MSI website (8MB), then modified (not by me) to update the modules, I did NOT do a backup of the BIOS already on the laptop, then have it modified as is mentioned in the above linked thread.
Shown below is output from UBU, but it was not used to modify it (again, person who did it has experience , at least with desktops):

Intel RST(e) OROM and EFI SataDriver
OROM IRST RAID for SATA - 16.0.1.3339 (was 14.7.0.2341)
EFI IRST RAID for SATA - 16.0.1.3339 (was 14.7.0.2341)
EFI AMI NVME Driver present
Intel OROM VBIOS and EFI GOP Driver
OROM VBIOS SkyLake - 1030 (was 1026, settings where copied from MSI downloaded BIOS)
EFI GOP Driver SKL-KBL - 9.0.1074 (was 9.0.1039)
LAN OROM PXE and EFI UNDI - Intel, RTK, BCM, QCA
OROM Intel Boot Agent CL - 0.1.13 (was 0.1.05)

So my question is, with how the linked post is worded about flashing from the intel flash programming tool, and flashing from the BIOS, whats the prevailing thought, could I flash this file from the BIOS, or is that still locked/blocked or worse, will that cause issues, and I should go back and follow the linked method of backing up the BIOS from the unit and having THAT file modified?

Is there a big difference or reason NOT to use the AMI Win or DOS flasher over the Intel flash programming tool?

Any thoughts/directions would be appreciated.

 

eh, im drunk, its not my main system, here is my results thus far:

I guess you cannot use AFIWIN at all, it totally locks the system up (totally fresh winblows 10 x64 install)!

Despite the comment about "permanently" changing the BIOS Flash lock after using RU, if you reset to defaults it seems that it WILL append the lock status back on (makes sense with whats shown on AMIBCP but "permanently" typically means "permanently" to me in BIOS changes :X)

Despite the fact that I took the backed up file, modified it in AMIBCP (and confirmed it was modified with open/close on another system) to have the option DISABLED on both failsafe and optimal, upon a flash of the system and a restart, I opened RU and found... it was back set to 01 and thus locked... I also recall the Intel Flash Programming Tool saying it was identical, so I opened both the stock and modified version (only change was BIOS lock) it in AMIBCP again and still, stock has the bios lock set to enabled and modified set to disabled... EDIT: after flashing that mod, I did a BIOS defaults load, and this time the BIOS lock did not return... weird behavior, just weird...

I also note the file is 6MB in size not 8MB as the downloaded BIOS, but that it doesnt include the Gbe region (Intel ME), but the Intel ME is only 1.5MB so dunno where the missing .5MB is...

At this point, unless someone has some info as to whats up, I think I am gonna see if the guy will modify this pulled BIOS and attempt to flash it.


Disclaimer: yada yada i know if fails have to use chip clip, programmer, and have happy fun times...

 

Yeah if you dump with FPTW and you use the -BIOS with it, that will give you only the Bios region. That laptop doesn’t have gbe. The rest of the space is occupied by the ME and Descriptor regions. Also, FPTW will only flash it’s own dumps, so be careful. I had issues with modifying a bios file too many times also. It would easily corrupt. It’s best to flash changes, make sure they stuck, make a dump of that, and modify again to avoid corruption.