Acer 9920G MXM video restriction

[charly]

Hi guys,

here is my request....

The Acer Aspire 9920G use an MXM2 8600Gt vidéo cards....This notebook suffer of a lot of problems from video card. It goes out of order after 1 or two years....test on google to see what I mean...
The problem is that there a restriction who obliged to use only a 8600Gt vidéo card....You can't use and replace by an ATI MXM card for example....

I think this restriction is in the bios of the motherboard....

Do you think someone can find and remove this restriction ?

Thanks for help...

PS : here is the link to the latest bios for Acer Aspire 9920G
ftp://ftp.work.acer-euro.com/notebook/as.../v1.20.zip

[TheWiz]

Well normally you can't switch from an NVIDIA to an ATI, but I'd appreciate some links describing the issue so I can help you out better.

Regards,
TheWiz

[1234s282]

I think it may have something to go with the VIDEO bios thats integrated into the BIOS.

Im not certain but if you replaced the video card with a different card you might have to replace the VGA bios in the BIOS to match?

Admin

[charly]

Thanks for help...

Here is the link that explain the problem...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/475...tions.html

The real problem is that the bios in this 8600GT MXM is a special for the 9920...When you replace the video card by the same one from an ASUS or from another notebook series, the video card only works with the external VGA and not on the screen of the laptop....You have to flash with a special bios for MXM 8600GT from 9920G to make the laptop screen work...
Here is a link to the MXM 8600GT bios for the 9920 series :
http://rapidshare.com/files/280991354/8600MGT.rom

In the link before, the problem is the same with an ATI 3650 MXM, it works but only with an external screen...

[TheWiz]

Seems the NVIDIA stuff is working, but the ATI stuff is still a bit dead in the water.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/475...ons-6.html

Any updates?
TheWiz

[computerdoctor]

any news here?
I have two working 9920 here ready for some upgrades

[.NetRolller 3D]

In case anyone is still interested: a modded BIOS is available in NotebookReview's Acer forum. It has been tested to work with a GeForce 9300M GS (HP VBIOS).

Someone has reported that a 9600M GT works with the mod, but the colors on the internal display are wrong, pointing to an FPDI vs. OpenLDI confusion issue. I'm still working on getting this part right. Using an MSI VBIOS in a 9300M GS results in the same issue.

For those who are interested, here are the technical details:
The 9920G contains an MXM slot, which holds an MXM-shaped card, but the machine is not truly MXM. The system BIOS is missing the MXM System Information Structure (MXM-SIS), which would normally allow the MXM card to recognize the connector configuration used by the machine. Worse yet, the internal LCD panel used in the 9920G has no EDID pins. For such panels, the MXM specification mandates passing the EDID data along with the MXM-SIS to the VBIOS. But because the entire MXM callback system is missing, no EDID ever gets passed to the card, so the internal display is never enumerated.
The modded BIOS relieves this by hooking the Int 15h handler (the MXM callback is Int 15h, AX=5F80h) to respond to MXM interrupts. However, the internal panel of the 9920G is 24-bit VESA FPDI, while most MXM cards expect 24-bit panels to use the OpenLDI link format instead. Neither the MXM-SIS nor the EDID has a way of switching between FPDI and OpenLDI, so each VBIOS must hardcode the correct 24-bit encoding type (normally, it is possible to choose FPDI or OpenLVDI based on the panel type reported in the EDID, but this is an EDID-less panel, so not even that is possible). Hence the incorrect colors with a 9600M GT.

Note that replacement with an ATI card may not be possible - so far, I've seen no ATI VBIOS that properly called the MXM interrupt, which is required for supporting EDID-less displays.

[gheszilard]

HiCharly! Hi Guys!
I have the same problem with Acer Aspire 9920. The original video card has crashed and I bought a new vga card, same with the original, but still a little different. With the new vga card work only with external monitor. Can somebody explain me how can I flash the new vga card with linked(http://rapidshare.com/files/280991354/8600MGT.rom) rom?
Thanks in advanced.
GheSzilard.

Thanks for help...
[/size]
Here is the link that explain the problem...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/475...tions.html

The real problem is that the bios in this 8600GT MXM is a special for the 9920...When you replace the video card by the same one from an ASUS or from another notebook series, the video card only works with the external VGA and not on the screen of the laptop....You have to flash with a special bios for MXM 8600GT from 9920G to make the laptop screen work...
Here is a link to the MXM 8600GT bios for the 9920 series :
http://rapidshare.com/files/280991354/8600MGT.rom

In the link before, the problem is the same with an ATI 3650 MXM, it works but only with an external screen...