BIOS whitelist mod for version 1.46 W520 ThinkPad?

[webangel]

Hey gang, I'm really new to some of this more complicated stuff but I ended up getting my hands on a W520 ThinkPad the other day. After trying to improve the bluetooth funcitonality by upgrading my BIOS, I decided I would just buy a new wifi chip altogether. Now I regret upgrading the BIOS previously because I can't find any download links anywhere for the whitelist mod. Again, I'm on version 1.46 of the BIOS.

Does anyone know where I could track this down or have it sent to me? I would really greatly appreciate any help.

[kishy]

Hi,
For whatever reason (SEO/indexing I guess), this is very hard to find. Seemingly the only valid link anywhere on an English-language website that is indexed is right here on this very same site.

Refer to this thread/reply: https://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtop ... 38#p840338
Since it has been edited literally years after it was first posted, it looks like Shredder11 is conscientious about how hard these files are to find.

The 1.46, no whitelist, RAM speed unlocked BIOS is what has been on my W520 for about the past year, running a 7260-AC and 1600MHz RAM successfully.

Note this is not the version that unlocks the advanced settings menu, which I've only heard of and never seen. That version seems to be completely lost to time until someone else figures out how to re-mod it again.

[LazLong]

<SNIP>

The 1.46, no whitelist, RAM speed unlocked BIOS is what has been on my W520 for about the past year, running a 7260-AC and 1600MHz RAM successfully.

<SNIP>

Have you had any stability or slow-down issues? As I recall, a user on Reddit complained that after they applied the whitelist+RAM_UL v1.46 BIOS on their W520 they had system slow-downs and stability issues not related to OC'd RAM.

Any chance you've come across the v1.46 with only the whitelist removed?

BTW, my reason for the modded BIOS is that I want to upgrade my WiFi to an AX200 card.

Cheers!

[Shredder11]

I just did a quick search and not many results came up, but this one was on there and the forum topic (four years ago) had someone who ended up paying money to get the BIOS, and is offering to share it if others will also share the original $30 cost to him. https://www.reddit.com/r/Lenovo/comment ... s_ver_146/

Another possibility could be to contact this guy Stefan Schmidt, who modded his own Thinkpad T440p BIOS to remove the Whitelist. Who knows maybe he will do it for you. http://thrimbor.github.io/2019/09/24/re ... t440p.html

[LazLong]

I just did a quick search and not many results came up, but this one was on there and the forum topic (four years ago) had someone who ended up paying money to get the BIOS, and is offering to share it if others will also share the original $30 cost to him. https://www.reddit.com/r/Lenovo/comment ... s_ver_146/

Another possibility could be to contact this guy Stefan Schmidt, who modded his own Thinkpad T440p BIOS to remove the Whitelist. Who knows maybe he will do it for you. http://thrimbor.github.io/2019/09/24/re ... t440p.html

Thanks for the info. However, it turns out that I'm getting old, and my memory is going. I forgot that when I first got the W520 used back in 2014, I had replaced its ThinkPad 1x1 b/g/n Wireless LAN Mini-PCI Express Adapter II with an Intel 7260AC. Thus I already have a BIOS with the whitelist removed. I somehow managed to misplace the BIOS, which is surprising as I'm pretty anal about keeping such things; I've got stuff on my server dating back to my first personal ThinkPad back in 2007.

Now, if I knew how to suck the BIOS out of my machine without having to buy one of those USB EEPROM readers, I could post it.

[RealBlackStuff]

OP posted only once on 26/09/2022 and last visited on 28/09/2022.
Since OP seems to have no interest, you're wasting your time.

[kishy]

<SNIP>

The 1.46, no whitelist, RAM speed unlocked BIOS is what has been on my W520 for about the past year, running a 7260-AC and 1600MHz RAM successfully.

<SNIP>

Have you had any stability or slow-down issues? As I recall, a user on Reddit complained that after they applied the whitelist+RAM_UL v1.46 BIOS on their W520 they had system slow-downs and stability issues not related to OC'd RAM.

Any chance you've come across the v1.46 with only the whitelist removed?

BTW, my reason for the modded BIOS is that I want to upgrade my WiFi to an AX200 card.

Cheers!

Hi,
I understand (remarking towards RBS' reply) that this thread itself may be a bit of a dead end, and also understand you no longer need the information, but I'll answer anyway since I believe information is better 'out' than 'in' where possible and people from Google may very well end up reading this in a year or two or five:

I do not believe I have found or have possession of the BIOS you're asking for (only WL removed). I have not noticed any instability with my W520 since flashing the modded BIOS which didn't also exist beforehand. My machine has always been plagued with problems that can be attributed to DPC latency (where the usual place to point your finger is bad drivers), and I didn't notice those problems get particularly worse after the BIOS flash...but now since you've said this I might try flashing stock back and comparing to specifically look for this. I would gladly take slow WiFi if it meant less ridiculous multimedia problems when taxing the system or running on battery. I've also had the occasional issue with a failure to POST, again since new, and this at least used to be a common problem with the W520 that many people shared. Maybe most of the machines with the weird power problems (and there were many when they were new) have all been e-wasted by now and I'm an anomaly for still having mine.

I do not often stress this machine and I do not usually have long uptimes, so my use case may not really reveal stability issues, it's hard to say. My RAM is 4x 8GB Kingston HyperX Impact DDR3-1600 CL9 bought in two pairs of two across a rather long span; one pair in 2015 and the second in 2020.