M17x r2 wont boot, lights flickering - HELP!

Ok guys, so heres the story.

I changed the HWID's of the new VBIOS files from dell, then flashed them.
All I did was change the HWID from "unknown" to "HD5870 series".

Nothing else.

So yeah, now lappy wont boot.

Unless PRIMARY DISPLAY is NOT card0, then this shouldnt be happening.

So the flash pattern is:

NUMLOCK full on
Caps/Scroll lock flashing

I know the vbios should work, I have done this a million times.

So, im guessing there is some kind of HWID whitelisting going on? I really need to know if there is, and would appreciate brians input on this, otherwise something has gone wrong with the flash (but flash was verified ok).

To confirm, I flashed bios0 to primary card, bios1 to secondary card.

Please help asap!

-Ash

 

Sorry to inform you, but this is the pattern you see when you have a bricked card. The screen will stay off, and it should not even show you the alienhead bios screen upon booting up the laptop.

 

Yeah thats whats happening, but the flash was verified.

So, I am guessing there is some whitelisting going on?

-Ash

 

The Bios or the Mainboard or anything might prevent your newly set hardware id's that are not compatible, therefor it won't accept the "new" cards i think. Also the hardware id is a hex number afaik, that says if it's either a HD5870 or some other card. I think you should have changed just the subid to none from the standard dell subid, and not forcing the gpus to a new hardware id...

So that said, changing the hardware id of a card is a bad idea, as you cannot force a non-valid hardware id, to an as physically labeled hd5870...

 

Yep sorry to hear bout that Ash. When the scroll and caps lights are continually flashing the mainboard interpretation message for this instance is that there is something wrong with your GPU or GPUs.

The video card is preventing the system from completing POST.

I just had a scare like that just before. Literally a few minutes ago. Turns out I saw my crossfire cable was a little loose on the right side GPU. So I put it back in properly and I'm back now "phew".

Hopefully dell can replace your cards for you or something.

Cheers.

 

Cards are bricked, sorry Ash. Changing the hardware id means the system bios is no longer recognizing them.

 

Damnit. Another unnecessary "feature" added by dell.
Really, what is the point in whitelisting hardware?

Sent in a support reqest. I got a lan coming up on the 11th of this month. Lets see if Dell Australia can pull through lol.

Somehow I doubt it.

-Ash

 

If they've got inventory with the A01 cards, you will have it in 1-2 business days with a tech to install them. If not, then you may be waiting a bit longer but Brian mentioned that these new A01 cards were already on their way from China (the land where every single thing is made these days). BTW, notebooks always need the bios microcode to accommodate new cards, it's their way of controlling the platform and every vendor does it. Unfortunately they're not nearly as open as desktop systems due to a lack of proper standards, MXM doesn't cut it. Plus I think the 5870 being a 256 bit card with a different amount of shaders simply wouldn't have worked, might have had better luck with the 5750/5770 HWID.

 

Hey, i am sure you already diagnosed the issue, but for future use here's the LED Codes of M17x-R2.

 

I don't understand why you would do this? Changing the hardware IDs *WILL* almost certainly result in a toasted GPU. To make matters worse, we're already on hold for secondary cards due to the A00 issue... Going forward, this will not be covered under warranty, so if anyone else is thinking about doing this, please reconsider...

Please work with me here - if you guys start hacking stuff like this, engineering isn't going to want to release betas anymore...

 

Adding info to the main thread - this shouldn't be attempted.

 

Well as harsh it may sound, but sometimes you have to learn it the hard way. Of course i agree that such huge inflict into the hardware should not be done by any of us. I'm already shacking when i have to open my laptop and touch something and it could get electrified, i always make twice sure i do the right thing... (And in flashing a firmware, there is sometimes no twice...) That's how it goes sometimes o_o'

PS: But it shouldn't be releated to the new vbios only, as he could have done this also with the previous vbios, and it would have inflicted the same issue, no? If you do cease the beta releasing, i'm gladly willing to test all software releated updates or fixes if you need.

 

so I'm guessing the OP can't even blind flash back to original?

 

Nope, the system won't POST after the initial boot. No F2 or F12 to do anything.

 

Brian,

Just to be clear this has nothing to do with the vbios that engineering released. Ash modified his own vbios with his own know how and unfortunately this was the result. People have been flashing the vbios in the AW and other notebooks for a long time and have never run into problems but like I said, Ash just took a risk with trying something different and unfortunately it didn't pan out. Hopefully that doesn't impact AW's desire to release further beta vbios's because the two are completely unrelated.

 

He could blind flash back to the original vbios if he had access to an M17x-R1. The R1 has an integrated 9400m which would still POST and he could then force flash the dead video cards back to their working state. I hope everyone understands that changing parameters on their vbios is ill advised for a notebook. This isn't like a desktop system where you have the freedom to make multitudes of adjustments to the vbios, one little change will brick them.

 

Agreed.

Brian, so you understand, I used the "change hwid" feature of RBE to change the identifier of the cards so the official AMD drivers work, rather than the dell drivers.

My main motivation for doing this is my dual display problems which I am yet to hear anything about. If after doing this flash my screen still did not work, I was going to put in an RMA request.

I have been flashing video bioses for years, and this was no different. The cards, im guessing, still actually work, its the system bios blocking them from doing so.

If I put them into an R1 it would be easily fixed.

This is all information I have given to Dell technical support, and I would prefer to fix my existing hardware with their assistance, so dont think im trying to pull a scam here.

HOWEVER:
Being unable to use my $1k+ DELL monitor with my $4k+ DELL notebook is unacceptable and if replacing my GPU's does fix the issue, then the hardware was faulty all along.

-Ash

 

Ash, can you add in details on your display (Model#/method of connection to 17xR2)? Since its a Dell display, Brian may want this info. I know you mentioned it in another thread (I believe), but having it here may help as well. Just a thought.

 

I already pm'd brian with an exhaustive amount of information, as he instructed me.

So for all I know is "engineering were unable to replicate the issue".

-Ash

 

No problem. Others here might be able to duplicate it but no worries.

 

Which monitor you referring to?

 

Any monitor, actually, does the same thing, on every port.

In my case, Dell U2711.

-Ash

 

Ah. I hope it's only problem w/ the 5 series GPU...

My adapter from Dell should be here by tomoz... costing me 120 bucks.. just to use the damn 3007wfp.

 

Pretty sure it is only the 5 series, or just MY cards.

Someone with 4 series tested for me and they were fine.

-Ash

 

I'm also having a problem with my external monitor. It is a different problem, but also started occuring when I got my 5870. On my 4870 the problem was not there. So there might be some basic problem with external screen support. Im sorry if this is not relevant in this thread.

I'm running a U2410 to extend my desktop and the M17x keeps 'losing' it. Sometimes it will just disappear and I'm back to running a single display (as in the M17x panel).

Even though the native resolution for the U2410 screen is 1920x1200, I cannot run it higher than 1600x1200 as the M17x will not show the higher resolution as an option.

All this is during regular work running the regular 2D clocks.

Oh, and this is on both my cards. The original and the replacement (I'm not running CF) show the same behaviour. Also the stock Dell driver and the new Beta show the same behaviour.

 

What cable are you running? If its VGA then this is normal.

-Ash

 

I was running a regular VGA cable, an have now switched to an HDMI cable. with the HDMI it does get to 1920x1200.

The strange thing is that the same VGA cable on my 4870 did run ar 1920x1200