Unlocked BIOS

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Hi MAINGEAR community,

As you may be aware, Tongfang laptops are quite limited in BIOS options, and the Vector lineup
from Maingear is no exception. To that end, I've managed to unlock quite a bit of BIOS options.

WARNING: Only follow this guide if you're an experienced user! I'm not responsible for anything
that may occur as a result of following this guide!

Things you will need:

RU.efi: Can be found on http://ruexe.blogspot.com/


UniversalAMDFormBrowser: archive
here https://github.com/DavidS95/Smokeless_UMAF/blob/main/UniversalAMDFormBrowser.zip
UEFITool: https://github.com/LongSoft/UEFITool/releases
IFR extractor: https://github.com/LongSoft/Universal-IFR-Extractor/releases

This tutorial was done on a Maingear Vector Pro 17 (Ryzen 9 5900HX, RTX 3070). Adjust the steps
to your model.

On a blank USB stick, create EFI folder, then a boot folder inside of the EFI folder. Copy RU.efi to
the boot folder and rename RU.efi to bootx64.efi.

Download your BIOS from Maingear's website, then download UEFITool. Extract the zip file from
Maingear's website, then find the .ROM file within the zip. Open up the ROM file in UEFITool,
then press Ctrl+F and click the text tab, search for Setup. Look for any entries that say "setup\
pe32" (there's more than one, click on any) and double-click it. Right click the entry and select
"extract as-is", then open up IFR extractor and select the .sct file you just extracted in UEFITool. In
a regular text editor, open up the resulting text file and search for "Runtime". You should find
something along the lines of "runtime variable protection". Note the varoffset, you will need to
change this later in order to edit some BIOS settings.

Now comes the fun part. Reboot your PC and hold F7 or whatever shows the boot menu. Select
your USB stick. You'll be greeted by a welcome message, just press any key to continue. Press Alt
and the = key at the same time to open up the UEFI variable stuff. Use your arrow keys to
navigate to "NvLockMailbox" and press enter, this variable should be set to 01, type 00 and press
Ctrl + W to save. It should say it saved successfully. Press Alt + = again and this time go to Setup.
Find the RunTime variable protection address you noted earlier and change it to 00. Save with
Ctrl + W again. Congrats, you have unlocked the BIOS!

Copy UniversalAMDFormBrowser to your USB and delete the RU.efi stuff, you don't need it
anymore. Boot the USB in the same way as RU.efi and now you can edit stuff normally! You can
even edit the Setup area, which Smokeless even notes "edits may not saved here".

Look here on info on how to use


UniversalAMDFormBrowser: https://github.com/DavidS95/Smokeless_UMAF
Edit: If your PC no longer boots after changing settings, you will need to clear CMOS by opening
up the back of your laptop and removing the cell battery.

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