Need some help with a Dell motherboard.

[pantsaregood]

If this belongs somewhere else, I apologize.

My mom is using a Dell Dimension 4500S. The integrated video, for whatever reason, has been locked to specific resolutions by the vBIOS. There are reports of people running high resolutions on the i845g IGP, but the Dell won't even run Intel's specification of 1440x900.

The IGP supports no higher than 1280x1024, which looks terrible on a 16:9 monitor. If anyone has any experience hacking vBIOS, some assistance would be amazing. Thank you.

The BIOS is located here: http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/format.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&deviceid=308&libid=1&releaseid=R47030&vercnt=3&formatcnt=0&SystemID=DIM_PNT_P4_4500S&servicetag=&os=WW1&osl=en&catid=-1&dateid=-1&typeid=-1&formatid=-1&impid=-1&checkFormat=true

[gabiz_ro]

I remember reading something,few time ago.
That was inspired by a patch from linux for custom resolutions.
Search for 855resolution or 915resolution and try to apply ,or add some custom resolution inside VBIOS.

[pantsaregood]

I've seen those. I was under the impression that those were utilities that functioned within Ubuntu, which I have no intention of installing on my mother's PC. She's barely familiar enough with Windows.

[gabiz_ro]

That was a patch on the-fly on shadowed VBIOS,and was necessary to apply each time computer start.
My advice was to use this idea and mod VBIOS to make it definitive.

For linux too was some time ago a GRUB patch,that I recommend for testing since this way no risk to brick anything.And once you found what you need to patch inside VBIOS,just mod it and flash your BIOS.

Unfortunately I can;t find what and where I read an example of applying what patch to to shadow RAM to VBIOS.

[pantsaregood]

I have absolutely NO idea how to do any of that.

I do, however, know that Intel made the 845G vBIOS public.

If you know how to or can direct me to someone who knows how to do this, it would be greatly appreciated. I have no idea why Dell limited the resolution. I just want the thing to run at 1280x720.

EDIT: http://www.jeffsplace.net/projects/bios_hack

This may be the sort of thing you said you couldn't find.

[gabiz_ro]

Yes,that was what I talked about.
You need to decompress - extract bios modules,mod VBIOS to required resolution,remeke checksum,insert VBIOS (remake some checksum) and compress BIOS then flash it and hope will work.
Maybe someone here with more experience will help you more.