Roch NVRAM 1.0.1

Roch NVRAM is a Windows editor for AMI SCEWIN NVRAM exports. It reads the live NVRAM, lets you queue setting changes, and writes them only after a backup, a fresh re-export that confirms nothing moved, and a value-by-value verification afterwards.

It is the SCEWIN round trip with a review step in the middle. SCEWIN's own Export.bat and Import.bat dump the NVRAM to a text file and write that file back; here the same two steps are buttons, and between them you see exactly which settings will change.

Bundled AMISCE: 5.05.01.0002. See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt.

This program writes firmware settings. Incorrect voltage, clock, memory, security, or boot values can stop a machine from starting. Keep Clear CMOS or BIOS Flashback available before you use it.

Run

From a packaged build (nothing to install — Python and Qt are inside the executable):

1. Extract the folder: RochNVRAM.exe with scewin/ beside it.
2. Run RochNVRAM.exe, and approve the Windows administrator prompt.

The executable requests those rights through its own manifest, so that layout has no run.bat. scewin/ sits next to the executable rather than inside it, which is what lets the AMI binaries be replaced without a rebuild.

From source (needs Python 3.10 or newer):

1. install.bat once, to create .venv and install PySide6.
2. run.bat, and approve the administrator prompt.

The window opens with nothing loaded and does not touch the firmware. Press Export to read the live settings. The administrator prompt appears at launch rather than on demand because SCEWIN needs those rights the moment you press Export or Import, and a running process cannot elevate itself.

Export and Import

The two halves of the round trip, side by side at the head of the NVRAM tab:

• Export runs SCEWIN against the live NVRAM and loads the result into the table. Nothing is read from the firmware until you press it.

• Import writes the queued changes. Unlike Import.bat, which writes a file as it stands, this re-exports first and refuses to continue when:

  • the HII CRC changed,
  • a queued setting is missing,
  • its current value changed since you queued it,
  • or it became malformed or ambiguous.

  It then takes a timestamped backup, runs SCEWIN_64.exe /I /S nvram_apply.txt, exports again, and verifies every requested value. The file it writes is byte-for-byte the live export outside the queued records — line endings included, so the doubled CRs AMISCE puts in its own header survive untouched.

Everything else needs an NVRAM in the table, so the remaining buttons stay disabled until you export one. Compare and Log work on their own files and are always available.

Backups and transaction files:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\NVRAM\backups

NVRAM tab

The table preserves the exact record order of nvram.txt and shows Setting, Help String, Token, Offset, Width, BIOS Default, and Options/Value. Search across names, help text, tokens, offsets, and export IDs; filter by type or by editable/warning state.

Queue selected change (or a double-click) edits an entry. Settings the parser could not read unambiguously are greyed out and refused rather than guessed at.

Quick Settings tab

The overclocking controls of a platform on one page, in three sections: CPU, RAM, and GPU / PCIe, so the settings that matter for tuning are together instead of spread through 5,000 rows. Each row shows the setting's current value and an editor that starts on it; set a new value and press Queue. It is the same queue the NVRAM table feeds, so Import still runs the preflight, backup, and verification around whatever you queue here. No values are suggested: the tab decides what to show, not what to set.

A preset is the list of settings. assets/quick_settings/msi_z790_ddr5.json was built from a stock export and a tuned export of an MSI Z790 MPOWER: every setting whose value differs between the two is a row, plus a standing list in tools/make_quick_settings.py of controls that belong on the page regardless (Hyper-Threading, XMP, the common timings). Rows match the live NVRAM by token + offset + width; a row the loaded firmware does not have says so and stays disabled. One row can write several identities, which is how the per-channel copies of a DDR5 timing become a single control.

Presets are per vendor. MSI, ASUS, ASRock, and Gigabyte lay their NVRAM out differently -- different identities, names, order, and which settings exist at all -- so an MSI preset finds nothing on an ASUS board. That is deliberate: matching by name across vendors would be guessing, and this program writes firmware. When a loaded export is from another family the tab says so at the top, with the count of controls found, instead of showing a page of disabled rows. Each vendor gets its own preset, built the same way.

To build one, export once at stock and once tuned on that board, then run

py tools/make_quick_settings.py stock.txt tuned.txt --vendor ASUS --board "ROG Maximus Z790 Apex" --name "ASUS Z790 (LGA 1700 DDR5)" --platform asus-z790-ddr5 --out assets/quick_settings/asus_z790_ddr5.json

It sorts the differences into the three sections by name, drops fan curves and other changes that are not overclocking controls, and lists anything it could not place.

Load NVRAM

Restores settings from a previously saved nvram.txt, for example after a Clear CMOS. The saved file is never written wholesale: its settings are matched to the live export by token + offset + width and every difference is queued as an ordinary pending change, so the preflight, backup, and verification above still apply. Review the queue, then press Import.

The dialog defaults to the archive of every NVRAM the tool has captured, and reports how many settings will be queued, already match, or were skipped. It warns when the saved file's HII CRC differs from the live one.

Pending Changes tab

Setting, Help String, Before, and After for each queued change. Remove entries, clear the queue, export a modified nvram.txt, or export a transaction JSON without writing anything.

Compare tab

Browse for NVRAM 1 and NVRAM 2; changed settings are shown by default. Matching uses token + offset + width and preserves NVRAM 1's record order.

Only value changes count. A setting renamed between BIOS builds whose value is unchanged is reported as Same, with the differing name shown for context. Type changes and settings present in only one file count as changed. If the two files report different HII CRC values the app warns, because their offsets may describe different BIOS layouts. Export comparison CSV saves the changed rows.

Log tab

A catalog of every NVRAM the tool has opened — not a log of changes. Each row records Date & Time, Source, SCEWIN version, HII CRC32, setting count, SHA-256, and the archived file. A verbatim copy of every capture is kept, content-addressed by SHA-256 so identical re-opens are not duplicated. Double-click a row to open that exact export.

%LOCALAPPDATA%\NVRAM\logs\nvram_catalog.jsonl   catalog
%LOCALAPPDATA%\NVRAM\logs\nvram\                archived nvram.txt files
%LOCALAPPDATA%\NVRAM\logs\nvram.log             activity audit trail

Offline mode

run_offline.bat is a dry run. It never executes SCEWIN, never writes firmware, needs no administrator rights, and hides Export and Import. Compare and Log still work.

It needs a sample export in data/ — an nvram.txt and its parsed .json. Those are board-specific and are not tracked, so a fresh clone has no data/: point the app at your own export with --profile and --nvram, or generate a pair with

python -m bios_manager.scewin_parser <nvram.txt> --output data/profile.json

Live mode and the tests are unaffected; the tests use their own committed fixture.

Safety notes

• If an import reports that values did not verify, check that "Password protection of Runtime Variables" is Disabled in BIOS setup. That setting locks the UEFI runtime variable interface, so SCEWIN exits cleanly while its writes are silently dropped.
• A backup is taken before every import, but there is no automatic rollback. To revert, import nvram_before.txt from the backup folder.
• A successful import may still need a reboot.
• SCEWIN is an AMI utility bundled here for convenience. This project does not establish its authenticity or its own right to redistribute it — see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt.

Tests

run_tests.bat

All 79 tests run on a fresh clone. They cover parsing, record order, option and value edits, byte-for-byte rewriting, stale-value rejection, profile matching, verification, comparison results, CSV export, the catalog and its archiving, the Quick Settings presets and the tab that queues from them, the window's own button states, and that the version is written in exactly one place.

The export they read is committed at tests/fixtures/nvram.txt: a small synthetic SCEWIN file, not a board dump, keeping the record shapes real ones have. Its parsed profile is generated during the run rather than committed beside it, so the two cannot drift apart. Nothing in the suite executes SCEWIN or touches firmware.

24 of them need PySide6 and skip cleanly without it, so run_tests.bat uses .venv when it is there and falls back to the system interpreter with a note when it is not.

Building

py -m pip install pyinstaller
py -m PyInstaller --clean -y RochNVRAM.spec

That produces dist\RochNVRAM.exe, a single file with Python, Qt and the icon inside it. Copy scewin/ beside the executable to run it.

Releases are built on Python 3.14, the newest PySide6 accepts: it ships a single abi3 wheel and requires >=3.10,<3.15, so 3.10 is the floor and 3.15 will not install until PySide6 says otherwise.

Credits

• SCEHUB by ab3lkaizen — packages AMISCE with the Export.bat / Import.bat pair this program is built around. The Export and Import buttons are those two steps with a review in between.
• AMISCE is American Megatrends' utility. Every read and write goes through it; this project only decides what to ask it for.

Licence

GPL-3.0-or-later. See LICENSE.

Third-party components, including the bundled AMI binaries that are not covered by that licence, are listed in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt.