Bios Help + Bios Editor

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JJ91284

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Mar 28, 2007
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JJ91284 said:
Hi

I have a Dell Inspiron E1505 that I purchased less than 2 years ago and purchased it almost totally decked out. Unfortunately, I didn't know I purchased the laptop at the end of that chassis/chipset design as they switch over to the 965 instead of the 945 chipset. I have always been displeased with the ATI x1400 video card which is a shared 256mb (hypermemory) video card which utilizes your ram for the additional video memory.

Being that I enjoy cracking open electronics and modifying them I under took the task of retrofitting a Dell 8600m gt card. I had to desolder the NIC port on the board as well as the wireless apdapter port on the motherboard and the wireless card attachment on the board. I made a 1/4 inch thick custom copper heatsink that mounts where the stock heatsink went. I had to do a bunch of other tweaks but it looks to be good and you can't tell from the outside that anythings been modded. I will be getting a wirless and ethernet card that slides into the side of the pcmcia slot of my laptop.

Now the problem I can't get my laptop to take nvidia's 8600m gt video drivers. I think this is because my bios doesn't recognize the card. When I enter Dell's bios, it states under video settings (can't modify them)

Video Controller = Unknown
Video Bios Version = .060.084.050.000.002.000
Video Memory = 256mb


I believe that my bios is reading the card since it picks up that my 8600m gt card is 256mb of video ram.

SO the question is, how can I get my bios to pickup the card. I checked under device manager and it shows my video controller (VGA as having 14mb). I ran the vista score test and it gave me a 1 in graphics score so its definitely not working.

In a nut shell, Need to get Dell inspiron E1505 with an ati x1400 card to read a Dell 8600m gt card. I have the latest E1505 bios version which is A17. I was thinking of flashing my motherboard with a inspiron 1520 bios or a XPS M1530 bios, but the chipset is a different family and that could render my motherboard dead. I'm also considering flashing my MB bios with a Intel 945pm series bios which might work as wel..
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I originally posted this in the mobile part of this forum, but thought this could apply to desktops as well. I think their is only 3 ways to attack this problem and I'd appreciate any constructive feedback you guys might have

Current system is Dell E1505
T7200 processor
4 gb ddr2 6400 (not installed yet, have just 2gb in their this moment)
320gb Hard Drive
WSXGA+ screen
ATI X1400 video card (8600m GT trying to get it up and running)

As you can see this laptop is still a very good system and I'd like to get it back up and running.


A) Flash bios with the inspiron 1520 which replaced my laptop and supported this video card. The flaw to this is that the MB chipsets are different 945 vs 965. They share lots of similarities though.

B) Flash bios with non dell bios and use instead intels 945 bios. This hyperthetically would allow me to change cpu specs and should allow driver support. Downside of this would be for sure that my OS would no longer be valid and I'd need to either put Win 7 on it or put a new vista cd key on. Theirs also potential for the bios not to take and I'd have to buy a new bios chip and solder it on my MB since its soldered on. Its only an 8 pin chip so I shouldn't have to much of an issue with this.

C) Find a utility that can read Dell Bios's and find whats different in the Dell Insiron 1520 and copy that section to my E1505 bios. THen flash the bios and hopefully it'd work.


Anyone know of a bios utility that I can use to edit the MB bios?
 
Now that's pretty damn [H]ardcore, lol. Option A is out, I wouldn't even try unless you've got a spare BIOS chip handy. I doubt option B would work, either, as there are many changes to the reference design implemented by manufacturers, so again, I wouldn't try. C is your best bet, but I don't even have a clue where to start, sorry. I'd start with forums that talk about editing the slic tables in BIOSes, as those are the only BIOS tools I know of off the top of my head.
 
enginurd said:
Now that's pretty damn [H]ardcore, lol. Option A is out, I wouldn't even try unless you've got a spare BIOS chip handy. I doubt option B would work, either, as there are many changes to the reference design implemented by manufacturers, so again, I wouldn't try. C is your best bet, but I don't even have a clue where to start, sorry. I'd start with forums that talk about editing the slic tables in BIOSes, as those are the only BIOS tools I know of off the top of my head.
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Right, LOL

I'm not entirely sure what the SLIC table is. From what I've tried to find online is that it is basically a footprint in the bios (OEM PC manufacturers) which is what microsoft windows uses for verification in a bios.

I might try to install this program which is shown on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIfZwlwQZHk


Any other ideas people, keep them coming
 
Vista? get 7 on there. Hm... have you tried manually installing the driver?
 
enginurd said:
Vista? get 7 on there. Hm... have you tried manually installing the driver?
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I own Win 7 Pro 64 bit on my desktop and haven't upgraded my vista 32 Home on my laptop yet. I use Vista 32bit on my laptop because I know it works for my Car Tuning Software and am not sure if it would work under Win 7 so I haven't updated it yet. I don't really think the OS would make a difference for recognizing the video card.

As far as manually installing the driver, what do you mean exactly? I've tried downloading the 8600m video driver from Nvidia's site directly and it won't install. I also tried installing the inspiron 1520 video driver and also the XPS M1530 video driver since they both use this video card and had no luck. Windows Doesn't recognize new hardware on startup and thats why I checked under device manager and realized it didn't see it there either.
 
Extract the files out of the Nvidia installer (using 7-Zip or similar) and simply browse to that location in Device Manager, rather than running the installer.

Also, check the Vendor and Device Hardware IDs in the Details of the 8600's Properties page.
 
InvisiBill said:
Extract the files out of the Nvidia installer (using 7-Zip or similar) and simply browse to that location in Device Manager, rather than running the installer.

Also, check the Vendor and Device Hardware IDs in the Details of the 8600's Properties page.
Click to expand...

I extracted the driver like you stated using the program link you supplied. I tried running the application and it gave me the same error. How did you want me to go about installing it?

Also to check Vendor and Device Hardware ID, doesn't that require the PC to recognize the card. Under Device Manager it only sees the card as a standard VGA graphics adapter. Everest Ultimate edition is the only thing that sees it as an 8600m gt video card.
 
manually selecting the driver instead of running any installer. there's an update driver button in device manager. choose the driver manually, instead of letting windows search for it.
 
enginurd said:
manually selecting the driver instead of running any installer. there's an update driver button in device manager. choose the driver manually, instead of letting windows search for it.
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Yeah, I already tried that and it just says the best driver software for you device is up to date

That's with trying Nvidia's 8 series mobile card drivers along with the inspiron 1520 and xps m1530 drivers which use this card.

I think bios editing is the only way to get this to work:(
 
Did you specify a location and let it search there? If so, there should be another option that lets you specifically choose the driver to install. I don't have a win7 system in front of me right now, so I can't really tell you step by step -- but there should be a way to install a driver regardless of whether the best driver is currently installed or not.
 
I think I'm on to something. So I've been doing a bunch of google searching and came upon a program that can read Pheonix Bios.


I took a snapshot of my stock ATI X1400 VGA card (in the laptop) and the picture shows it below, then I took a picture of the 8600m gt in the laptop as well. Tonight or tomorrow I'll be heading over to my sisters place to install the software and take a snapshot of her inspiron 1720 (which is using the same 8600m gt card).

ATI X1400 Pic




Nvidia 8600m GT Pic




Sisters 8600m GT Pic (soon to come)
 
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