Acer 5920 GPU... downgrade. I need a few bits of advice.

Hello all!
I'm trying to resuscitate a video-dead 5920g. A friend of mine has an MXM-II video card, it's a 7300go - 256MB.
Two questions for you:

1) I found an Acer bios for a 7300go, but it's made for the 128MB version (found it here techPowerUp! :: Video Bios Collection ). Will it work as well?
2) When I attach the new GPU (with the OLD, Asus bios) to my 5920g, will I be able to see something, i.e. to get a text environment where I can flash the new bios?

Thanks for all of your kind answers,
Alessandro

 

AFAIK you should not need to flash the VBIOS to get the card to work (unless either the original card has a non-conforming BIOS or the replacement BIOS is specifically for the 5920G). However, an SBIOS flash may be required, to correct the MXM structure errors of the 5920G.

Note that the MXM-corrected 5920G BIOS I've posted recently may not help in this case, as I suspect that the 7300 is an MXM1.x card, while my BIOS mod contains an MXM2.x structure, which is not fully backwards compatible. It is not hard to re-patch the BIOS with an MXM1.x structure, though.

 

Friend says the card should be MXM-II, he took it from an Asus A8J.
It's worth a shot anyways ^^
I'll post back when I'll have my hands on it (tomorrow, I think). Thanks for you reply!
Alessandro

 

MXM-II != MXM v2.

Roman numerals signify the form factor, while Arabic numerals are the MXM version. The 5920G supports MXM-I v2.x and MXM-II v2.x cards natively, and MXM-I v1.x and MXM-II v1.x with a BIOS patch. (MXM v1 and v2 look identical - in fact, they only differ in VBIOS.)

BTW, Asus A8j uses RP-MXM-II (reverse-plug), not standard MXM, so you won't be able to fit an A8j card in a 5920G (which is regular MXM, not RP).

 

Now I'm sad.