Leeonard, it's ok. I thought that your computer had it. Sorry for tagging you

@Lost_N_BIOS Please don't hate me, but the backlight now works! Well, sort of. So, remember I said that I had macOS installed on this laptop along with Windows? Well, after booting for the first time to mac, I now have a semi-functional keyboard backlight. At this time, I don't really know how it is activated on macos, but when I found out I will comment on the matter, as maybe someone would like to know.

As for the semi-functional part, this is because it doesn't light up when booting up (when posting, after os begins to load) as it does in all other ASUS laptops, it doesn't get recognized in Windows (after reinstalling multiple times the ATK package) and I can't control it with the fn keys on Windows nor on macOS. Also, if I close the lid on Windows, the keyboard doesn't light up again. The same happens if I turn off the machine. BUT, if I boot into mac and restart into Windows, then the backlight stays on. This is really weard, at least for me and the knowledge I have.

This happend some hours ago and didn't have enough time to dig into, so if I found something I will let you know.

EDIT: I really don't know that much of this low-level-computer-stuff, but what I'm thinking right now is that, in order to make macOS work fine with your PC you need to extract ACPI tables from AIDA64 or similar, patch them and inject them with a bootloader. This I didn't do as other person made the hard work of doing this for his/her ASUS S510-BQ414T and I used the same ACPI tables, as the machine is practically the same, except for this one having an Optimus chip and a dedicated NVIDIA GPU, which is not loaded on macOS as it doesn't support it.

Anyways, what I wanted to say is that, maybe what is missing is some sort of declaration (or similar, if it even exists (?)) on this BIOS' ACPI table, which is, hopefully, easily fixable.

@noreplyse - please see my last post, in case you missed anything I was editing in, thanks. Can you please add an image of your BIOS "Boot" and "Save & Exit" page for me.

That's weird OS type would matter on this? I assumed only FN keys could affect it, since it should be enabled (if enabled) even when you are on DOS or in the BIOS etc. Good it's working now, some at least!

ACPI tables I don't know about editing, but there is several users here that do know about this. Maybe if you make a new thread with ACPI help request in the title, and maybe keyboard LED functions etc, someone with knowledge on that could help.
If no one jumps in there, I'll try to think of who all I know here that knows about that and tag them in that thread.

Can definitely unlock your entire BIOS, I'm digging into that now, and wanted to let you know for sure I know method for this BIOS style, so soon you will have fully unlocked BIOS

* Edit - @noreplyse - On the ACPI tables thing, do you always use MAC OS right now? If not, you could put back stock BIOS region or stock ACPI tables etc, then test and see if this is what's causing the backlight issue.
I would do this anyway, even if you use MAC all the time, just for a test, then you will know for sure if the MAC ACPI edits caused the issue directly or not.
Then, if they do, maybe you could have someone else do the edit instead, or use some other method.

What is that edit for anyway? I've only see MSR 0xE2 needing unlocked for MAC to work, and that's easily done various ways without touching any ACPI tables.

Here is unlocked BIOS, please compare with AMIBCP if you're familiar with that, and see if you can notice any missing settings or subsections in new advanced and chipset.
If anything is missing let me know and I can further enable.
*File removed at user request (Since it was direct dump), unlock was successful, if anyone needs unlock please provide your own dumped BIOS region via FPT

@Lost_N_BIOS thank you very much for unlocking the bios. It works perfectly! I have found no hidden setting in AMIBCP, but I'll let you know if I do.

Regarding the keyboard's backlight issue:

Booting up mac with custom DSDT/SSDT is something done "in the fly", in the sense that there is no replacement of original DSDT/SSDT tables on BIOS, but it is done just after posting and before loading the os (via a bootloader that "presents" these custom tables to mac). Removing this custom tables (or hot fixes) from the bootloader disables (upon many other things) the keyboard's backlight.

In mac I have no way of controlling the backlight level, it just boots up with the minimum level (01 in hex as appears inside of an NVAR entry). This, however, may be a compatibility issue within my installation.

These edits are used in order to fix some issues related to power states (S3, S4 and S5), CPU P/C states, GPU framebuffer bugs, I2C/SPI device enumerations, etc. These are almost never necessary to have a working, bootable installation, but it is recommended in order to fix the previous mentioned errors.

Upon some inspection of some of these DSDT/SSDT tables, I came to the conclusion (that could be wrong, of course) that this capability (backlit keyboard) is not being defined or enumerated (don't know the appropriate term) in the BIOS, but maybe mac is trying to send commands to the EC (embedded controller) in order to adjust the keyboard's backlight brightness as it thinks this system has it. As this is sort-of working inside mac, I think that the EC does have the appropriate firmware to drive this backlight, but for some reason it is not "telling" the bios that this current configuration may be present.

I could not find any bootloader or other utility to load custom DSDT/SSDT tables into Windows, so I cannot further investigate that thought.

Because of this, I see only three ways to fix this:
1- Modify the EC firmware (even if it is an issue related to this, which I doubt it is), but that will turn really ugly really fast, and most certainty brick my laptop (though I have a CH341 programmer).
2- Modify the DSDT/SSDT tables inside BIOS to show this type of keyboard is present, but I really don't know if it's possible or where it's stored, as any google search brings up DSDT/SSDT modifications for mac on a bootloader level.
3- Just hardwire the backlight circuit to turn on when the LCD panel is turned on and call it a day.

PS: The ASUS model that definitely has a backlit keyboard is the X510UQR, as I took the tables from this system (https://github.com/nguyentrucxinh/ASUS-V...0UQR-Hackintosh). I will leave attached a stock bios for this machine (while I search for a dump) with v301 and one for my machine (X510UAR, also stock) with v301 as well.

EDIT: Found how to edit DSDT/SSDT on BIOS level. Will probably try that and share the results.

Finally, I made it work. The ONLY thing it needed was to set the byte on offset DD to 7E (NOT 7C) on practically every place CNFG appeared. This is because it appears in an NVAR entry, but is replaced after a reboot, which suggests that there is other (or multiple) CNFG entries that are being loaded, probably to be checked against this NVAR entry, and replacing it after seeing that there is a difference.

I came to this conclusion after analyzing a dump from an ASUS X510UQR (which has a backlit keyboard) and noting that the value written at this offset was 7E, not 7C, and was written on several GPNV entries.

For anyone interested, what I did was: extracted the NVRAM volume with UEFITool v0.26 (right click -> Extract as is), used HxD, searched for CNFG (there should be only one entry) and wrote 7E at offset DD (not counting header!). Then, extracted the padding volume under the whole NVRAM container (making it the second padding volume inside this dump), searched for CNFG and repeated the process only for the entries that had a body not filled with FF. In my case, there was like 12 entries to edit. Maybe only one of them was necessary, but I didn't feel like testing all of them separately.

After editing all, I just replaced the extracted volumes inside UEFITool (right click -> Replace as is).

Note: It isn't necessary to edit all the GPNV entries, as not all of them included the computer's SN (which are entries that clearly aren't used, as if they were to replace the NVAR entry then this one would also not have the SN stored in it).

About the previous post: don't pay attention to it. The only thing I find weird is why booting up macos caused the backlight to turn on. But whatever, it works now!

Really, thanks Lost_N_BIOS for the hard work, helping me out and unlocking the bios (which was the original purpose of this topic). I learned a lot in the process. Also thanks to the person I took the dump from, that I can't find right now

If a moderator could mark this thread as solved that will be awesome.

Hello, I was just wondering how you flashed the modded bios. I also have Mac OS on my Vivobook F510UA and have tried using AFUDos and Intel FPT to flash the bios. I have Unlocked Intel Flash Descriptor R/W access as well.

Also, excuse my ignorance, but I do not have Windows on this system. I am not sure if that is necessary?

@alerscone Does the FPT tool give you any error? That should work perfectly on a DOS bootable usb. I am not sure how to make one in macos, but you could do that. Remember to use the FPT with the same version of your Intel ME.

Also, remember that, if you have macos then flashing a dumped bios will mess up your NVRAM entries and probably brick some settings in the os (especcially related to AppStore/iMessage) and SN

Yeah, it gives me an error about GbE region not existing.

@noreplyse - You're welcome! And as mentioned, if you do end up finding anything you see in AMIBCP, that's missing in the actual BIOS let me know.
You should be able to edit original post and mark as solved if you want. If you cannot, let me know and I will edit it for you

So if BIOS is not touched, and DSDT/SSDT done outside the BIOS, how does the backlight function outside of MAC, such as in BIOS, or in windows? Can it then be controlled via FN key normally, or not?
It would be interesting to see know what happens in windows, hopefully you have dual boot setup (I think you mentioned?) For windows, I would like to see it all tested stock, I mean without any of this DSDT/SSDT or ACPI stuff, since none of that needs edited to run a windows system.
Unlocked BIOS is fine, I just mean stock as is none of your bootloader for MAC fix stuff

Thanks for explanation on how/why do this for MAC. I've never used MAC like this, but I have tested a few installs on various boards and modified many BIOS to unlock CFG lock (MSR 0xE2)

And yes, this could have always been controlled via EC, and that may even be what BT writes to for some/all models? Hard to know without a working/non-working dump
#1 - yes, if it can be figured out, this would be way to fix, if it's controlled there. And yes, you can back it up first, then test write any changes, recovery always possible with the programmer.
#2 - I'm not familiar with DSDT/SSDT tables, but I could look at this file and see if I can figure it out. And, maybe I could get someone else here to look too, I think I know a few that might be able to help.
#3 - Sounds good too, if it is easy to do and wouldn't look bad inside there. I wrote it all out earlier but didn't have a chance to reply, now it's all Null, leaving in place for some unknown reason

That's great you found it and got it working from other working dump! I knew once we had one we could confirm working we could solve this.
With the BT.exe tool, I originally saw some other value to fix this too, and then a few people corrected many users across various threads to say the correct value was 7C instead of whatever the other suggested fix was.
I do not remember what the other value was they were telling people it needed to be changed to 7C from in the original BT directions, but from what you found it sounds like it possibly varies from model to model.

@alerscone - GbE warning is normal and expected, especially if there is no GbE in this BIOS (Intel Gigabit) or whatever your source file is.
If there is GbE in the BIOS as a whole, it's still normal to see that, if you are dumping, editing, and then reflashing the BIOS region only and not the entire BIOS.

FPTw.exe -bios -d biosreg.bin << This dumps the BIOS region only
FPTw.exe -bios -f modfilename.bin << This flash the BIOS region only

Since you have unlocked FD now, dump the entire BIOS via >> FPTw.exe -d bios.bin << Then you will find GbE region above ME region probably, if not then this board does not have GbE and the error can be ignored.
Reflash mod BIOS via >> FPTw.exe -f modbios.bin (Be sure to unlock FD in this BIOS as well or it will get locked again). For this, even with unlocked FD, I am not sure, but you may still need to unlock "BIOS Lock" to flash. If you do, you'll get error 368 in FPT and here's my guide to fix that

Do not use the unlocked BIOS above, you will loose your serial, UUID, etc. That is for noreplyse only, if you want unlocked BIOS send me your BIOS region dump from FPT, or entire BIOS dumped via programmer or FPT.

@Lost_N_BIOS Thank you for letting me know before attempting to further flash this. Here is the copy of my dumped bios.

@alerscone - You're welcome, and yes, sorry I should have put warning on that when posted it for noreplyse.
FD is not unlocked in the BIOS you sent? only for BIOS an GbE region, which are almost always unlocked anyway. Are you sure you sent me correct file? Do you want me to unlock FD fully? That way you wont have to use programmer anymore *unless you write back in stock FD or stock BIOS Locked BIOS region*

@Lost_N_BIOS Yeah, that is the correct file. And if you could fully unlock FD and everything that would be great. I think I was having some issues getting that done properly.

@alerscone - OK will do, give me a few minutes. See here, this is your FD and what's locked/unlocked for read/write in the file you sent.

Okay, so I will need to use the Grub setup_var to change the FD state, correct?

You will need to unlock BIOS lock via grub right now if you want to flash BIOS region via FPT, since it's currently locked (This is a BIOS setting, within BIOS region, nothing to do with FD).
But, if you are using flash programmer you wont have to do anything except program in the BIOS I will send you. If you want fully unlocked FD put into the BIOS, you will have to program it in with programmer, since FD is currently locked and you can't write to FD region without pinmod or programmer.

BIOS lock variable for grub >> 0x8FB
efi file needs to be named >> Shell.efi
Command to write at grub prompt >> setup_var 0x8FB 0x0