V54: BIOS settings are randomly reset

[byteboltsec]

Component

Dasharo firmware

Device

NovaCustom V54 14th Gen

Dasharo version

v0.9.0

Dasharo Tools Suite version

No response

Test case ID

No response

Brief summary

With a new V54x_6x_TU laptop, it happened a few times now, that we recognized a reset of some important BIOS settings like secure boot, camera disable, Intel ME etc. Currently, we can't confirm that every setting got reset. We have noticed it on Ubuntu 24.04 in the security audit settings that secure boot was suddenly disabled after working with it. We can't trust the BIOS settings anymore because of the unstable state.
There is definitely no long startup, which would indicate a memory re-training.
Did anyone observe something like this?

How reproducible

Not reproducible / happens randomly

How to reproduce

We can't reproduce it currently.

Expected behavior

BIOS settings should be persistent.

Actual behavior

BIOS settings like secure boot or Intel ME are reset.

Screenshots

No response

Additional context

No response

Solutions you've tried

• CMOS battery connector is stable and fit correctly
• CMOS battery has stable voltage, checked with voltmeter
• Reset CMOS battery according to Novacustom; After that, laptop needs more time as expected to re-train the memory

[wessel-novacustom]

@byteboltsec Could you please let us know what exact firmware settings were set differently when compared to the default settings? Were Early boot DMA Protection and Keep IOMMU enabled when transfer control to OS set as well?

@macpijan Any idea what could have caused the issue?

[miczyg1]

I have seen something like this on the MTL laptops happening randomly. It looked like the whole region with variables and settings was deemed invalid and thus reinitialized with defaults. But last time I have seen it was in the first early versions of the firmware (exactly around v0.9.0 for iGPU variants). Haven't seen it on the most recent versions (including developer builds) for a couple of months.

@mkopec I believe you have seen it as well at the beginning of the MTL firmware developemnt.

[byteboltsec]

Hi @wessel-novacustom ,
I think that a "Reset to Defaults" is triggered randomly. We changed e.g.:

• Enable Camera -> false
• Intel ME mode -> Disabled (GAP)
• Battery Start Charge Threshold -> 78
• Battery Stop Charge Threshold -> 80
  But I can't really confirm/remind that Early boot DMA Protection and Keep IOMMU enabled when transfer control to OS were changed

[wessel-novacustom]

@miczyg1 @mkopec @macpijan Can we send test binaries of the coreboot + EDK II rebase or is that a bad idea?

[miczyg1]

@miczyg1 @mkopec @macpijan Can we send test binaries of the coreboot + EDK II rebase or is that a bad idea?

Binaries are available all the time on CI: https://github.com/Dasharo/coreboot/actions

It is as simple as "click one workflow and download an artifact". But it is always a bad idea to experiment on dev binaries without a recovery method.

[wessel-novacustom]

@miczyg1 @mkopec @macpijan Can we send test binaries of the coreboot + EDK II rebase or is that a bad idea?

Binaries are available all the time on CI: https://github.com/Dasharo/coreboot/actions

It is as simple as "click one workflow and download an artifact". But it is always a bad idea to experiment on dev binaries without a recovery method.

Thanks. I can see that, I have promised to apply for recovery free of charge under warranty in case of a brick.

[wessel-novacustom]

This issue has been reported twice now. Both customers had 2× 32 GB of internal memory. I'm not sure if this is coincidence or not, but I thought it was worth mentioning it.

[wessel-novacustom]

In fact, there is a known issue with the SMI/SMM storage, causing this sporadic reset. The reproducibility is low, making the issue hard to debug. Here are some related issues:

#1364
#1349
#1338

It was a process of understanding of what's going on.

The underlying issue for this issue and the mentioned issues should have been fixed with this PR: #1338 (comment)