- Dec 10, 2017
- 1
- 0
- 36
I know what you are going to say, MAC addresses from the hardware cannot be modified, bla bla bla.
Well, not in some systems including mine, where is hardcoded in the BIOS, directly into the EEPROM.
I've got an old desktop, an Acer Extensa e261, which has a "672M01-1.1-8EKSH" 755 socket motherboard, which I use as server
The hardware: SIS 672 + 968 chipset, and obviously sis 672 ethernet controller, and an intel pentium dual core with 4gigs of ram, which I can use only 3 cause of memory remap lol, but still a pretty decent server for hosting half life/minecraft and ftp servers. Don't even know if I can mod the BIOS to add memory remap feature.
The problem: The problem came when I failed a BIOS update, trying to add the "Memory remap feature" fortunately it has a removable EEPROM, so I used an EEPROM programmer and I was able to restore the original BIOS.
But, after the first boot, I got a very unhappy screen telling me: "Mac address in APC and EEPROM failed, PRESS F1 to continue "
After pressing F1, and booting into the OS, I've also noticed that the serial number, mac address, UUID and other things got blank.
I really can't press F1 every ******* time, since I use it as a server, so I haven't got the keyboard always plugged in, and I would also need a reliable connection via Ethernet, I can disable the NIC via BIOS to prevent this message, but USB wifi sucks a lot for latency, and the PCI-e WIFI doesn't fit because of graphics card, which I need it for CUDA applications. Also buying an external ethernet PCI card is frustrating since I don't want to spend money to this old build. I cannot also edit the MAC address from the operating system since the F1 problem persists.
Steps I tried:
I tried every thing you can imagine, tons of google pages, DOS programs, editing via an hex editor the BIOS raw file. No single luck. I could also give you the raw dump so maybe you have more luck then mine.
The most valuable option was search into the raw BIOS dump to search where the MAC is. I only found that.
I replaced those 12 digits with a MAC address (with the one I've seen on the printer label inside the motherboard, that should be the original one, in HEX format) and flashed it through the EEPROM, but sadly still no luck
After that "sis630E-MAC"I can only see a lot of "ff's" I also tried to replace all 12 sequences of zeros and F's with a MAC address but lol the bios got corrupted again so I restored the original bios.
Well, since the address is hardcoded where should it be looking at? What do you think?
Searching on the internet I found an Acer manual which uses special tools, which I cannot find, via DOS to edit DMI info and MAC address. The one I'm interested in is called "LAN MAC EEPROM Utility" obviously no luck finding it... It has a MAC.cfg file and MAC.bat to change the EEPROM MAC. The syntax of the CFG file should be the following
I also found some Phoenix Award bios editing tool but no option for MAC addresses
The other tool was "dmitools" maybe I found the correct one on the internet, but it just does not work. DOS freezes after I do something with it.
Also tried the DMICFG dos tool and changed the UUID, with a random generator but still no luck. From what I read it should be a particular one related to the MAC address or am I wrong? However, I'll give you the dump of the BIOS and the other one where I modified the UUID and MAC.
Modified one
Original one
Well, not in some systems including mine, where is hardcoded in the BIOS, directly into the EEPROM.
I've got an old desktop, an Acer Extensa e261, which has a "672M01-1.1-8EKSH" 755 socket motherboard, which I use as server
The hardware: SIS 672 + 968 chipset, and obviously sis 672 ethernet controller, and an intel pentium dual core with 4gigs of ram, which I can use only 3 cause of memory remap lol, but still a pretty decent server for hosting half life/minecraft and ftp servers. Don't even know if I can mod the BIOS to add memory remap feature.
The problem: The problem came when I failed a BIOS update, trying to add the "Memory remap feature" fortunately it has a removable EEPROM, so I used an EEPROM programmer and I was able to restore the original BIOS.
But, after the first boot, I got a very unhappy screen telling me: "Mac address in APC and EEPROM failed, PRESS F1 to continue "
After pressing F1, and booting into the OS, I've also noticed that the serial number, mac address, UUID and other things got blank.
I really can't press F1 every ******* time, since I use it as a server, so I haven't got the keyboard always plugged in, and I would also need a reliable connection via Ethernet, I can disable the NIC via BIOS to prevent this message, but USB wifi sucks a lot for latency, and the PCI-e WIFI doesn't fit because of graphics card, which I need it for CUDA applications. Also buying an external ethernet PCI card is frustrating since I don't want to spend money to this old build. I cannot also edit the MAC address from the operating system since the F1 problem persists.
Steps I tried:
I tried every thing you can imagine, tons of google pages, DOS programs, editing via an hex editor the BIOS raw file. No single luck. I could also give you the raw dump so maybe you have more luck then mine.
The most valuable option was search into the raw BIOS dump to search where the MAC is. I only found that.
I replaced those 12 digits with a MAC address (with the one I've seen on the printer label inside the motherboard, that should be the original one, in HEX format) and flashed it through the EEPROM, but sadly still no luck
After that "sis630E-MAC"I can only see a lot of "ff's" I also tried to replace all 12 sequences of zeros and F's with a MAC address but lol the bios got corrupted again so I restored the original bios.
Well, since the address is hardcoded where should it be looking at? What do you think?
Searching on the internet I found an Acer manual which uses special tools, which I cannot find, via DOS to edit DMI info and MAC address. The one I'm interested in is called "LAN MAC EEPROM Utility" obviously no luck finding it... It has a MAC.cfg file and MAC.bat to change the EEPROM MAC. The syntax of the CFG file should be the following
Code:
Title= HAC Address byte
WriteData='001122334455'
Startfiddr=7fi
WriteLeng=ö
KeepByte=0
WriteData = '001122334455'
StartAddr=7A
WriteLeng=6
KeepByte=0I also found some Phoenix Award bios editing tool but no option for MAC addresses
The other tool was "dmitools" maybe I found the correct one on the internet, but it just does not work. DOS freezes after I do something with it.
Also tried the DMICFG dos tool and changed the UUID, with a random generator but still no luck. From what I read it should be a particular one related to the MAC address or am I wrong? However, I'll give you the dump of the BIOS and the other one where I modified the UUID and MAC.
Modified one
Original one
Last edited:
Facebook
Twitter