xy-tech/x330-bios

x230 coreboot files

X330 (modified display X230) BIOS

Content

Stock BIOS

• Stock BIOS dumps
• BIOS patches & relevant sources
• Guides on patching BIOS

Coreboot

• Relevant coreboot files
• Scripts to simplify compilation for first-time users
• VBT modification & explanations

Recommended guide & readings

• Important information on how to get started
• Skulls website with a ton of extra info
• My website

Repo highlights

• The VBT is fully patched which should resolve every single multiple screen problem out there
• BIOS dumps (patched stock and coreboot) are provided for easy flashing

A short intro of things

• The X230 has 2 BIOS EEPROM (storage) SPI chips concatenanted (joined) together: a 4MiB chip at the top and an 8MiB chip at the bottom.
• The actual BIOS region is in the last 5MiB section of the entire 12MiB, which spans across the 2 chips.
• To external flash any image, the image has to be broken up into 2 parts and then flashed separately.
• A full BIOS image actually contains quite a few things: the management engine (ME), flash descriptor (FD), the actual BIOS ROM etc.
• The stock image for some reason stores the actual BIOS portion in the top chip only (offset of 0x800000).
• Limiting the flash chip to 0x400000 (4MB) means the bottom chip (8MB) is untouched. This means only the top chip (4MB) needs to be flashed.

External & internal flashing

• X230 BIOS images are usually 12MB, with the first 8MB as the bottom chip and the last 4MB as the top chip
• Physical flashing would require the 4MB and 8MB files to be split while an internal flash requires the full 12MB by default
• To join these 2 files together, run cat bottom.bin top.bin > bios.rom
• To split an image into it's corresponding files, run dd if=bios.rom of=top.bin bs=1M skip=8 for the top chip and dd if=bios.rom of=bottom.bin bs=1M count=8 for bottom chip
• Provided images in this repo are for the convenience of flashing. Join or split them according to what you plan to do.

How to build images (for Windows, no internal flashing)

Follow the instructions in the Linux section but do it under Windows subsystem for Linux instead.

How to flash binary images (for Linux)

1. Set boot parameter with iomem=relaxed
2. Install flashrom
3. For internal flashing, run this command: sudo flashrom -p internal -w image.rom

IMPORTANT: CH341a flasher may have issues flashing the stock bottom chip (8MB) as I've painfully experienced. Internally flash it in coreboot instead of trying to external flash it

Do not attempt to just IFD unlock the bottom chip with stock BIOS as it will not load either. In short, the bottom chip has to be untouched in order for stock BIOS (patched/not patched) to work.

License

GPLv3 for all scripts etc. Proprietary license for Lenovo stuff. Pls don't sue me. All other stuff belongs to their respective copyright holders

Thanks

• Alexander Couzens X330 patch & VBT patch
• \x for BIOS patches
• /u/SlowStopper for figuring out what's the problem with data.vbt
• Everyone else who made the X230 to what it is today, specifically towards BIOS patching and Coreboot

To-do

Fork 1vyrain and insert a coreboot script so coreboot can be installed painlessly for users for both variants of the machine without external flashing. Not sure if it's useful though as most people who'd install coreboot would also has an external flasher and enough know-how or time to get this working via hardware.

Build a simple bootable flashrom utility for easy BIOS flashing.