New graphics card in a laptop - black screen

Hello everybody,

I own a MS-1722 (MSI GX720) laptop with GF 9600MGT. The card itself is MXM2.1 type II, but the laptop is upgradeable to MXM2.1 type III cards (as in MSI GT725). I bought MSI Mobility Radeon MXM2.1 type III card. When I installed it in my laptop and turned it on, everything seemed fine, laptop booted and Windows was loading, but the screen remained black (it was on though, just without any picture being displayed, not even during POST). I tried reseating the card, ripped the CMOS battery out, changed my CPU to less power hungry, all without any effect.

More details here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/349540-official-msi-gt725-owners-lounge-721.html

Can anyone here help me?

Thank You in advance.

 

You might have to update the 1722 motherboard BIOS with that from a GT725.

 

I've done that already - still no picture.

 

I've read about baking graphics card, however it was all about nVidia. Do You guys think that baking my ATi Mobility Radeon might help me?

 

This is probably a case of X card does not work in your model. Baking is to fix Nvidia's silicon soldering problem on certain series of cards so no it won't help at all, but may destroy the card.

 

run some dos utility that shows info about the videocard and dump it into a file
...like atiflash -i and then view the file on another pc

 

Okay, here is what I've got: after atiflash -i:

C:\>atiflash -i 0

adapter bn dn dID asic flash romsize test bios p/n
======= == == ==== =============== ============== ======= ==== ===============
0 07 00 944A RV770/M98 M25P05 10000 pass -

I have also captured the BIOS of the card!

That means the card is working!! Just for some reason it doesn't display anything on the screen...

 

guessing here but, when i replaced my 9500m gs with a 9600m gs (pretty similar you'd think) i had the same thing. i put the old card back in (new one was from ebay so not sure if it was good). restarted windows, then i removed the driver completely (like driver update) and shut down. restarted 2 times and viola, it worked, in vga. i actually put the same nvidia driver back on and all was well.

 

gazzacbr, it's not a driver related issue. The card doesn't display any picture, not even POST messages when the laptop is starting.

 

The whole baking fixing Nvidia cards thing was because essentially they were using materials that were not sutited to the TDP of the chip. Baking 'resoldered' the burnt components and would fix it for a while. AMD uses the correct specification materials and as such, you should not have to bake it. Have you quadrouple checked that the LCD cable is seated correctly? When I removed my cable I had the *exact* same issues as you are experiencing. Besides that, others have stated any other possibilities. Either the card is dead, or it's not compatible. Although MXM specifications are generally the same, ocassionaly OEM's will switch pin arrangements around or slightly modify them. Which is why some ASUS cards won't work in various laptops.

 

Lozz, this is an MSI card in an MSI laptop. It worked fine with the same MSI laptop before I bought it. If it was dead, I wouldn't be able to blind dump the vBIOS of the card, would I?
I didn't disconnect ANYTHING in the laptop, I only exchanged the graphics cards. MXM slot is right under my laptop's bottom cover plate. I changed the card back to nVidia and everything works fine. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to write this.

 

Did you try it with just the battery in (without the AC adapter)?

At least if you can't get it working, it wont be hard to sell since everyone wants that card.

 

I'm not gonna give up that easily .

 

Yes, it's possible, unlikely but possible. The fact that you were able to blind vbios dump it just suggests that the MXM pin arrangement is slightly different, or that the card is unable to read the LCD I/O. Just because it's from another MSI laptop doesn't mean it's going to work. Unless that particular card is from that exact model laptop and the same revision of that laptop, there's absolutely no certintanty it will work, a high propbaility yes, but not 100%. If I were you, I'd try reseating the LCD cable. If that doesn't work I believe you've exhausted all other options and the card will simply not work with that mainboard/LCD combination. Is the card from a laptop that uses a RGB LED screen and yours is a tranditional LCD display?


The only other option I can think of is the VBIOS was flashed incorrectly, failed, or the correct VBIOS was not used. All of which are nearly impossible to tell.

 

Did you ground yourself before doing the install?

 

how much power(in watts) does 4850m need compared to 9600m? if there's not enough power the card will respond to atiflash but won't display anything

if your windows loads fine, blindly take a screenshot of device manager, paste in in mspaint and save it. drag the shortcuts somewhere where you can easily launch them by using the keyboard. if you'll see a 'standard vga' or sth like that then the card is likely working and the problem is related to the lcd

 

i think that might be the issue.. 4850 uses 2-2.5X more power than 9600M GT so u might not be getting enough power to card.. but seriously , MXM2.1 should power this card.. might want to try getting a bigger power adapter...

 

I use Targus 180W power brick (the standard MSI PSU is 120W).

 

Do you know of anyone else, who has made this same upgrade?

 

Quite a few people in the MSI forum. There is a bit of discussion on the same topic in "Official GT725 owners lounge" thread.

 

Can you check your motherboard version and compare it with the ones that worked with the card?

 

Where will I find this information?

 

Well I'm not sure.

With my notebook it's written in three places (near the HDD, under the touchpad and on the motherboard).

Mine is ver 0C but in the disassemble SOP they had ver 0B.

I looked at the disassemble SOP for the GX720 but couldn't find the motherboard version.

EDIT: Found out it's also written on the touchpad PCB.

 

Am I correct in surmizing that you removed an NVidia card and installed an ATI card? If so, did you remove the NVidia video driver before you removed the card? If not, it could be that the driver you have installed for the NVidia card is conflicting with your new card.

I would go through the procedure nortmally used to verify complete removal of NVidia drivers (use safe mode). If after doing so, and installing your new ATI card, you still can't see anything on boot up, then try booting into safe mode and installing new driver software for the ATI card. Then see if can't boot into Windows normally.