Blind Flashing and You

[Ensui]

You are seriously too kind. They need to make you an admin around here or something.

[zzpulp]

Nah, we are all pretty much useful users around here, but I guess I'm the resident jackass. I went through the whole phase where I was prepared to just break my card and get a x300 for the sake of battery life and heat.

Anyway, I've been up to some exams so I've been a little busy. I know how much it sucks to have a non-functional computer just sitting there.

Try out this autoexec (only works for flash drives as cd-r's aren't readily writeable in clean dos)
First, copy ultra.rom to a file named temp.rom
Be sure to copy it and not to just rename it

Also, be sure to use the nvflash I have uploaded here

nvflash -r
nvflash --list > output1.txt
nvflash -c > output2.txt
nvflash -b diag.rom
nvflash -k diag.rom > output3.txt
nvflash -4 -5 -6 -A -y temp.rom
del temp.rom

At first glance, if you understand what this code is trying to accomplish, it may seem a bit flawed. But anyway, there arent any real flaws and its a clever way of getting nvflash to flash your card only once (as well as run diagnostics only once if it isnt able to flash) while still using a fully automated setup.
Now I want you to leave that, and provided the card still isn't working, I want you to post the contents of output[1-3].txt here or attach them here or email them to me (whichever you prefer-if you email em be sure to post here so I know).

[Ensui]

Will do sir, I'll post the reply here in case someone else reading this thread is having or will have this issue.

I should have the results posted at 00:30 eastern time tonight.

[Ensui]

Or maybe not. After leaving it in for an hour and a half, doesn't seem like the flash drive actually did anything since there weren't any output files created. I should have something for you in the morning though, as I'll just leave it in overnight and hope it works. Thank you again Mr Pulp.

[Ensui]

Left it in overnight, nothing changed on the flash drive. Still has test.rom in it and it didn't create the output.txts. :\

[zzpulp]

Doesnt sound good. Every time I have seen a system that does not boot after a given amount of time it has turned out that the graphics card is just dead (using all practical means to recover it). But I am anal and I like proving these things and not just assuming. If you arent like me then you can disregard this quote:

Originally Posted by zzpulp

[T]here are a number of tricks that will allow you to flash or know whether your card is flashable. I am a minimalist, so we will do both of these in the same step.
First step first…Unplug your HD and remove all bootable media from your devices except the device you wish to boot to (i.e. remove cd from the dvd drive if you are planning on using the flash drive)

Your system is a [XPS] and has bios customizable led’s which is perfect
This step requires you have access to another gpu unless you are super leet or already have your computer setup this way.
Go into the bios and set the system led’s to turn on upon bootup. This option is under “Onboard Devices” in my bios. Set the led’s to your favorite color

How is this helpful you ask? Well the system leds turn on when the bios is started and sometimes with a corrupt gpu, the bios will not start on every boot. The numlock led will turn on only after the system leds and can take up to 1.5 hr to turn on (mainly if you have flashed a bios that uses a different core than your original gpu).
The system led indicates when the bios is started and the numlock led indicates when a device is being booted (i.e. hard drive, flash drive, etc)
I have noticed on my system, that if the system leds don’t turn on within about 45 seconds of booting the system, they just aren’t gonna turn on and hence the system isn’t going to boot. If this happens, just perform a hard reboot and try again.
Once the system leds come on, just chill and wait for the numlock led to turn on.
When the numlock turns on, its only a matter of time before your media is booted and your autoexec is run.

Since you cannot see your screen, you are going to have to pipe the output of the commands. This simply redirects the output that would be shown on the screen to somewhere else, in our case a file. Therefore, your autoexec should look like this:

nvflash --list > output1.txt
nvflash -c > output2.txt
nvflash -r > output3.txt
nvflash -4 -5 -6 -A -y [bios].rom > output4.txt

These commands generate an output[1-4].txt that will allow you to know what’s happening without physically seeing the screen.
The first command is perhaps the most important. It lets you know whether nvflash recognizes your gpu as nvidia.
The second command checks for compatibility of your eeprom with the particular version of nvflash. Hence, the program may recognize your card as nvidia but still may not be able to tamper with it for sake of compatibility.
The third command will attempt to remove write protect from the card just in case it’s on for some reason.
The fourth command will attempt to force-auto flash and reboot the computer.

Note: If the fourth command did work, the computer would reboot and do everything over and over until you stopped it but in that case you’d have a fixed graphics card and what is there to worry about? Again though, this process should take you about 2-3 min unless you flashed a bios with a different core, in which case, I believe the bios starts instantaneously and you just have to wait for the numlock for about an hour and another 30 min to boot the device.

If any of the commands give an error, the output file will only show the version of nvflash used and nothing else. Anyway, report back here with your file outputs and I can try to assist you.

Note: I haven't really read over this post again as Im pretty tired now.

[Ensui]

I'll try out this command string and see if it makes anything...

nvflash --list > output1.txt
nvflash -c > output2.txt
nvflash -r > output3.txt
nvflash -4 -5 -6 -A -y temp.rom > output4.txt

Should there be any reason why it's not producing the output files?

[zzpulp]

yes, the reason is that the bios is not even initiating. If you dont have the system led's (the eye candy ones that only come with xps) set to turn on upon bootup (I usually disable that but its enabled by default) then it would be a little difficult to set that up now without seeing the screen. If it is setup like that already then the led's coming on would indicate that the bios has initiated and is POST'ing

The other autoexec is no better than the one I listed earlier. The main point was to show you that the laptop can boot sometimes and not boot other times. In my case it was like 35% of the time it booted with a dead 7800gtx. If you are having problems booting even after extended periods, then most likely, your card is dead but if you really want to prove it you will want to keep trying to make it boot.

[Ensui]

You are right that the LEDs are turning on, luckily I didn't turn those off. So they do turn on, making me figure that the PC is posting, especially since I can run the FN Key Diagnostic and the keyboard seems to respond if I hit caps/scroll/num lock (if that makes a difference).

How can I tell if it really booted or not though? Just keep trying every hour and a half, then reboot if there are no results?

[zzpulp]

If your system led's turn on and you leave the card for an all-nighter and it still doesnt respond, I'd say to start looking for someone to buy a new gpu from. Your options, in this order, are x300, x600, 6800go, 6800go ultra, 7800go gtx

[Ensui]

Will do, thank you for your help.

Oh, um, I just thought of something last night. I know before I did my flash, I uninstalled my vid-card drivers since I was going to update with new ones from laptopvid2go after the flash. Do you think the fact that my vid drivers aren't currently installed would affect anything?

[zzpulp]

Oh, didnt know you edited your post. The video card drivers are just a way for your operating system to access the resources of your gpu. What we are doing with the videocard bios is controlling what those drivers would access. Hence we are performing low-level "modding" independent of the drivers.

Short answer: No.

[sevenflow]

Posting in this thread as requested. I think I probably killed the video card as well. I'm not sure if the num/caps/scroll locks cycle when it flashes; It usually takes an hour or so for it to do it, and I'm either not looking at it or not near enough to it to see it in time, unless the cycling is something that keeps happening.

In any case, the only constant is the numlight LED comes on and stays on after a while. Then I'll get two beeps out of it, and nothing happens.

Read through and I'm in the same boat as Ensui, almost exactly. I'll do the commands you gave him with output.txt files.

[zzpulp]

Sounds recoverable as it is performing just like my defunct 6800 ultra. Just tell me which autoexec you are tried/are gonna try.

[sevenflow]

nvflash -r
nvflash --list > output1.txt
nvflash -c > output2.txt
nvflash -b diag.rom
nvflash -k diag.rom > output3.txt
nvflash -4 -5 -6 -A -y temp.rom
del temp.rom

Going to try that, and paste the txt stuff here so someone better at this than I can interpret

Uh oh, page 8