m5500 bios upgrade - Page 2

I have its Fujitsu Siemens (Bios 1.23 => 6130 3D Mark06) sister model, and yes M5550-R3 (based on the same barebone) indeed runs with the 9600M GT/ 770M Qaudro, but there are also two caveats to the mod.

First, the card will produce a 30 secs warning screen along with beeping about missing MXM structure in the mainboard bios.
This counter can be be decreased from 30 secs to 1 sec with a hex-Editor mod of the card's Bios:

http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/top...-secs-startup/


Second, the clock rates have to be moddified with NiBitor, as the card will only ramp up
the clock speeds to low3D rates due to the Bios warning.
Can be easily done following Nightwalker's guide, who first introduced the mod to make
the card run at full speeds in a Asus C90S:
http://home.nctv.com/nightwalker/C90...20upgrade.html

EDIT: Yes, hes the one ^ What do you think about flashing the card to a 9600m gt, would it help?

[irrelevant]No, only fujitsu/uniwill BIOS. I do not know the equivalent model numbers. I have found a more extensive thread about it but I don't know where it is now.[/irrelevant]

HP elitebook 8530w graphics cards work on it, they are MXM 2.1 type II. The fx 770m is like a geforce 9600m GT.

Maybe the 9600m GT is supported in which case I could just flash the VBIOS instead. I have 20 cards. Guess I'm the only one on Ebay LOL.

There is also an ati 3650 ddr3 (and 4670 ddr3... somewhere) which will physically fit. It all depends on compatible VBIOS and system BIOS support.

Well, learning something new everyday

How are you keeping visionary? Kinda late for both of us I know

cheers ...

True, but I've already been sitting in my bed for 1 hour

@niffcreature
I wouldn't consider flashing my 770M to 9600M GT for a nanosecond, as it is absolutely on par with 9600M GT in directx and more than twice as fast in 3D-CAD applications (let alone the potential danger of bricking the card).
Driverwise, it doesn't really matter whether I use Forceware or Quadro.

MXM II 2.1 4650 DDR3 are incredibly hard to come by, but I assume they could even have a slight edge on the 9600M GT.

Your telling a guy who flashed the quadro fx 3700m to a gtx 280m.
I've also flashed 3600m to 9800m GT even tho they only have 64 shaders. Those ones were from the hp 8710p, and they only worked on external display until I did that

I did flash the VBIOS on one of my 770m cards to that of a 9600m but something VERY strange happened...... it works perfectly, but its still a 770m. including device IDs. but the BIOS on the card is still for a 9600m GT.

Anyway done bragging or whatever, point is VBIOS flashing is not nearly as scary as everyone thinks it is. 'bricking' usually means you have to do a blind flash to the stock BIOS, which is pretty easy.

Also the 4670 is quite a jump over the 9600m GT. Its almost on par with the GTS 250m. Like, yeah.
The only laptops sold with it were the MSI gx623 and ex625.

I pretty much suspected this behavior. Why would there be a legit reason for NVidia to
lock flashing a "superior" card to a mainstream card? You can only go from better to "worse"...

The other way around is a no-brainer, no one would fork out a couple of hundred dollars more for a professional card if every mainstream card could be crossflashed.

3600M has 96 shader to my knowledge, but good on you that you had the balls to try it
with so many different cards.
Blindflashing is not the problem, but once the Bios chip has thoroughly conked out
you have to go some lengths to get the card back to a working state.

Ok, just read your earlier post stating it's for the M5550, not the M5500. I just don't want people who still have the M5500 to try and flash to a BIOS that won't work with their system.

Can someone post a link for BIOS 2.03 for the M5500 (The links to it in this thread are dead). I'm having issues getting Win 7 to recognize the USB ports as USB 2.0 (Enhanced) - I currently have BIOS 2.03w installed on my M5500. Changing the USB BIOS setting to High Performance in this version of the BIOS makes no difference to the Win 7 installation process or when I try to force a driver update via device manager. Maybe I'll have better luck with 2.03 if I'm able to downgrade the BIOS on the laptop.

If unable to get 2.03 on the M5500.... which "appears" to be an older version than 2.03w... is there any other way to force Win 7 to recognize that the USB ports are 2.0?

Thanks...

This is an old thread, so I hope it's not a problem posting here.

 

I'm trying to fix my sisters old laptop and changed the hard disk, as the original hard disk ended up faulty. Though now it is not recognized, my thought is that the bios 2.02 (http://www.uniwill.com/UserDownload/259EN/259EN3.php) doesn’t allow an 160gb hard disk (no smaller hard disk available) so I am desperately  trying to find a newer bios.

The bios is for the 259EN3, which means the Alienware M5500 bios updates apply as well, as I found in endless threads, with unfortunate all dead links.

 

My question: is there anyone that still has the file or able to retrieve from the bios version 2.03 or higher?

I doubt that a newer BIOS would fix the issue of not supporting drive size more than 120GB on this model.. Your best bet is to partition it into 2 (120 +40 per example) and then install OS

cheers ...

Thanks for your reply.

 

Sunday I will check if the new hard disk works in a different laptop, it's the following hard disk: Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD1600BEVE , 160GB PATA-100, 8MB, 5400rpm.

 

It seems that this morning the bios found the hard disk, though says it is not supported and dousn't give any other info like size. Also I should have mentioned the hard disk makes a strange sound when the laptop starts up, as describing this sound is a bit difficult i will post a soundclip later on. The sound is every time the same and it issn't a klikking sound. I think the sound is describable as a floppy drive reading a floppy disk.

 

P.s.

 

Perhaps this now becomes a bit unrelated to this thread and i should make a new one?

Absolutely. Make a new thread pertaining to your concern would be easy for us all to follow up. And yes, sounded like your hard drive is failing big time.

cheers ...

Hello:

 

I am also trying to get a copy of your AMI BIOS version 2.03W, KBC 2.03, Build Date 04/21/06 for my Alienware Area 51M-5500 which you previously posted from your 'My Hive' account. However, your previous link is dead.

 

Could you please re-post this link?

 

Thanks in advance. 

 

Hello again:

 

I am still trying to get a copy of AMI BIOS version 2.03, 04/21/06 for my Alienware Area 51M-5500 which you previously posted from your 'My Hive' account. However, your previous link is dead.

 

Could you please re-post this link?

 

Thanks in advance. 

 

Here are my system specs:

 

System Manufacturer American Megatrends Inc

System Model 255/259 Series

System Type X86-based PC

Processor x86 Family 6 Model 13 Stepping 8 Genuine Intel [Pentium M 740] 1733 Mhz 

BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 2.01, 10/27/2005

System Model 255/259 Series

Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB

 

Alienware M51 M5500 BIOS 2.03

http://www.desktopforums.com/post3111806.html#post3111806

Use it at your own risk!

cheers ...

This is an ISO image file.  My DVD/CDROM is not working (which is why I need to upgrade my BIOS).  Would you kindly re-post/convert this ISO image file to the raw BIOS file?

 

Thanks in advance. 

Sorry, it won't work. The files are hidden and can only be seen from the system once it's been booted from the CD

Try borrowing an external USB optical drive.

cheers ...

From the readme file at extraction ...

"Area-51 m5500 BIOS Update v2.03 Bootable CD-ROM

If you are reading this text, the BIOS flash image you have just burnt onto this CD was completed successfully. The BIOS flash files are hidden files and therefore you will only be able to see them after booting your computer using this bootable BIOS Flash CD.

Before you run the BIOS update:
1. Make sure that your computer has the battery and the AC-Adapter connected
2. Disconnect any third party peripherals connected to the computer
3. Do NOT turn the computer off during the BIOS update
4. Do NOT to restart the computer during the BIOS update
5. Do NOT eject the CD-ROM from the drive during the BIOS update

CAUTION: Improperly updating or flashing the BIOS CMOS chip on a motherboard can damage it to the point of rendering it useless. Accordingly, you should perform this BIOS update only with the assistance of an Alienware technical support agent. Performing this BIOS update without such assistance will void your system's warranty.

Please leave this CD in your primary optical drive and restart your system. Once your system has booted into a command prompt, you will be requested to type the command “RUNME” in order start the BIOS flash sequence.

Note: You may need to change your system boot sequence in the System BIOS in order to boot from this CD-ROM. Refer to the User’s Manual (Chapter 2 – Page 7) for more information.

If you are not planning to flash your system’s BIOS, please remove this CD prior to restarting your system."

cheers ...