Project: Compal IFL90 Revival

[NoRe1982]

Hi

My english isn't perfect, but I see this as practice to improve the quality ^^ I found this lil' thread Click and hope, that someone here can help me.
As u can see in the title, I do own a good, old IFL 90 which i've just upgraded with a Mobily Radeon HD4670. The Modding was fun and the temperatures are fine but it seems i had bad luck. During the tests with furmark, while running gpu-z i saw the pci-e link droping from x16 to x1. There was a small chance, that this would happen and I know the hd4670 needs more power than the 8600M GT, but i'm not willing to give up.
I tried several things: different drivers, checking google and of course I thought of modifying the bios because this prob might be caused by the old vga-bios which is locking the pcie link at high bandwidth. But it seems PBE doesn't work well with Compal-BIOS because someone already tried to open the Compal-BIOS 1.18 and was getting errors (e.g. 'An unsupported module class 'Y' was found in file _Yoo, do you want to continue?') and couldn't replace the VGA-BIOS. However: my plan is to replace the existing n integrated VGA-BIOS with one for a Geforce 9600M GT and then to test it. If this try would be full of fail, i would like to test it with the VGA-BIOS of the new HD4670 or the 8600M GT from Acer (as last posibility).
So can u guys help me somehow? Can u tell me, how its possible to replace the VGA-BIOS? I gonna attach all necessary files but the files are different in size: 8600M GT (from acer) - 58kb, 9600M GT - 64kb, HD4670 - 62kb. So, is this a problem or is it possible, regardless of which size the VGA-BIOS is, to mod the Compal-BIOS?

[1234s282]

OK ive modded the bios three times , replacing the VGA bios in each one - make sure you tell us which one you tested!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/747181/Compal%20...34s282.zip

You flash these at your own risk!

Best of luck!

Admin

[NoRe1982]

Woah, that was fast ^^ Thanks a lot.

I've testet all 3 roms so far, but not one is working. First I've tried the HD4670.rom and flashed the bios. After that the notebook was dead and i had to run a bios crisis recovery to bios version 1.16. I've tried the other roms but the effect was the same. Maybe the vga-roms are hardcoded in the bios-code, i don't know how a phoenix-bios is coded

However I got one idea left. I've just checked the extracted vga-bios for the 8600M GT from the old thread. The clockrates, voltages etc. of the Geforce differ from the Radeon, of course. But maybe they are the cause of the problem. Maybe this bios with the values of the old graphic card has still an effect on the hardware. I would like to adjust the values as good as possible to the new graphic card, first and foremost the voltages ^^

Can u maybe exctract the vga-bios from bios 1.18 then I can edit it with nibitor 5.8?

[1234s282]

Here:-

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/747181/Compal%20...20ROMs.zip

sorry the mods didnt work , ive remove dthe link

Regards
Admin

[NoRe1982]

I've edited the 2 nvidia bios and uploaded them ^^ I don't know of any tool to edit the Intel BIOS, I hope Intel is unimportant ^^

Btw: I didn't know that compal integrated 3 different bios-versions into the compal-bios

[1234s282]

only 1 to flash this time , those 2 nvidia bioses are both in the same bios (probably because the laptop was shipped with different graphics cards therfore both VGA roms are in the bios)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/747181/Compal%20...34s282.zip

Best of luck , try at your own risk!

Admin

[NoRe1982]

Hmm, it didn't work o.O Strange. Shouldn't it work with it? The flash procedure was canceled and the screen was black. BIOS Recovery and its running again.
I mean, all that was changed was the vga.rom itself not the bios. The BIOS integrity should be fine with the modded vga.roms, right?


Edited: Thanks for your help but I just killed my FL90. Anyone know, how to recover a boot block from a Phoenix BIOS? XD

[1234s282]

:O

Glad my mod was recoverable , normally swapping out a ROM with a modded one shouldnt be a problem

Obviously this threads hit a dead end now what did you d to kill it?

[NoRe1982]

I've experimented with WinPlash to force an update. I guess I've chosen a bad option and deleted the Boot Block.
I contacted a notebook service, described what happened and asked if they can reprogram the bios. I'm waiting for an answer. But its strange because i checked the motherboard and couldn't find the bios-chip. I hope they can help.
Second option is a new motherboard. I've just found one for 110€. I'm planning to replace it. If its gonna work, I will give it to my girlfriend and by a new laptop from deviltech or mysn.

Thanks again for your biosmods ^^

[lazzy]

C:\flash>nvflash.exe --version

NVIDIA Firmware Update Utility (Version 5.95)

Adapter: GeForce 9600M GT (10DE,0649,10DE,061C) H:--:NRM B:01,PCI,D:00,F:00

The display may go *BLANK* on and off for up to 10 seconds during access to the
EEPROM depending on your display adapter and output device.

Identifying EEPROM...
EEPROM ID (C2,2010) : MX MX25L512 2.7-3.6V 512Kx1S, page
Reading adapter firmware image...
Image Size : 65024 bytes
Version : 62.94.4A.00.23
~CRC32 : 8F3CA2E8
OEM String : NVIDIA
Vendor Name : NVIDIA Corporation
Product Name : G96 Board - 06010001
Product Revision : Chip Rev
Device Name(s) : GeForce 9600M GT
Board ID : 961C
PCI ID : 10DE-0649
Subsystem ID : 10DE-061C
Hierarchy ID : Normal Board
Chip SKU : N/A
Project : N/A
CDP : N/A
Build Date : 07/25/08
Modification Date : 10/07/08
Sign-On Message : G96 P601 NB9P-GS VGA BIOS

that's my card after install your bios.
but my windows 7 64bit don't know this card i cant find any driver for it i run under VGA standar. Can you upload original rom Acer or driver for it
thanks[/quote]