Bad VGA flash on M570U

I flashed a bad video BIOS image. Now I get the 1 long and 2 short beeps on boot (and no display). It wouldn't be a problem if it continued booting since I have a rescue floppy drive plugged in to USB... Unfortunately it doesn't continue.

Is there any way to continue booting? I tried F1 and escape...

If not I guess I need to flash the bios manually. Are they usually socketed? I don't fancy desoldering/resoldering it if its surface mount. Failing that I'll need to get a new video module. Are there any places to buy Clevo spares in the UK (or Europe...)? I can't find anywhere on the web.

Thanks,

Mark

 

Better on ebay....But u still get beeps, and will the system with black screen still boot? If so u can just reflash it in DOS mode, if complete no post then it bricked......I also did that once.

 

Send it back to Clevo and get the mobo reflashed/replaced.
My Sager bricked out on me after I restarted too many times too quickly and they fixed it with their own BIOS.

 

I think its waiting for me to press something. After post it beeps to tell me the VGA is bad, then waits - forever. If I could tell it to carry on sure it could boot to DOS. But that doesn't seem to be possible. If only it had RS232 control when no display

Mark

 

For the benefit of anyone else that has this problem this is what I found so far:

Replacement side:
7950 GTX board is about £330
7900 is about £300
7800 is about £230
X1800 is about £200
So pretty pricey still!

Fixing side:
It is a 25p05vp 512kbit serial eeprom. It is soldered to the board, but is fairly large as surface mount goes these days and has 8 pins. Looks possible to replace to me. Trouble is I've got to work out how to flash one. I've got a few ideas from hooking it up to a PCI card with one of these to using my FPGA board to generate the required signals... Trouble is the FPGA board is controll ed by my PC, which is this laptop. Gah!

Mark

 

A quick update to say I got this board fixed. I removed the video board and there is a small serial flash chip 25P05VP on it. I decided it was too small (3mm long, but only 8 pins at least) for me to remove/replace safely and also my Willem does not support this type.

So I posted the video board to Grains BIOS Repair (bios-repair.co.uk). They did a fantastic job and flashed my backup image for me. Extremely impressed with their service and they can also fix other laptop/pc bios issues...

This really beats Rock support and Clevo service centre. Who were unwilling to do anything but replace the board for more than 300UKP.

Thanks,

Mark

 

That´s good news. How much costs for the reflash? I just saw a 7950GTX in ebay sold for 130€.

 

I was charged £20 + £5 p&p. I just sent the video board. I didn't see any Clevo M570U video boards on ebay...

Thanks,

Mark

 

I don't think searching for clevo m570u is going to get you anything. Clevo uses the standardized mxm (I think thats the acronym, I forgto) cards. Its not proprietary.