Flashing I8200 with M50 BIOS

[Keystone]

Im interested in flashing my Inspiron 8200 with the M50 BIOS.

I am one the lucky people with a Quadro4 700 Go GL and a samsung sec3255 UXGA screen. Apparently, any driver after 91.28 should have support for the quadro4/sec3255 combo, but alas, I am still getting a black screen with a colored stripe.

My guess is that there is something to do with the way the bios and driver interact, and since the I8200 never really shipped with quadro4's, the fix in 91.28+ is for the M50 and C840s.

I tried using the flash tool from Dell.com, but it says I have the wrong system (and its right!)

Bill, do you think you could lead me to directions on flashing my I8200 to an M50 bios? Of course I will post my results =)

[Bill]

It probably will not help you at all, but if you insist go download the Latitude C840 A13 floppy BIOS.

Next up put it on your floppy drive and then boot to the floppy with your laptop plugged in and a fully charged battery.

It will then try and run the flash program, but it won't do it.

So now you should be presented with a command prompt deal.

Type in this:

A:\C840_A13.EXE /forceit /forcetype /nvram

That should work, with C840_A13.EXE hopefully being the name of the BIOS flash program. (if not change it appropriately)

You want the C840 A13 because it is newer than the M50 A12, and it will still recognize your Quadro equipped laptop as a M50.

All going well it should ask if you want to flash your I8200 to a Precision M50, and you need to select yes a few times.

After words it will flash and you will keep your I8200 splash screen, removing the /nvram command will flash the latitude one which is probably ugly.

Next boot and go right into the BIOS, you should see something like this now.

*I will insert the proper picture when I find it, all I have up is this right now*

As I have said Dell's M50 BIOS will only get you A12.

The Latitude C840 A13 is basically equivalent to the I8200 A11 BIOS.

You will notice more devices in the boot selection menu, having to do with the docking station you can now use.

There is also an option to boot from an external graphics card if one is present, and an option to change how it configures your hardware when docked, don't mess with this one right now.

Otherwise the feature set is basically the same.

Now when you go into windows, it is like you swapped motherboards with a different laptop, and windows has to go rediscover a decent part of your hardware devices, some you might have some duplicates in the device manager.

However in a about a minute you should be logged back on into windows.

Afterwards you can now use a C/Dock II docking station with 2 full size desktop PCI slots, however you will lose the ability to use the regular Inspiron Port replicator.

Also if Dell ever releases a A14 C840 BIOS, you can now update to that from Windows, but that is unlikely to ever happen, and a new system BIOS isn't needed anyway, they have basically fixed all the system BIOS level bugs in this thing.

Happy Flashing, and don't break anything.

[Keystone]

Thanks Bill, I let you know how it goes!! :)

[Keystone]

sigh....still no luck...

I'll let you know if a windows XP re-install does anything.

[Bill]

Thats an even bigger waste of time, don't do it.

There is definitely a driver/INF combination that works, this issue WAS fixed somehow, salzrat should know what it was.

*searches*

This is a specific card and LCD and driver issue.

http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index....ost&p=20610

That is the issue I believe your have, caused by a faulty controller board on the LCD screen most likely.

I see your already ahead of me and have found this topic while I have been at school discussing the fine aspects of donuts and home made projectors with my assistant principal.

http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index.php?showtopic=9938