Failed VGA flash on OCZ Whitebook

Ok, so the other day I edited my VGA BIOS using RBE. When I flashed the BIOS using ATIwinflash it failed and now my laptop won't display anything. All it does is give me a beeb code of 1 long beep followed by 2 shot beeps. I have tried flashing the VGA bios back to the original using an XP boot disk as I was unable to find a Vista boot disk.

My questions:
Is there a way to salvage my laptop without purchasing another video card? If not where can I find an ATI Mobility Radeon 4850, 4860 or 4870?How/where can I obtain a Vista Boot disk?

My system:
OCZ Whitebook
p8600
2X 7200.3 Seagate Monumentus HDDs in Raid 0
1 ATI Radeon Mobility 3870
CD/DVD Drive
No USB floppy drive
Vista Home Premium 64 Bit
4 GB OCZ DDR3 @ 1333MHz
I have a bios password as well

Thanks in advance,
Cody

 

Well for starters, you should have flashed your slave VGA card to a master first, and then swap it to see if it works because unfortunately, the whitebook doesn't have an integrated VGA adapter (i.e GMA 4500, 9400M, etc.) That way, if one flash fails, you can use the other card to boot up and reflash the card that failed. But give us a bit more info. After the beeps, can you hear Vista load (i.e the welcome sound and all that stuff)? You may need to max your volume. If so, then it's possible to do a blind flash with a DOS bootable USB disk.

Worst comes to worst, you would need another master VGA card in order to pass the boot screen in order to reflash the card.

 

No, when I boot the computer it beeps, turns on the keyboard LEDs and stops. Normally when I enter my BIOS password without the numpad on it beeps, it no-longer does that. I assume since the card does not have a working BIOS the computer will not try and boot to the OS.

 

Yeah, that's probably the case. And you didn't flash the slave to master before reflashing the master GPU? If you didn't, you will have to get a working master VGA in order to reflash it. Another thing to do is to send it to a whitebook or M17 owner willing and tech savvy enough to open up his system and reflash the bad card. I would help, but I don't have a whitebook anymore.

 

No, I never had a slave card to begin with. Thanks for your help.

 

If I got my hands on another master graphics card, what program would you use to flash the VGA bios? Is ATIwinflash good?

 

You can use ATi Winflash or ATiflash with a DOS bootable disk. For ATi winflash, adapter 1 will be the master slot, adapter 0 is the slave slot. What you would need to do is put the failed VGA card in the slave/daughter slot and flash adapter 0. And you don't need a crossfire cable to do it, though you'll need it to run both GPUs during gaming.

Edit: I think the newer version of Winflash has a different labeling process for this. If that is the case, it should have a red marker next to the active card, which will always be the primary card. So, just pick the adapter/card other than the active card and choose that to reflash.

 

is a CD or DVD considered a bootable disk?

 

Is a DVD or CD considered a bootable disk?

 

Yes, if prepared properly and it can boot to DOS.

 

Thanks again for your help. I have a friend with a 9800m GS and he's going to allow me to borrow his GPU [already checked slot and size] hopefully it will work.

 

Glad to help. Keep us updated.