Modifying Dell laptop bios for another video card.

Recommended by Wim's BIOS...

This was something I tried to figure out a few years ago.

I have a Dell Inspiron 4100 which has a Radeon M6 (7000) card in it.
The Inspiron 4150 has a Radeon 7500 card in it. I bought the 7500 card off ebay and put it in my laptop but it booted with no video. Dell embeds the video bios inside the main bios but when I was messing with it, the only bios hacking tools out there were for Award.

The card itself is good because I can load a Mobility 7500 bios into ram using vgabios.exe and the display activates.

If I boot with a video card in the dock, I can get into windows and try to load the video drivers. (It sees the card as a 7500) but it gets a "device cannot start (Code 10)" So it all comes down to the bios itself.

The 8xxx series laptops by dell don't have this issue because it seems the bios is on the card or it uses some kind of unified bios.

At one point when I was discussing this on Dell's forum. I got an e-mail from their legal department saying they were getting uncomfortable with what I was talking about.... Go figure.

DELL BIOS modification utilities are currently in development....

Please get in contact with me.

Borg Number One wrote:

DELL BIOS modification utilities are currently in development....

Please get in contact with me.

I'd like to hear if you can assist with an XPS M170 bios mod that would accomodate the newer geforce 7900 GTX.

Hi.

Because the low number of donations, I had to discontinue the project.

Also the BNOBTC (BIOS Tool collection) will completely discontinue and BNOBTCv6 will never be published, if no donations will be made in future.


http://bnobtc.pix-art.com/donation

Borg Number One wrote:

Hi.

Because the low number of donations, I had to discontinue the project.

Also the BNOBTC (BIOS Tool collection) will completely discontinue and BNOBTCv6 will never be published, if no donations will be made in future.


http://bnobtc.pix-art.com/donation

Well that is not good...

Let me say this if you can help those of us in this thread here:

http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=154441

I'm sure you would get some donations. But may I remind you donations means giving for something you feel has value.

If you can provide this valued service you would get donations. However asking for money upfront is not a good strategy...

I think I speak for the majority of folks on the thread above when I say we would be glad to contribute when we see something from you....

[KURIAKI]

Borg Number One wrote:

Hi.

Because the low number of donations, I had to discontinue the project.

I can understand you.
My BIOS database Project:

Year____$ received___Total BIOS
1999________0_________349
2000________0________1,026
2001________0________4,953
2002________0_______13,784
2003________0_______29,632
2004________0_______51,329
2005_______10_______84,641
2006_______40_______96,794

And I'm still working without donations.
Database maintenance costs me more than 200 dollars a month...

After further four weeks of modifying BIOS files and providing BIOS related technical support for many people, no donations were made by any user.
Just thanksgivings were made... that's all.

So, you surely know what will happen with the BNOBTC project and the BNOBTC archive ( http://bnobtc.pix-art.com/bnobtcv5.rar ).


...it is time to say good bye ... forever.

Except any miracle appears.

Hello,

I am sorry to read the project was discontinued. Have made a small (Excuse for) a donation. I had hope the effort might continue because in a few months I planned on beginning my own project.

I did eventurally find your anouncement on the project end. BUT like so many other self serving people I was only looking for your email address. I did not even read the main text of your message until later.

I have a copy of the Phoenix 2.18 editor from your tool Collection. Perhaps at some point in the future will be generous again.

I sincerely thank you for your efforts and your generiouty and I hope you are rewarded for your efforts.

Thank you
Martin Toth

Borg Number One wrote:

Hi.

Because the low number of donations, I had to discontinue the project.

Also the BNOBTC (BIOS Tool collection) will completely discontinue and BNOBTCv6 will never be published, if no donations will be made in future.


http://bnobtc.pix-art.com/donation