So matchbox say E1705 with latest BIOS work with 3600M? Is a little risky and you loose network,dock and led's controll but you can force flashing E1705 BIOS into M1710 Or extract modules and try replacing between E1705 and M1710 but this is risky too.
Finally had some time to digest that lengthy thread. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction! Comparing the two romfiles below makes me atleast a little interested in knowing what would happen if we took the M6300 "vga rom" and put it in the M1710 BIOS, they are quite similar... Here is the Dell M1710 A07 BIOS romfile 08_2.rom Code: Unknown video vendor Unknown video card ATI Technologies Inc ATI Radeon 7500 ATI Radeon 9000 ATI Radeon 9600 Series ATI Radeon 9650 ATI MOBILITY Radeon X600 ATI MOBILITY Radeon X300 ATI M24GL ATI M28P ATI Mobility Radeon X800 XT ATI MOBILITY Radeon X1300 ATI MOBILITY Radeon X1400 ATI MOBILITY Radeon X1800 RS400M 300 /14 NVidia Corp NVIDIA GeForce 4 Go NVIDIA GeForce4 4200Go NVIDIA QuadroFX NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5600 NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5650 NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5100 NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 NNVIDIA GeForce FX Go5700 NV37 NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Go NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 Ultra NVIDIA Quadro FX Go1400 NV43 NV44 NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 GTX NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS NVIDIA Quadro FX 2500M NVIDIA Quadro FX 1500M NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GTX NVIDIA Quadro FX 3500M Quadro NVS 110M Quadro NVS 120M Quadro FX 350M And here is the same romfile but from the Dell M6300 laptop 07_2.ROM Code: Unknown video vendor Unknown video card ATI Technologies Inc ATI Radeon 7500 ATI Radeon 9000 ATI Radeon 9600 Series ATI Radeon 9650 ATI MOBILITY Radeon X600 ATI MOBILITY FireGL V3100 ATI M24GL ATI M28P ATI Mobility Radeon X800 XT ATI MOBILITY Radeon X1300 ATI MOBILITY Radeon X1400 ATI MOBILITY Radeon X1800 RS400M 300 /14 ATI Radeon Xpress 1270 ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 NVidia Corp NVIDIA GeForce 4 Go NVIDIA GeForce4 4200Go NVIDIA QuadroFX NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5600 NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5650 NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5100 NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5700 NV37 NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Go NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 Ultra NVIDIA Quadro FX Go1400 NV43 NV44 NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 GTX NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS NVIDIA Quadro FX 2500M NVIDIA Quadro FX 1500M NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GTX Quadro NVS 110M Quadro NVS 120M Quadro FX 350M NVIDIA NB8P-GS NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M Quadro NVS 130M Quadro NVS 140M Quadro FX 360M NVIDIA NB8M-SE NB8M-GS NVIDIA Quadro FX 3600M NVIDIA Quadro FX 3600M
I don't think that's VGA ROM. Mostly just some text displayed by BIOS on info page. VGA ROM must have a signature and inside BIOS is VGA ROM for Intel integrated graphic port (at least for models with that variant available) , for cards like ATI or nVidia VGA ROM exists phisically on card and is loaded by BIOS. Some time ago I have tried to enable AHCI on my E1705 but since I'm not a programmer and can't go deeper inside Dell BIOS so is not clear how modules are called in BIOS startup. Let's say M1710 BIOS is looking for 08_2.rom module then you must change module id of M6300 from 07_2.ROM to 08_2.ROM but if depending of that on next steps BIOS will search for wrong modules id or 07_2.ROM is looking for other modules that must have some id but now in that modded BIOS have other id? You could try to replace that module and test. But,like I said on notebookforum and according to schematic,except to LVDS data lines and power lines and because inverter must work with integrated and other video cards too then that must be somehow common. Pin 1-13 from LCD cable are used for inverter. On the mainboard there is a unpopulated socket designed for integrated video. Pin 1,4,7,9 are GND Pin 10,11,12 are power supply for inverter Pin 3 is +5V Pin 5,6 are same tracks (pin 5 from mainboard to pin 5 from video card, same for pin 6) Pin 8 according to schematic is also the same (don't know why I don't found it first time,maybe a little different,on schematic there and on Pin 2 is some differencied depending from inverter type used,there are specified two types of inverter) Pin 2 is used for one type of inverter and unused for other type. Pin 13 is used on integrated video but on video card slot there is nothing related to this (don't know why,could be noted as something else or maybe this is done by GPU and through SMBUS) If someone with some skills in electronics and with similar hardware available on test could disconnect inverter from card and connect to mainboard ... maybe will help in solving problem. Also could be a software problem (I don't expect BIOS to be very flexible,I remember how hard was to make it boot from sata express card) if BIOS doesn't identify video card then maybe disable some functions like inverter brightness control.But you say with 1600M also listed as unknown LCD was identified and brightness works. Just now I see SMBUS is shared between inverter and video card, how is setup address of devices on smbus lines? Maybe both conflict each other. Can you tell me what other models use 3600M as I can't find M6300 schematic.
gabiz_ro; thanks for your lengthy post! Yes for sure, the rom I call "vgarom" is not the VGA BIOS, that is located on the card as you say. I don't know why Dell puts the name string of the VGA cards in this romfile, they could just get it from the VGA BIOS on the card itself instead... But the rom has some more logic for checking which power adapter is connected to the system etc, so it for sure has some info about the VGA card... My Dell M1710 does not ship with the option for an integrated VGA adapter, I checked the Dell E1705 BIOS and in it the 08_2.rom file (the one I refer to as vgarom) has this info at the end for compatible VGA adapters, before that it is exactly the same as M1710 "vgarom" Code: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300 NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400 Quadro FX 350M Intel Corp Intel 945GM Graphics The E1705 BIOS also has another rom that the E1710 does not have; 0A_17.rom This is the actual Intel Integrated VGA BIOS... Code: VGA Compatible BIOS Intel(r) 82945GM Chipset Family Graphics Chip Accelerated VGA BIOS Intel Corporation Intel(r) 82945GM Chipset Family Graphics Controller Hardware Version Finally from what I understand the Quadro 1600M is listed as Unknown Video Card in M1710 (obviously) But the LCD is apparently not, the LCD is identified properly when a Quadro 1600M is installed in the Dell M1710 laptop The same is not true for the Quadro 3600M, here both the card and LCD are listed as Unknown by the BIOS (but the card works, just brightness of the LCD can not be controlled) Please understand this information about the Quadro 1600M and 3600M I have just gotten from online forums, I own neither card yet. (I am hoping to be able to fix the issue with the 3600M, if I am then I will buy the 3600M, if not I will buy the 1600M instead )
tqhoang; thanks but the M90 doesn't support the Quadro 3600M either... I'm not meaning to flash the M6300 BIOS to my M1710, only integrate the part of the rom which controls the graphics card from it... On that note, I did some tests with "Phoenix Tool v1.66" I extracted all rom files from the Dell M1710 BIOS, then I enabled the option "Allow user to modify other modules" Next I replaced the romfile 08_2.rom in the Dell M1710 BIOS with the 07_2.rom from the M6300 BIOS (of course renaming it to the same name) Then I made the new BIOS file and it was successful, to check the BIOS I again dumped it with "Phoenix Tool v1.66" and ran a MD5 check on the dumped romfiles, they all matched the originals... So to me it would seem like it was successful and that the start and end address of all roms where updated successfully (The M6300 graphics rom is 1760 bytes larger than the M1710 graphics rom...) Now to flash it I guess all I have to do is rename the hdr to bios.hdr, gzip it with 7z or Linux gzip and then flash it with the original Dell BIOS EXE file using the readgzfile option? I do have both a MCUmall GQ-4X USB Programmer and soldering iron so in worst case I should be able to fix it, however any input about my procedure described above would of course be reassuring
That sounds nice tqhoang, I'll make sure to look into it before flashing. As to my theory does anyone have some input on if it could work or not? (my previous post)
VGA BIOS (in case of nvidia card) exist on card itself. Chip exist on card and inside chip is programmed VGA BIOS. I think you replaced something else inside main BIOS. I still stay at my opinion,there is something different on video card or somehow there is an conflict in SMBUS addressing .