PSA: Check the 3.3V rail on your CH341a with a multimeter to make sure it actually outputs 3.3V. "Wait, haven't you posted this video already?" Yes! I've already made a tutorial on unlocking the BIOS on T440p. However, part of the tutorial involved sending the BIOS to an anonymous person from an online forum and paying them to mod your BIOS. That video is now unlisted. After uploading the video I've been approached by Stefan Schmidt (Thrimbor), who shortly afterwards developed and released the patches that unlock the whitelist. In this video I describe the whole process from A to Z, including patching and signing the BIOS file (no 10 beeps on startup). You can read more on the methodology and development of the patches on Stefan's blog: thrimbor.github.io/2019/09/24/removing-the-m2-whitelist-on-a-thinkpad-t440p.html The BootGuard bypass method as well as the patches unlocking memory settings and the advanced menu were developed by XX and paranoidbashthot paranoid.anal-slavery.com

"If you clicked on this video, chances are you own a 40 series Lenovo Thinkpad..." I do not, but this is a Wolfgang upload, so I have to watch it anyways

Super spannendes und schön gemachtes Video! KZfaq hat leider viel zu wenig ThinkPad-Content und gerade die Mods, Frankenpads und kleinen Bastelprojekte finden fast nur in Foren statt - wobei die Foren leider auch immer ruhiger werden. Es freut mich daher sehr, dass Du diese spannenden Themen hier in unterhaltsamen Videos präsentierst.

Thanks for finally bringing this out. Starting my CS degree this September! Thanks for all your videos, Wolfang!

Thank you so much for making this video. This is exactly what I needed and it works perfectly. The wire clip was a little finicky so I had to make sure it was able to read the bios a few times before I felt comfortable writing over it. Great content and new subscribe!

Thank you for a brilliant walkthrough of the process. Respect to you and others who actually help make products long lasting.

I love how your hair changes in every video. And those tattoos 😍 Thanks for another useful video Wolfgang!

Thankfully Lenovo removed the Wi-Fi whitelist on next year's ThinkPads, AKA the ones with Broadwell processors.

Thanks for the detailed description! Finally my T440p work with AC7265.

Dont let this remade video distract you from the fact Wolfgang looks super cute

Man, this guy is awesome. Like how you present your information, smoothness, and humor.

The production quallity is getting higher and higher, what a nice development to be able to witness. Sehr schönes Video :)

I just tested it against T440p with the most recent UEFI Bios (GLETA1WW 2.55) and ME (9.1.45.3000). Works like a charm. Thanks!

Why am I having a feeling that this channel gonna become really popular someday!

Thanks for this video. It was my first from your channel, now I'm subscribed.

Thanks so much for the tutorial. I installed my new AX200 in my t440p today after doing the whitelist on Saturday. I did have a couple hangups in the install, including some timeouts and something failed, but it seems to be working fine for the time being. If I ever remember or figure out exactly what the errors I was getting, I'll share them in this thread. Again, thank you so much!

Finally! I've been waiting for this one :)

Oh My gosh, the whitelist problem has caused me to pull my hair out more times than I care to count. I love that you made this video! I might try this on one of my old ThinkPads. You have very little reason not to try when it costs you all of $12!

Just what i need and i will do this soon. Thanks for the content!

Used this guide to re-flash the BIOS. All went well. I wasn't too confident of the clips fitment onto the BIOS chip. Also, I thought the 'pip3 install pycryptodome' was for Mac users, as my package manager had a python3-pycryptodome package, however after wasting some time wondering why I couldn't sign the BIOS image, I learned installing pycryptodome through pip3 is necessary on Linux too.

Keep up the great work, man!

Hello Wolfgang, first, thanks for the awesome Video. I have a W540, where I wanted to install an AX210 WiFi Card. So I went trough all the steps in your video and your written instructions. Everything worked out well. So thought I.... I read the BIOS file, verified it, literally followed your steps 1:1 after watching and reading it like 3 times in a row, just to make sure I get everything 100%. I then patched the BIOS, signed it, verified it (successfully) and flashed it back to the 4MB Chip on the board. W540 is a pain in the bu** as you have to completely disasselmbe the whole Machine. There are also 2 Chips, one 8MB, where the patch does not work (I tried :D) and the 4MB on which the patch works. EDIT: I just read on the pinned comment, that I must apply the patch on the 8MB chip, and not the 4MB Chip, that's for the W541, should be the same for the W540. Anyway, I tried to patch the 8MB Bios file, but then I get a simply and unhelpful "Error" from UEFIPatch. It worked perfecty on the 4MB Bios file. When I then reassembled the machine, it POSTed with the same whitelist error as before, but interestingly, the modded BIOS with more functions was completely there and functional. So looks like one function of the patch worked, the other one did not. I'm honestly clueless. I'm also taking myself out of the "possible errors". It's not my first time stripping laptops or phones completely apart. I'm also extremely picky and cautious with my disasselmbe and assemble processes. So, with me being clueless, does anybody has any helpful advise? I can't believe I'm the only one having this issue... Thanks a lot!

Many thanks for this video. Successfully performed the BIOS reflash dance on my T440p today. Your comment about "if it says it can't detect the chip, try re-connecting the clip" was 100% on the money, because even though I thought I'd got a really good connection on two attempts, it wasn't until the third that flashrom actually worked to read the BIOS. Reading the BIOS took 35 seconds, which was a bit nerve wracking. Now I just need to find out what all those new BIOS menu options mean.

very good edition and also explanation thx man for your time (Y)

Thanks for using the new partition feature.

Coreboot is now on the W541 (and probably the W540) as well so try that out too. Dedicated graphics don't work but everything else seems to. Takes a bit to cold boot too, it seems like the more RAM you have the longer it takes

I rarely comment a KZfaq video but this one really deserve it ! Thanks a lot for you work, I managed to flash the BIOS of my T440p without trouble (just did 5 BIOS dump versions #Paranoid) !

Here's info for the T540p: specify the chip name when reading or writing using flashrom, like: sudo flashrom -p ch341a_spi -c "MX25L3273E" -w xxx.img Do not modify xx_40_patches_v7.txt, and it will patch just fine. The T540p relies on the patch for the W541, as well as the T440p to work. I've installed an AX200 with no problems. Also, you will have to take apart the entire laptop to reach the BIOS chip, It's the lower chip, further away from the SIM card slot. Everything else is done as the video shows.

Hi Wolfgang! Love the channel! 👋🏽 Big fan of your sense of humor. I’m glad I’m not the only nerd who loves Thinkpads. 🤔😆 I would very much like to get your tool set. Can you suggest where I can pick one up please? Thank you! 😀

Thanks for the tutorial. I have one question, will this method work on Lenovo Y510P?

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad X240 and its BIOS is from 2018. Do you think it would be wise to update the BIOS to 2020 one? I don’t have windows installed and I was thinking of updating via USB with the ISO. I’m a bit afraid since I could turn into brick if something goes wrong.

Would love to see you make a similar video for Coreboot

One of the most useful hacks in my opinion.

thanks man, i will do with my w540 soon

Precious info here thanks. Also reassured me when I saw L540 in your patch list, I wasn't sure I would find one for my need. Now the most difficult thing seem to be finding the correct bios chip on the mobo Also, I bought a ThinkPad bc I thought they were great and customizable, but I'm disappointed by such a whitelisting. What is the new to-go for having freedom and good conception in laptops? Dell?

Hi, thanks for the video! I do have a question regarding the voltage of your CH341a, though. Is it 5V of 3.3V?

I made the experience following this guide that my Thinkpad did not boot after flashing the bios. And a reflash with the original was not possible because somehow the mentioned adapter in the video does not support QSPI Mode (as it is recommended in the manual of the bios chip W25Q32FVSIQ) for flashing this kind of chips. And even if you use a more appropriate programmer for this like I did (TL866 II Plus from XGecu) you won't be able to write to the chip through the clip. You actually have to solder out the chip, solder it on an adapter and flash with the programmer soldering it back again afterwards. Only this option fixed my Thinkpad to boot again (with advanced bios options and removed whitelist). Another additional point is that the mentioned programmer uses non appropriate voltage for writing these kind of chips. I was also in a long exchange with Klemm on this Topic. So there are many thinks to consider when you want to do this. (Soldering that kind of chip can crash your motherboard easily within seconds, because there is not a lot of space for the heat to concentrate only on the chip and you are always heating the around lying components which can cause them to melt) I like what Wolfgang is doing and I took it a way further the inspiration if you are interested in the modified heatpipe that's my "franken" version of it :) www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/g8a291/challenge_accepted_a_dual_heatpipe_heatsink_for/

thanks a lot, this really worked for me with BIOS 2.35 on T440p. Question; Can I upgrade to the last BIOS version 2.52 without losing the bypass? thanks

damn my W541 will have a new AX adapter thanks to you my friend. THANKS

Great video! However there is one detail missing, with MX25L3206E chips writing/reading may be unreliable, if this happens it is needed to supply extra power to the chip, this can be easily done by plugging in the charger and ethernet cable. The GBe mac address is stored in the SPI rom along with other parts of the firmware, the 3.3v rail for the SPI roms is powered from the rail for the GBe. Making the machine wait for Wake-On-Lan powers this rail on.

Hi, does this apply to LCD screen change, causing windows to unable to adjust brightness? Any video on how to do this?

I can confirm that this works on a T440. The only change is to not add the last step for the signature, the device will not boot the OS if you do. The 10 beeps are present, but do not go off every time the device is rebooted; I'm not sure why but I can't be bothered to investigate. Good luck to anyone that attempts this, and be sure to back up what you can't afford to lose. Cheers!

Slightly related question...would the latest USB port WiFi adapters be ‘faster’ (better bandwidth?) than the built in WiFi adapter in the W540? Also would plugging it into a usb 3.0 port instead of 2.0 make any speed difference? Thanks

Do you know if there is a modified bios solution for lenovo w540 to avoid the verification of original charger wattage???

Great video! I want to upgrade my Lenovo Thinkcentre M92Z AIO with a WiFi card. Can this be done? This computer came with an Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230. Recently I bought an Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 for upgrade. When I installed it, of course, I got an error about "unauthorized card" etc... Then I learnt that I need to remove the whitelist set by Lenovo. Can someone please advise? Where can I find a patch file for this? Any other tip is much appreciated. Thanks!

Does this remove the whitelist for the wwan? To be able to upgrade to a better LTE radio?

Just to share my experience doing this, I had my bios version at 2.54, and just to be safe I downgraded my bios to 2.52 to avoid any compatibility issue with the patch. Just check in your bios that option that allow user to downgrade the bios. In the lenovo t440p website you can download and downgrade any version you want, download 2.52 bios flasher and let the sw do the job. In my case it freezes my computer (panic!), after 10 minute I pressed the power button once and it unlocked by itself. After that It resumed the procedure and reboot, and later successfully downgraded the bios. After all of that, I just followed the nice guide and worked flawlessy. The first dump and diff I had was not good, and noticed my flasher usb port was not soldered properly, a drop of solder solved my issues, and everything went fine. Just don panic and everything will be ok.

I noticed you were using OSX for this. If I use windows command prompt will the commands be the same or will it change a bit?

whats does that symbol represent on your tattoo ? Is it some kind of mandala ?

Wolfgang´s, How to enable the CPU Lock Configuration menu to enable CFG Lock? It was not possible with this patch, is there another one?

can this be used to upgrade the TPM to 2.0 so i can still use my laptop when windows 11 rolls out?

Can you tell me what the problem might be? I made a modification according to the instructions - the advanced menu works, but the wifi - intel AX200 does not work, that is, the white sheet did not turn off ... Is there a chance to fix this? laptop Lenovo T540p

Could you help me find patches for Lenovo G500? (with the celeron 1005M, from 2013.) I wish to upgrade it with an i7 3630QM, but the forums say it has a CPU whitelist also removing the Wi-Fi whitelist would also be nice. Thank you very much in advance.

hi, its a great video. thanks. for the linux environment, can i use the windows 10 in-built "Windows sub-system for Linux" to do the flash rom? thanks

Cool! Thanks!

I have bios version 2.51 on my t440p wondering if I should update to 2.52 (same one used in your video) or keep it at 2.51, dont know which would provide best chances of this hack working.

great video! if I wanted to Coreboot after installing this Advanced BIOS, what would the process be? my laptop has this advanced BIOS installed

Hello on minute 4:40 you mention to go open a terminal and go to the UEFIPatch folder and type sudo flash....etc. How do I go to the folder? Great video by the way.

Will these same steps apply to an X1 Carbon 2nd gen?

now I need to ask permission to my boss to tamper with the laptop

Finally a video with Linux in it, at least a little

I can verify this method still works on the current bios for T440p (version 2.56) I just did it to mine.

Would it be possible to do this for an old Lenovo G450 and G470?.

I can confirm that this works for the latest bios version 2.55 on Lenovo Thinkpad T440p

Hey, I have gotten to the part of patching the bios but it keeps coming back with 'Function called with invalid parameter' on MacOs Catalina and can't figure out what I'm doing wrong, I am using the latest xx40_patches_v7.txt. Anyone know how to fix? Thanks! Edit: Fixed it, turns out the first link for the patch didn't work, so tried the mirror and that worked fine!

What smart wristband are you wearing? Do you recommend it?

Hi from Romania , I own a ProBook 6360b and I would like to switch to wifi6, is there a similar package for it too? thx

I read on some Reddit post that you can downgrade this Bios (2.52) to version to 2.36, which has no whitelist. Unfortunately, it cant be done with Bios >= 2.53. In case it can be done. Would there be any downside of doing the downgrading?

Have you ever patched a BIOS/EFI from the binary delivered by Lenovo website to a chip via CH341a ?

Can this method handles WWAN whitelist too ? I have a. Case..

6:24 What key is used to sign the BIOS? Is it embedded in the BIOS image itself? Surely Lenovo isn't just checking that *any* key has signed the BIOS??

Du bist dank der Jojo reference jetzt mein lieblings weeb im internet, geile content

Hey Mate, really appreciate all your videos, personally just got my T440P this wedesday and went straight into catalina 10.15.7 but unfortunately i didnt update the BIOS before hand as i was not aware its something i should have done, currently i have working wifi with intel wifi but i ordered a DW1820A off ebay and foundout the hard way this card was not on the whitelist (i has seen this video previously but i thought the DW1820A was already whitelisted by lenovo) im wondering if im on BIOS 2.32 whats your suggestion for getting the DWA1820A whitelisted? for example should i update the bios first to 2.52 (can i do this using mac only?) and order the kit on ebay to then flash it myself? or before i do this is there potentially any chance the lenovo bios 2.55 or something else other than updating to 2.52 or staying on 2.32 and removing the whitelist would solve the issue? im not super tech savvy, but i dont have any windows instalation on this disk so i cant just boot into windows and update the BIOS that way, thats my biggest problem that im not sure how i should flash the BIOS from mac to update it to 2.52 to start.

What would theoretically be the best WiFi card I could possibly put in after removing the white list?

I was unlocked through the site bios. but virtualization is disabled in it. how to do to turn on?

Do you happen to know if there is a patch file for the Lenovo E540 or if the patch file that you provided would work without corrupting the system?

Good video. By the way, could the x240 or T440p accept the new AX200 wifi card ? Thanks.

I Just rebuilt a 540p with the 3K screen added a kingsener aftermarket battery, (similiar battery worked great in my T430) it won't charge, it just sits at 49% charge on the battery (although it must be charging to maintain the 49% level) does anyone have the same machine and know if there is a battery whitelist in the BIOS? My bios version is GMET56WW 2.04 . I can't even perform a bios update (not sure I should do that anyway) as the lenovo utility doesn't recognise that the AC power is connected even with the battery removed and the bios utility running!

hi, can lenovo thinkpad t440p use an external egpu.. if you can make a tutorial

hey i was wondering if anyone can help me? I'm at 5:43 and when I type in the command it says"zsh: no such file or directory: ./UEFIPatch". is there something I messed up on? i have the UEFIPatch, xx40_patches_v5.txt, bios1.img and bios2.img in the UEFIPatch_0.28.0_mac folder

Any chance that this works on an E540 Thinkpad as well?

Hi, in my W540 there a two BIOS Chips. Do you know which one I have to modify?

when you say, "go to UEFI patch folder and type this command" could u explain what you mean, if i go to the UEFI patch folder there is the text file and the eufi patch but nothing else, am i supposed to click on eufi patch then type that command or am i supposed to open terminal then type a command to point terminal to this place? the way you worded it and then skip into a terminal screen which doesnt have any commands on it except flashrom is confusing to me

hey which wifi card do you use? do you recommend any other one?

Does the thinkpad l440 support aftermarket wifi cards or i have to do this for that

please review, remove whitelist on asus x450 lcp laptop, i want to use egpu with riser

Hi! What about L530? 1vyrain sadly doens't support it..

hey the site that has the patched bios isn't loading for me. It looked like it was getting blocked by my dns, so I tried changing that. and kept trying different things but basically anything I did didn't work. I saw that site linked somewhere else when looking earlier and it didn't work from there either.

Sir , I have a Lenovo G40-80 i3 5th 5010U laptop. It's comes with a single band WiFi , But when i upgrade with dual band then i get error as "unauthorized wireless network". It maybe caused by whitelist of bios. I backup up bios using CH341A programmer. But i don't understand how to modify it using windows. Please help me sir.

Hey, I'm sure you're tired of people asking things like this, but do you know if this patch will work for a ThinkPad P71? I already did the BIOS dump and I am playing around with the binary file now. I just wanted to know if anyone here can confirm whether the whitelist removal patch will work with that model as well? I would just like to be able to install a WiFi 6 module and a 5G cellular module in my P71, but I obviously can't with the stupid whitelist.

dank je zeer, goede vriend

Hey! Thanks for the video! Will this work on T540p?

when I get to the step at 5:43 I get "./UEFIPatch: error while loading shared libraries: libQt5Core.so.5: cannot open shared object file: no such file or directory". what do I do? edit now I'm getting "bash: ./UEFIPatch: no such file or directory" I am also trying this on bios version 2.44 idk if this matters.

nice work =)

Great video! Thanks! Would this work on a 2.54 Bios? Did anyone try it?

@Wolfgang's Channel I would love a video about disabling Intel ME and AMD PSP or at lest how to mitigating exploitation and abuse of them.

So what BIOS version is good for the T440p before doing this?

dont you have the bin file already patch just to write on the spi flash without doing all that?

Thanks for the video bud!! Does this work on a Lenovo T480?? Thanks!

Hey ! Do you know if this works with thinkpad t580? If not do you know any other method? cause I wanna install I broadcom wifi card for hackintoshing my Thinkpad