@monkeyyninja - What do you mean "The stock" Programmer? What software and version, if you are not sure please look in "Help" and it should show version there.
Sounds like there is an issue with "Stock" software, and "Stock" whatever that is would fail write too, since you wrote back ASP dump with ASP (I assume) and it worked OK. Good to hear this
Keep with that then, or when you redo any dump/compares again, compare 1.34 as I mentioned with ASProgrammer and see if they dump same too or not.
But main thing now, you know ASP dumps and writes good, so only dump and write with it, until you confirm 1.30 or 1.34 also can read/write properly too (If you waste time to confirm )

Unfortunately I've had no luck with the custom BIOS. I've tried inserting the NVMe module in multiple different places, including at the end of the two main DXE volumes, and the system refuses to take the new image. I get an error about CRTM signatures and the system fails-over to the backup ROM.
Any ideas?

@monkeyyninja - Upload your mod BIOS (in zip), so I can see what you've done, compare with mine etc. Did you use UEFITool 25.0?
There is only one place to put it, at the end of the main DXE volumes, which I gave GUID for on previous page.
It very well may be signed and we can't edit Does it give you that error message if you have service jumper in place (if there is on, I forget)?

You do have secure boot disabled, AND any encryption or TPM disabled in BIOS before you dumped and during the flash attempts correct? If not, do that now, then make new dump, then edit and try again.

* Edit - Hey, what is your CPU, in case we only need to be editing one area of the BIOS

* Edit 2 - If we can't mod, you can still use NVME on this system, you just can't boot from it, but you can use it as secondary/storage/data drive.
Or, you can use DUET or Clover USB bootloader methods, and then you CAN boot from

After further testing, I can consistently erase and flash the stock v3.10 BIOS without issue. However, the moment I attempt to boot an edited BIOS, even if all I did was remove a tiny module or change a single attribute, the system fails to boot and reports a signature issue after it finishes it's automated BIOS recovery. I assume somewhere there's a checksum or security key that needs to be changed in conjunction with the BIOS. Anyone have any experience working with something like this?

Edit: Just saw your reply, this machine is running two Xeon E5-2690v2. Also, it does look like I had the TPM enabled. I'll flash the stock BIOS, re-extract and mod, and try flashing again. I had deleted the IDE module, as that is a feature I'm even less likely to use than PXE, and added in the uncompressed NVMe driver to the end of the DXE volume. I'll upload what I've been doing after I re-extract with the TPM off.

Edit 2: I just read up on how the TPM checks if the BIOS firmware changed on each boot. I feel dumb for not thinking of that earlier.

@monkeyyninja - Yes, that may be true, but in mods I did checksums are corrected, however signatures may not be, if it's signature checked. We can test single settings change in two places (one in setup, one in NVRAM), so see if both are covered by signature or not. We can also test microcode update x1, to see if that is covered or not
Then if all fail, we know entire BIOS is signature checked. But yes, you need to disable secure boot, TPM, remove any BIOS password too, then make new dump and try again and see if same - before we do any of these other "check to see" type of tests, because if any of those things set/enabled, then mod BIOS will fail always.

Thanks, so your CPU is 306E4, we can edit top microcode then you check and see if changed, if not then we edit bottom microcode and you check. This way we can find out which BIOS section actually applies to your system, and then only edit that.
But, we can only do this test if you can flash in mod BIOS. Once you disable TPM, secure boot, remove password etc, send me new BIOS dump and I will make these two test BIOS for you to try so we can see if this is signature covered or not, and if not then we'll be able to tell which BIOS area applies to your system.
Derp!!! We can tell now, check with HWINFO64 like I showed on page one, what microcode do you see? If Rev 417, then top section of BIOS applies to you, if 42E then bottom section applies to you.
We can still however test edit these later, to see if signature is covering all BIOS or not, but duh, we can check this way which area of the BIOS is for your system

Yes, please send me dump copy once you disable all that stuff and reboot back to BIOS, then shut down for dump. Maybe/hopefully that was the issue, not signature checked BIOS!

Sure thing, I'll upload the TPM-disabled BIOS in a bit. Here's a picture of my shit-show as entertainment while we wait on this rom to read




I'm going to owe you a beer after this

Edit: Here's the No-TPM rom. Also, do you have to update the checksums manually or is that handled by UEFItool, and how do you check for whole-bios signatures? My CPUs microcodes are 42E

http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=43892561294995070025
MD5: D7FA098AF6C50F5121F5FB22295BCF8D

Hey, looks good, I always like to see a random pile of hardware and system mid-surgery

Make sure you also did all the other things I mentioned before you dump (or do it now, then dump again) >> Disable Secure boot, remove any BIOS password you have set, Disable any Encryption or TPM

Also, once done, check HWINFO as mentioned for what microcode is being used, so we know which section we only need to edit.

Also of note, it looks like the TPM enable/disable on this system is handled by hardware and the BIOS just sets a flag. You can't even toggle it unless the jumper on the mainboard is set correctly, and the BIOS complains about it every boot while it is. Additionally, there is 0 mention of Secure Boot anywhere in this system BIOS. I have Legacy + UEFI boot enabled and anything even vaguely related to security has been disabled/reset.

Is there a removable TPM add-in card, they often look like small WiFI cards and connect into a pinned header. If you find one, remove it and then make the dump. If CSM is enabled, or legacy+UEFI then secure boot must disabled, so no worries there.
See my edit above about CPU, in case you missed it.

Nothing removable as far as the TPM is concerned, just the jumper which allows you to disable it in the BIOS (and disabled it currently is). My CPU microcode is 42E.

Thanks. We only need to edit the lower section of the BIOS then When/IF we can get a mod going in properly

I hope so, I've got a week of my life into this project and at this point failure is not an option. Pic related.

Hopefully it's not RSA or signature checked, if so, nothing we can do. If it is, then your only option to boot from NVME in that case will be Clover or Duet method, unless you want to look at other NVME models.
I'm not sure, but I think maybe Samsung 951 can boot on non-NVME BIOS, but we'd have to have @Fernando confirm that or not

I tested out a Clover solution a few days back and that worked fine, and the boot times on this system are already atrocious, so I'm not worried about that. At this point it's just a matter of principle that it boot right to the WD NVMe drive if possible.

I'm certainly not a cryptologist, and I'm sure this is far outside the scope of what is worth pursuing, but it seems like since we have access to 7 different BIOS versions for this system reverse engineering the key and applying a new signature would be within the realm of possibilty.

I hear that, many don't like Clover or DUET, but if it's only option you may have to go that route. But yes, lets see what we can do!
Signature would be key hashed and applied across all volumes one by one, no way we could crack it with all the BIOS versions in the world.

So, did you finish the dump and try a new edit yet? Send me the dump once you get so I can do an edit and send you way, so you can then compare and see if your edit = same.
I will be removing the Boot Agent GE though, not IDE, so if you want to compare your edit to mine via hex, you'd have to make same edit.