BIOS settings - D830

[Hervé]

Last update: 20 Jul 2020

 

Here are BIOS settings that are known to work on D830 with nVidia Quadro NVS 135M/140M GPU and Intel Crestline GMA X3100 under Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra and Mojave (models with nVidia graphics only for Mavericks 10.9 and above). These settings were tested and verified with BIOS A15/A16/A17.

Onboard Devices:
. Integrated NIC = enabled
. Internal modem = enabled (or disabled)
. External USB ports = enabled
. Parallel port = ECP (or whatever)
. Serial port = COM1
. PC Card and 1394 = enabled
. SATA Operation = AHCI
. Module Bay Device = Enabled
. Flash Cache Module = Off (On if you have one but SSD much better these days)
. ASF Mode = Off
. Microphone = Enabled
Video:
. Ambient Light Sensor = Off
. Brightness = max
. Brightness (AC) = max
. Primary Video = Onboard Video
Security:
. Admin Password = not set
. System Password = not set
. Internal HDD PW = not set
. Password Change = Permitted
. Password Bypass = Off or Reboot & Resume Bypass (or any other value)
. Wireless Switch Change = Denied
. Wi-Fi Catcher Change = Denied
. CPU XD Support = Enabled
. Signed Firmware Update = Disable
. TPM Security = Off
. TPM Activation = Deactivate
. Computrace® = Deactivate
Performance:
. Multi Core Support = Enabled
. Dynamic Acceleration = Off for T7xxx Merom CPUs (or FSB and therefore CPU speed is reduced), On for T8xxx/T9xxx Penryn CPUs
. SpeedStep Enable = Enabled
Power Management:
. Auto On Mode = Off
. Auto On Time = xxxxxx
. USB Wake Support = Off (USB wake only operates when laptop is on mains and then causes Sleep issues)
. Wake on LAN/WLAN = Off
Docking:
. Undocking Method = Hot Undock
. PCI Slot Monitoring = Enabled Silent
. Universal Connect = Enabled
POST Behavior:
. Adapter Warnings = Enabled
. Fn Key Emulation = Scroll Lock
. Fast Boot = Minimal
. Virtualization = Enabled or Disabled (only required to run virtual machines)
. Keypad (Embedded) = Fn Key Only
. Mouse/TouchPad = Touchpad-PS/2
. Numlock LED = On
. USB Emulation = Enabled
Wireless:
. Internal Bluetooth = Enabled
. Internal Wi-Fi = Enabled (keep to Disabled if you have an Intel card, they're not supported and need to be replaced)
. Internal Cellular = Enabled
. Wireless Switch = All
. Wi-Fi Catcher = Enabled
. LAN/Wi-Fi Auto Switch = Off

The above settings are compatible with sleep/wake mode of operation and use of Wireless on/off switch. BT + Wifi services resume on wake + wireless switch re-activation (Wifi requires manual network re-selection after the latter).

 

 

Edit:

BIOS A16 and A17 modify the System Number from -595B to -3A5B. Whilst these latest versions neither bring new particular features nor affect behaviour in OS X, they are however incompatible with unlocking passwords provided by the well-known BIOS password generator tool (Dogbert's tool included in EDP) which only supports System Numbers ending in -595B/-D35B/-2A7B.

 

As such, if your D830 BIOS is locked with an Admin password, you're unable to unlock it if BIOS is above version A15. Please note that having a BIOS Admin password set does not prevent BIOS downgrade from Windows using the package available off Dell's support web site or directly from a USB key using the extracted .hdr file.