Blind Flashing and You - Page 7

This depends on your card's version which you will not be able to find out by the conventional methods listed here anymore. I will explain how to find out in an autoexec. Actually, rethinking this, I'm guessing the rom's on stormlifter's iso were rev0 roms. You need to find a rev1 rom which you can find in the "Unlocked Nvidia ....." thread that is also stickied here. I'm not quite sure I understand you. How many beeps and do you mean when you are using nvflash? You can triple post in any thread I create, it won't bother me. Alternatively, you can just edit your post to include new information. That works as long as you don't want people to see from the forum index that you have added new info. Anyway, if you haven't already, read my first post. This contains all the information I'd say that you need to know. Everything else, I can walk you through. Here's the autoexec I recommend you use if you are using the version of nvflash I included. (By now, you should have the rom that you need to use for your rev1 card) Only one of these commands is necessary to flash the card. Everything else is just for debugging purposes. If you are welcomed by a fixed card after flashing and rebooting then good. If not, post the contents of output[1-3].txt here

I was in a similar situation with a 7800GTX. The system did not want to post but I could force it to about 10% of the time just by continually booting. I could tell when it posted because I had set the XPS led's to turn on when the system booted for diagnostic purposes. These led's turn on before the other system led's (numlock namely).

If you could get a PCMCIA card then I suppose you could leave the "broken" card out and boot it up, then plug the broken card in and try nvflash --list. Going through the trouble of getting the card may not be worth it though because I think they are rare and expensive.

Trouble is that when I had a card that didn't post anymore, it was not even recognized by nvflash anymore. It could tell it was a 7800 GTX but it complained about some initialization error I believe.

And not to be rude, but it is your choice what you tell Dell if you choose that route. I am not gonna coach you on how to reclaim undeserving warranty.

Unless you know how to modify your system bios to disable the videocard test in POST then I doubt you will be able to boot (consistently at least) with that dead card.

Yes a constant on and off.

Also note that I am pretty much the only one that keeps up with this thread so I'm not sure how many responses you are going to get from other people.

Ok, I forgot another possibility. This is what I did as well. I would boot the system up with a good card and then replace the card with the faulty card (not exactly safe but whatever). Anyway, like I said, nvflash couldn't initialize my GPU so it didn't help. If nvflash still can perform operations on your card then you would be good to go.

GPU's that "should" work that I know of are:
ATI X300, X600, X1400
NVIDIA 6800, 6800 ultra, 7800 GTX, 7900 GS, 7900 GTX, 7950 GTX
Quadro 1500M, 2500M, 3500M

The cheapest options would be to get one of the ATI cards. I think someone has the X1400 for $50 to $100 shipped from the forums. And I know that someone has the X300 for around $40.

Beware that the X300, X600, 6800's, and 7800 GTX would all require you to bend the heatsink to fit it in (unless you have an extra heatsink). No big problem if you dont plan on using the card again.

Its just a Dell BIOS. They aren't exactly keen on helping out modders hence the CPU lock as well.

My problem wasn't similar to his. I booted the card just fine and could get nvflash to identify it. Just an nvflash error that prevented me from flashing it. If I could have found the datasheets for the card then I would have used the -j option.

Anyway, I know the generic layout of an EEPROM but I didn't see anything there that could help me. I dont know why he grounded chip select since there is an option in nvflash as to which card you want to flash. Nevermind, I see that he grounded it just to boot. I really cant see how thats gonna help you though. I dont think our systems boot without identifying a GPU. So I can only see the 2 GPU option working for you.

There are two different revisions of the 2500M but I believe they are compatible with each other.

Keep in mind this hotswapping may just be a waste of money if nvflash spits you the same error it did me.

I mean normally flashing takes around 15 seconds if you had the autoexec ready and booted straight to usb.

With a corrupted EEPROM, there really is no limit. Like I said, one of my cards took 1 hour and 30 minutes to recover.

The rev0 and rev1 refer to the GS which can be flashed with the 7900 GTX bios. I believe the 7900 GTX has only one revision (rev0?). Anyway, dont get too crazy with the flashes because you can make it worse.

I will be back by shortly with an autoexec you can try.

Actually I can give you the autoexec now. I just need to confirm later exactly what text should be generated. Rar out[1-6].txt, diag.rom, and [romname].rom (the rom you are gonna flash) all together and attach it here so I can have a look.