One other thing to point out, in the screenshot I posted, it shows the EFI partition labeled as "System." On System is a directory structure of:
EFI > Asus
> Boot
Under Asus there are 2 bin files, one for the n56vz and the other for the n56vm. I'm thinking these are crucial to getting these machines to boot from the EFI correctly. Under Boot is where the shell, (mentioned in the UEFI link I posted,) should go and be renamed.
When I'm conscious again, I'll follow up with these thoughts. Unless someone wants to volunteer......
Sorry about the lack of follow-up lately. Work has pretty much eaten up my September.
Some things I had time to do some research on and some links to utilities I'd like to share; but of course I'm only sharing information and not suggesting you try or use these. The usual CMA statement applies: try or use any of these things completely at your own risk.
Asus makes a utility called Asus EFI BIOS Utility that is available on many of their mainboards that have UEFI. But of course, isn't available on the n56vz.
To try and find out the actual model number of my mainboard, I used:
ftp://ftp.cpuid.com/cpu-z/cpu-z_1.61.3-g1-setup-en.exe
This shows info about your system.
There's a utility I haven't tried yet, but looks promising, for being able to pick which graphics card to use between the builtin and addin gpu's. I downloaded it and tried it on my old MBP but it won't run on machines without dual gpu's. I plan on trying this once I get my HBP back online.
http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus
If you have a N56xx with dual gpu's running a mostly stable OS X and decide to try this, let us know if it does any good for choosing which gpu the system will use.
I tried to find a reliable and easy to follow site with clear instructions on how to do hex editing on an Asus AMI Aptio bios to be able to unlock some of the UEFI features. But I coudn't find one that's clear and concise. Most people who understand the process assume everyone else will understand their instructions. Not necessarily so. Before I got busy with work, I downloaded:
AMIBCP v4.53 and used it to open a bios update for my system that Asus had available on their website: N56VZAS.211
BE VERY VERY VERY CAREFUL with this utility should you decide to open it. If you make changes to the bios update file and then use that changed file to update your system bios, if a mistake was made, THE POSSIBILITY OF BRICKING YOUR SYSTEM EXISTS!!!!!!!!!! I used it to open the bios update file and LOOK AROUND ONLY!!!! I made no changes and will not until I have a far better understanding of what it is I'm looking at.
BTW -
Apples new Retina MBP has the following stats:
- Intel Coretm) i7 2.3GHz
- 8GB DDR3-1600 RAM
- 256GB Flash Storage
- 15.4" LED-backlit Display with IPS Technology
- SDXC Card Slot
- Intel HD 4000
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M
- 802.11n Wireless
- Bluetooth 4.0
- Mac OS X 10.7 Lion
Compare those with the stats for the N56VZ:
- Intel Coretm) i7-3610QM 2.3GHz
- 8GB DDR3-1600 SDRAM
- 750GB 7,200RPM Hard Drive
- 15.6" Full HD Widescreen Display
- Blu-ray-enabled DVDRW/CD-RW
- 3-in-1 Media Card Reader
- Intel HD4000
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M
- 10/100/1000 Network
- 802.11b/g/n Wireless
- Bluetooth 4.0
- Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit)
The Apple Retina MBP can be found for around $2199'ish. The N56VZ-RB71 can be found for about $1149'ish. Saving a thousand dollars is a pretty good motivation for getting this Asus to work. And, as the configuration of the Retina MBP is so similar to the N56VZ, I gotta wonder how long before someone figures out how Apple made this stuff work, and applies it to laptop's with similar configurations.
That's it for tonight. Time to get ready for work again.
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