ViciousXUSMC's W90 Limit Breaker Guide

Yes the bios are on the cards by themselves but in all honesty you have 0 to lose at this point and since the symptoms you described are exactly the same as i had then its atleast worth a try . Pulling the card out and putting it back in takes 0 effort really so again theres no reason not to give it a shot. if all else fails just box up the card or both cards for that matter and ship them out even if it takes a week or 2 to i would say it will be worth it in the end, though im not sure how shipping is handled to and from Iraq and whether you can receive personal packages etc .

 

Ok, you said it happend from MB bios tho right? Do you know somewhere I may be able to get these cards fixed? Im thinking about paying someone on here $100.00 to reflash my cards for me.

 

One step at a time . Try what i said since you have to pull the cards either way .Also try this if the other options dont work . Pull the slave card first then try to power on the machine, if that doesnt work then pull the master card and put the slave in its place of the master and try to boot again . Im not sure how computer savvy you are but these are just some of the things i would be trying long before shipping anything out . When i flashed the bios on the mainboard in hopes of finding a bios that gave the CPU the Voltage i was looking for and the machine crapped out on me i was freaking out for the first few hours with "Oh no i just killed my brand new machine" but after i came to my senses i started trouble shooting and with in a couple hours after that my machine was up and running..

Oh and if anything of these things fix it you can just mail me a check JK .

 

oh, believe me I tried just about everything I could think of. I tried just the slave, just the master and every combo in between. I did pull the main board battery too but not for 10min, I also tried the reset button but only one click and I left the battery in when I did it. Speaking if which option worked for you? I know I jumpy about this but I use my computer to talk to my family back home so whithout it I cant video chat with them. But is there any website you know of that sells parts for the PC? I figure if I can buy a new card I can use it to fix my others.

 

Those parts are not readily available to the public sadly . Even worse as of right now this computer is to new and a very hot commodity so finding spare parts is going to be virtually impossible . I dont think Asus will sell you spare parts either or atleast from every other forum ive read where people were trying to buy new video cards for the older machines they had no success . Its going to be hard to call Asus and explain what happened without destroying your warranty so i wouldnt even chance that either. Since you seemed to have tried everything i suggested then im not sure whats up but it sounds like you flashed the slave cards bios to the main cards so you ended up with 2 slave cards and thats why you have no video posting . Theres another thing you can try and its one of the things im not sure if it was part of my fixing my issue or not but there is a small bowl shaped hole near the battery compartment and speaking with someone else who fixes and sells these machines said that it could be a bios reset so its was a worth a try as well .take a small sized screwdriver or allen wrench and push it in that hole . It does not feel like a button or anything but just push down in there gently and see if you get any results from that because that hole is there for a reason and were not sure what it is. Im giving you every suggestion i can think of but were running out of options here my friend so just keep trying .

 

Im thinking about buying another w90, fixing this one then selling one when I get home.

 

Well there is always that option as well . There is Quite a few members here stationed in Iraq that have purchased the W90 so maybe start a new thread about "W90 owners in Iraq" and see what you come back with . Good luck my friend .

 

Asus has part stores that sells individual things, but not sure these gpu are going to be on there, I would definitly see if somebody in your local vacinity has a W90 they can replace there slave with your slave.

Flash it to Master, then you can put it back in and it should boot, then you can flash your original Master back to a master again.

You could always RMA too if you had too, no promises here but Asus will probably take care of you. ESP since there are video card issues on the W90 right now.

 

Ok everyone, anyone willing to help a soldier stuck in Iraq out? Here is the deal. I need to reflash my main 4870 back to Master Bios. I will pay someone $100.00 via paypal for doing this for me. I will only pay after the card is back to me for obvious reasons. Anyone interested?

 

Do it in the Asus w90 owners lounge or like i said make a new thread.

 

Make a short sig for it also if you really want to get the message out so it can be seen from your every post. Something short but sweet.

"Looking for a Asus W90 Owner in Iraq near XXX, $100 reward for help, Please PM me"

 

All I want is a W90 that plays my games, no fancy stuff, no overclocking,, just a notebook that works.

You're guide is awesome, but more technically advanced than what I think I am comfortable with handling.

I can do a modded INF file to a driver. I can replace RAM, Graphics cards, a HDD and optical drive in a desktop ;-) That's my level of expertise, which is actually more advanced than your average 45 year old woman unless she works in the industry.

I think Asus should have put a label on this notebook " Beware, only purchase if you're a tech guru".

*sigh*

 

No that was definitely the C90S

Being that the model just came out, anybody buying right off the production line is taking a risk and venturing onto unexplored terrain.

Yes its a shame you cant expect a product to be 100% when it first comes out, but it just happens. Small defects or bugs are usually found and have to be resolved by the early adopters or they are forced to wait for fixes.

In the case of the W90 the only real defect I see is the handfull of us with the graphic issues, and I think this was a bad batch of video cards.

I think your problem after reading up on it was luck of the draw and getting the joker card, meaning not a common problem but a one associated with bad luck, and the problem itself being a bad hard drive.

I would have tried to walk you through using the 2nd HDD as your primary to test that theory, but you already sent it back. So I hope you get a new and working one back soon.

 

What about Marines in Afghanistan??

 

Ya i suppose if you had some spare time on your hands you take a quick? jog over to Iraq and help him out

 

Marines dont jog they hump

well thats what we call a long trip full of gear.

 

OK i flashed the card, so both are masters. Works great. Decide to use my technet windows 7. Well i tried to use the mod 9.4 drivers and they load but card number 2 gets an error 10 cant start. They both where fine in Vista x64. Any idea's guys.

 

Win 7 worked fine for me.

You did do the whole driver unpack/modified .inf and have disk method thing from scratch again right?

Also make sure you install the stock asus drivers first so that you get the working CCC then install only the new video drivers.

 

Just updated this posted guide to add a few more details that have been overlooked by some.

> have the original ati drivers installed first for the control panel
> cancel out of the ati installer when it comes up as you wont use it
> be incredibly careful with the gpu bios flash, dont overclock, not have ati overdrive on, and verify your checksum before flashing so to flash the right card.

I'll update the package guide and stuff when I get my W90 back from RMA and maybe try to add more pictures though i already included all the ones I though were needed.

 

hey vicious. for the rma, did u mail your computer to them or they sent u a box for it to send it back

 

I had the original box it came in and I could have sent it out in that, but I played it safe and bought a box to put it inside of so that it was double boxed. I'll probably end up with a brand new unit, but I told them it was ok to repair mine if possible so I want my stuff back in perfect condition and I just did not feel safe sending it in the box that just says "OMG Expensive laptop!!1" all over it.

Asus pays shipping there and back, but you have to pay for shipping supplies if any. Also you have to return everything if its a DoA RMA like mine was, if its just a repair then you can only send the part for repair I think, they will tell you this in your RMA terms.

 

I reinstalled Windows 7 rc. Installed Asus driver first, and then installed the mod drivers. I still get error 10 on number 2 4870x2m.

 

If you flashed your slave card then use these drivers for Win7 . These are a straight install no modding necessary . http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/radeonmob_win7-64.aspx

 

Tried those drivers when it was a slave the first time i installed windows 7 rc. They did the same thing error 10 device can not start.

 

I had 0 issue using those drivers on Win7 so not sure what your problem may be.

 

Were you running RC 7100?

 

Yep . But it seems your having this issue in vista64 as well ? .

 

Nope vista x64 works fine. Both card were working great in vista x64. Windows 7 rc is the only one giving me issues.

 

when you ran the driver package from ATI did you uninstall the old drivers that came with the RC ? and if and when you uninstalled them through the device manager did you tell it to delete all files for this ? .

 

When i installed windows 7 rc i didnt uninstall the drivers that came with windows 7. So i missed that step? The first thing i did was to install the Asus drivers and then manually install the mod drivers.
So what you are saying is im supposed to uninstall the Windows 7 drivers. Then install the Asus drivers and then manually install the mod drivers. Right?

 

Your not supposed to install the Asus drivers period . the only drivers you should install are those ones in the link i gave up top. And yes uninstall the RC1 ATI drivers first then tell it to delete the drivers, reboot and run the ATI drivers etc etc.

 

I just fresh installed Windows 7. How do you uninstall drivers from windows 7. If you right click on it in device manager it doesnt actually delete it. Do you want me to use driver sweaper?

 

Yes run driver sweeper and of course run it in safemode after uninstalling the RC drivers.

 

Uninstalled with driver sweeper in safe mode reboot and the windows driver returned?

 

Then just install the beta win7 driver package over it . When you install the ATI ones from ATI directly they should stick as they did for me.

 

I have had bad experience with driver sweeper/cleaner for ATI.

I always just run the installer and then choose the "unisntall" method if I have some reason to uninstall anything.

Every time I run the cleaner program when I install the new drivers I get the missing .inf error when installing the new drivers and its a major pain to fix. (yes this is even after unpacking the drivers again and making sure its there.)

You should be able to have 50 drivers installed with no worry as your going to manually choose what driver to install/use via the have disk method.

 

I gave up on Windows 7. I tried everything. I just reinstalled vista x64 and both cards are working agian.

 

Well that stinks you had no success, it should have worked without issue.

 

I keep thinking that maybe my 2nd card is bad, but if it was it wouldnt work in Vista. Is there anyway to test the 2nd card?

 

Nah its fine if its working ok in vista . Just run some basic benchmarks etc but im sure if that code is not there in vista then everything is fine.Something is just going wrong when doing the driver install . Did you try both the have disk method and just the regular install everything from the ATI exe?.

 

I tried both the have disk and setup.exe. The drivers are there. It just says that it cant start error 10. The driver show that they are loaded when you check it in device manager. I have tried card number 2 as master and slave also.

 

Hey guys quick question. I found someone to reflash my card on here, and I was wondering. If I had corrupted my bios would I still be able to reflash it?

 

Probably, its just like a flash drive or something.

If you pulled it out half way while writing a file to it, the file will be bad, but if you put it back in and transfer the file over again it will fix it.

 

Might depend on how bad the flash went . If the card isnt recognized at all by windows or even a dos then you may be out of luck and that can happen , As it has happened to me but not on a video card .

 

Ok well here is what happened. Maybe this will be a better judgement. I used the program to flash my slave card and it went good. I then thought that I should try to reflash the master card to the cutsom master bios in your package. It said it failed. So I assumed that meant the original bios were still on there am I wrong? Because I then reflashed the slave card back to slave in order to run 3dmark and see the difference. But when I tried to restart my computer it just sits there. It dosent even actually boot. So I assume that the failed flash on the original master card that failed caused it to become corrupt or whatever. Now what I want to know is if I put that master card in another computers slave slot will I be able to restore the original master bios or do you think the card is now shot?

 

Hard to say, its going to be a chance.

 

the card isn't shot, just do what quadzilla did...seems the asus has some sort of fail safe.

 

I think I am going to play it safe and RMA, the reason being that guy wont have his NB until the 15th anyway

 

What did Quadzilla do?

 

there is some sort of reset button on there for a bad flash, i think it's under the slave card.