How To: Unbrick Your Bricked Graphics Card

[Nauset]

Hi,
You might have faced issue sometime while using the Graphic card in your system. That can be related to your BIOS or system fault. Here I am providing you some tips on unbricking your graphic card. Then you can play out with some settings in BIOS and the put that back again. At first the same looks really bulky. This tips is for those who had never touched their graphic card and want to perform some maintenance. I had also posted some tips on upgrading the graphic card in the below post.

• First you have to arranged any other PCI graphic card or a display adapter to let your system work after removing your graphic card. Most of the motherboard have a onboard vga output or else you can get any temporary display card for the same. You have to then check first that the adapter will work well on the PCI-E slot. This is sometime issue in older machine. This depends on your motherboard.
  
• AFter if you get a temporary solution for video output then open your system case. You can see a bulky card located on the motherboard. You have to first properly remove the retention bracket of the graphi card. It is locared on the PCI-E slot and you can remove that easily. The other important thing you have check that you must first turn off your system completely and unplug the same from power source.
  
• Then once you get the card out proerly insert the other temporary adapter to the same slot. Or else you can see a video D shape pin on the motherboard which is quiet comman knowns as vga output. You can cannot your monitor cable directly to that and start the system to enter BIOS.
  
• Connect your monitor cable properly first and then start your system. Check all the connection properly. Then once you ru the system you hear a beep sound. If this happens then you had not installed the video adapter properly. You will need to fix it tight. Or else a single beep will come and the sysetm will bootup. The beep error usually states that your system has not found any VGA support.
  
• After that enter your BIOS first by pressing the Del or F1 key depends on the motherboard you are using. It shows on the first screen about the same. Once you entered the BIOS then you have to search for the primary display adapter setting. In my case I had found the same in Advance > Chipset Configuration > North Bridge Settings. You can search for similar setting on your motherboard.

• Then once you got those settings then first change the primary display adapter top PCI whcih will be PEG. This will enable to make your card much stable and a Power on
  
• Self Test does not fail due to improper BIOS settnigs which are on your PCI-E graphic card support. This is because you had switched your primary dispaly to PCI.
  
• Once done with the display adapter settinsg then turn off your system and then put the old card that is your graphic back again from where you hve removed.Press is gently on the slot and ensure that the retention bracket is back on its place. Don't bent the card.
  
• Reboot your system and then again enter BIOS and check the same settinsg which I had mentioned above. You have to same, enter the Advance > Chipset Configuration > North Bridge Settings and change the PEG to PCI. Once done boot in windows. The other thing I would like to tell you that if you have a ATI card on PCI-E and Nvidia on the PCI one then you must first get the official drivers for both as the Windows display driver will not be able server much without them.
  
• After that Boot in Windows and then get a Bootable Dos Disk. You can do that in a much easier way by creating a bootable USB drive. There are ready made tools for that on internet. Once you get a bootable USB then first download the BIOS software for your motherboard model. Some of which I will recommend is ATIFlahs for ATI cards and NVFlahs for Nvidia cards.
  
• Copy the folder of the software in the root folder of the USB drive. After that you have to first rename the folder and give atleat a name of eight characters which is a minimum requirment in DOS.
  
• In the same way you have to then get the orignial BIOS of your GPU which you can get from the official site. Copy the same to the folder mentioned above and give a proper name of eight characters.
  
• Reboot your system and boot from USB. The most common is using the F8 key and then you see the BIOS screen. Once you have to go to the folder which you have created in the usb. You can go by command cd foldername.
  
• Now you can flash your old BIOs of GPU. In my case I have a ATI card for which I had used ATIFlash. It is done by command first atiflash-i. Then to run th flahs press atiflash -f -newbios -p (adapternumber) (bios_filename).rom. And done.

[Nauset]

Tips for Upgrading your Graphic card.

1. Check the compatibility of your laptop's the first thing you need to check - before you go, even to buy a dedicated graphics card for your laptop - is to see if your existing laptop can support this new card.

The first thing you need to check - before you go, even to buy a dedicated graphics card for your PC laptop - is to see if your existing laptop can support this new card.

Important Note: In my experience, I found that generally the computer s Dell laptops can be easily made level . My readers of my friends or making level of computer s other mobile manufacturers are experiencing problems in one way or another. So investing in a computer gaming notebook Dell might be a good idea to support future graphics cards latest level.


2. Specific measures to improve your computer laptop graphics card
Now we shall explore the specific steps to bring to level your laptop graphics card. It's really a simple procedure.

• Remove the hinge. The first thing you need to do is to remove the hinge of the computer laptop. On the computer s recent laptop, you might not need to do - you can simply open a panel on the lower side of the computer laptop.
  
• Detach the keyboard. The next step is to remove the keyboard - Remove the screws beneath the hinge cover your laptop to do so. Sometimes, with recent laptop, you can simply remove the keyboard using practical latches on the chassis.
  
• Remove the display assembly. This may be a bit complicated. What you need to do is remove the display assembly (ie the screen of computer complete) by removing the screws on the back and bottom of your computer laptop. Carefully remove the video cable and Wi-Fi as well.
  
• Remove the shell phone. The next thing to do is remove the top shell of your computer laptop. You should now see the graphics card you want to replace.
• Replace your graphics card. Now you should insert slowly and carefully chart your new computer laptop card in the inside of the computer laptop.
  
• Re-assemble everything back together. Once the new graphics card is in place, you can just reverse the steps as outlined above and reassemble the laptop all together again.

3. Testing the new graphics card installation

The last thing to do is start your computer laptop and view the new graphics card! Make sure to download the latest graphics drivers and test it on your favorite 3D game. If all goes well, you should enjoy crisp and smooth 3D graphics with the graphics card in your new laptop. And that's all there is to it! I hope this article has shown you the steps to install a new graphics card in your laptop. Is a simple procedure, really. Make sure you follow the instructions above and I am sure you will enjoy your new graphics card before long.