sevenflow Posted July 18, 2007 Report Share Posted July 18, 2007 In the process of updating my laptop's nVidia drivers, I think I killed it. I'm now posting this from my desktop. :) Here's the breakdown: * Dell Inspiron 9300 * nVidia Geforce 6800 GO (256MB) * After the update, current drivers would be 91.33 * I don't remember exactly what the last useable drivers were, but I believe they were the 84.21 drivers. * Windows XP Pro (32bit) * Now for the descripton of the problem. I cleaned the old drivers with Driver Cleaner, flashed the bios with nvwinflash, and installed the 91.33 drivers. After that, I restarted the laptop. Upon restart, nothing seems to happen. The lights on the console flash like normal, but nothing seems to boot. The monitor won't turn on, whether I use external or built in, and I can only hear one fan barely running. I know the hard drive still works, because I hear it running, yet windows isn't loading. I know this because, when windows loads, it takes time for the laptop to shut down when you press the power button; it goes through the shutdown process. Now, however, it shuts down IMMEDIATELY when I press the power button. My USB mouse light comes on, and my USB keyboard (Eclipse) lights up, making me think windows was loading, but now I have no idea. I'm now relatively sure it's more than a simple case of the monitor not working. So now, as it stands, I have an expensive, proprietary lump of parts. Any help you can throw my way would be appreciated. Feel free to ask any questions I didn't cover. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ice-Tea Posted July 19, 2007 Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 Did you backup your vBios before flashing? I doubt this is a problem of drivers, sounds more like a vBios prob. Drivers are for Windows, meaning that boot should not be affected... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenflow Posted July 20, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 20, 2007 Did you backup your vBios before flashing? I doubt this is a problem of drivers, sounds more like a vBios prob. Drivers are for Windows, meaning that boot should not be affected... No, I was stupid and didn't back up my vBios. Even if I had, the monitor doesn't come on, so I can't tell what it's doing anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobilenvidia Posted July 20, 2007 Report Share Posted July 20, 2007 There are ways to flash your BIOS. 1st find an original BIOS for your GPU 2nd Get a USB drive or make a bootable CD (USB is easier) 3rd Copy the Original BIOS ot the USB drive and the Flash app. 4th Make the or boot to the USB/CD 5th update the BIOS with original. Now you should have a working machine again. If the machine displays nothing then you'll have to do it blindly. You are in a pickle but with some patience you should be able to get it sorted (I did on my i9400) Get hold of zzpulp at notebookforums and get his guide to restoreing the video BIOS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenflow Posted July 23, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 23, 2007 Okay, I did all that stuff. I'm STILL not sure that I have the right vBios for my GPU, as I can't seem to find any except this one. I don't even know if it will work. I've been trying it for a while now, and I've got nothing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobilenvidia Posted July 23, 2007 Report Share Posted July 23, 2007 Get over to www.notebookforums.com, put a post in the Dell section (I assume 17") and ask for someone to send you a BIOS backup of their i9300 with the same GPU. Hopefully there arn't too many revisions of the video card. Now this BIOS should be the right one to flash. Also have a look at the System BIOS upgrades , sometimes this has a video BIOS upgrade as well. This may safe your bacon as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenflow Posted July 23, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 23, 2007 Get over to www.notebookforums.com, put a post in the Dell section (I assume 17") and ask for someone to send you a BIOS backup of their i9300 with the same GPU.Hopefully there arn't too many revisions of the video card. Now this BIOS should be the right one to flash. Also have a look at the System BIOS upgrades , sometimes this has a video BIOS upgrade as well. This may safe your bacon as well. My question now, I guess, would be: to do a blind system bios update, would I just load the A05I9300.EXE onto the flash drive and change autoexec.bat to A05I9300.EXE, so as to execute it on startup? I don't know if there will be on screen instructions that require user input... if so, I think I'm screwed, as my monitor doesn't come on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobilenvidia Posted July 24, 2007 Report Share Posted July 24, 2007 Only attempt it if the system BIOS contains a Video BIOS as well, there is a small chance that Dell sometimes includes one. Otherwise you neeed to get the video BIOS upgraded via a bootdisk/drive. See Notebookforums for more info on my experience. If all comes to naught then only thing is to get a new video card, going reasonably on ebay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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