Latitude D800 bricked after a bad vbios flash - can it be saved?

I was trying to flash the video bios on my laptop's Geforce 4200 Go to the latest version from Dell's support site. When running the flashing utility, the system hanged and the program stopped responding, so I ended it. When I rebooted next, my system was totally dead. Powering on just lit up the on light, no bootup process, nothing. No clicks, no beeps, totally dead. I had also recently flashed the main system bios from version A02 to A13 (and then down to A12, as A13 caused a weird buzzing from one of the fans) all without any problems.

I was told by Dell it would be $498 to fix, which would mean a full board replacement. Is there any way I could just have the vbios reflashed? The system is a Dell Latitude D800 from Summer 2003.

You can read more about my troubles here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=283451

 

I'm not sure how to do it without Dell equipment. You might want to Google around, just in case...try searching for a floppy drive or USB stick method to flash nVidia BIOS.

With desktops, I'm fairly certain you have to boot with another GPU installed...so the fact you cannot put a 2nd GPU in the notebook scares me.

Come to think of it...try searching eBay/Craiglist. I think that the D800 had a modular graphics card, one you could hopefully replace for far less than $500.

Now, if you did flash the main BIOS...and it screwed up...you are screwed. Try to find out exactly what you did!

 

Which BIOS utility was in use - Phoenix, Insyde, etc. ?? And did you flash the system BIOS or only the VBIOS..??

 

The main BIOS is fine, that was updated a while ago. It bricked after I messed with the video bios and the flashing utility screwed up.

 

And to answer one other question for you...yes, they should be able to flash just the VRAM and not have to replace the entire board. They should have that capability at the repair center.

Try finding another card pulled from a working D800.

Just a quick glimpse on eBay:
http://shop.ebay.com/items/_W0QQ_nkwZD800Q204200QQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZR40QQ_mdoZ

5 potentially working GPUs. You'll need to check part numbers against Dell's part list of your own notebook though.

 

The packing slip for the system (yeah, I still have it five years later) lists it as part number 6X956 and item number 320-0649. None of the ones on ebay explicitly list this p/n, but a few don't have one listed at all so I contacted the sellers and asked. Is there any chance a different part number would still work in my machine? Also, how difficult would the swap be, you think?

Another thing - does this system behavior (total system failure) sound like what would happen with a bad video bios? I was expecting the system to still work, but without any display.

 

You could try out a recovery through a crisis disk, it is worth a shot.

 

How would I go about making a crisis disk for the system? I don't have one.

 

Assuming those parts work (I'm thinking what is on eBay probably is a revised part as Dell does update stuff along the way and would still work), it would be difficult to swap but certainly not impossible. Dell has excellent online guides for replacing parts in their laptops.

Yes, I do expect the notebook to not work at all. Desktops have the same symptoms. If you want to test it (I am not sure if this would even work, so do not take the results as final) try removing the GPU and then booting. Hopefully, it would boot but fail POST saying the GPU is missing.

The laptop does not boot, not sure how this would help...?

 

I believe crisis disks are meant for that (screwed up BIOSs, with system not booting/POSTing). Worked for many Acer users who have had similar BIOS users, but I am not that well acquainted with Dell BIOSs, though they do use the same BIOS utilities such as Phoenix, etc. Never heard of a screwed up VBIOS, I guess it is something related to the system BIOS.

OP: And booting with the GPU removed is worth a try.

 

I don't want to risk removing the GPU and causing physical damage to the main board. I'll see if I can find a reasonable price on a replacement GPU and then take it with the system to the dell certified repair center nearby.

 

Which BIOS utility is/was installed - Phoenix, Insyde, Award, AMI, etc..??

 

http://shop.ebay.com/items/?_nkw=dell+d800+video+card&_fromfsb=0&_trksid=m270 you could just replace the gpu with that you would get a preformance increase and fix it a double win. Also iv cleaned out a dell before and changing the graphics card was easy its under the keyboard well at least on the c800 i worked on.

 

I was trying to flash the vbios using nvidia's own utility which I downloaded from Dell's support site here:

http://tinyurl.com/5kdda9

 

Also, I was able to secure a replacement part for $99 from Dell directly.

 

Ok, it should be here between Thursday and Saturday, and I can get it swapped in for free at the Dell repair center on Monday. Wish me luck guys.

 

dammit

Dell keeps calling me saying it's backordered, they probably don't have the part at all and will do this forever, I can't find the exact part number online anywhere else either


what are the odds another part number would still work in my D800, if it says it was pulled from a working D800?