Need a bit of hardware help. Misflashed gpu bios on laptop, now video card has no output.

This is a little OT, and I apologize for that - but I'm at wits end
trying to solve this on my own.

Ever had one of those super idiotic days where you make silly mistake
after silly mistake? I've had my fair share, but one about two months
ago culminated in a bricked laptop - which I'm none too happy with.

The laptop itself is an Acer 1692 (wxcli or something similar, I
honestly don't remember the specific letters appending the model
number, but that shouldn't matter). Specific details on the laptop are
as follows;

- Centrino 2.0ghz
- 1gb DDR2 ram
- ATI x700 PCI-E Express video.

At the time, I had been browsing through ;

http://www.acerpanam.com/synapse/forms/portal20.cfm?website=AcerPanAm.com/canada&siteid=7297&areaid=17&formid=3394#results]this
acer.ca support page

... that lists all of their drivers/updates for the 1692 series
laptops. (Select the 1690 series laptop from the dropdown for the list
of available drivers/updates for that laptop).

Notice at the top of the list of downloadables are two video bios
updates. One labelled 'Flash BIOS v3A41' and 'v3A43' as the second.
Note here that both state 1650 series on the main page, but do specify
1690 series in the details for each file.

I really don't have much proof as to which bios I had flashed the
video card in the laptop with. I was nearly positive at the time,
that I had chosen and downloaded [i]only[/i] the v3A41 bios flash,
which is the ATI specific one. The other is for the intel integrated
(obviously) graphics cards in lower end 1690 series laptops. I used
Winflash within windows to flash it (as I've done countless times
before with other hardware with no issue), it gave no errors or
mismatch warnings upon flashing.

Well all in all, I've either misflashed the v3A41 - or accidentally
flashed it with the v3A43 (intended for intel graphics only). Ooops.
End result is that there is literally no video output from the laptop.
 Not to the LCD screen, not to the VGA port. I've tried the
keyswitches to switch between both outputs with no luck - there's just
nothing coming out of the graphics card.

My one saving grace in all of this is that despite the current damage
to the video card, the laptop itself will still boot. I've let it sit
and load into windows - seen it grab a wireless signal from my router
- and am able to access a single limited share on the laptop itself.

As the laptop is out of warranty, I've held off on contacting Acer for
support. As of this morning I have emailed them with a near identical
copy of this post, but I hold out more hope that SH/SC might be able
to help me come up with a solution / repair than Acer will (without
wanting to charge me to replace the video card itself, or have it
shipped in to be reflashed - on my dime).

So considering that the laptop itself still boots, I'm wondering if
someone knows of anything (or can help me devise something) along the
lines of an automatic bootable CD that will load and autoflash the
video card with the proper bios (also held on the CD). I've had one
abortive attempt at this myself, as I really have no idea where to
begin.

Help?! :)
Received on Fri Jul 13 07:42:11 2007