Aspire iDea 500

I have a new problem: I received an ACER HD2600 512MB (LS-355-BP model), but sadly no picture when booting the 510. The machine does boot however, I can hear it booting for sure.
Do you think I could blind-flash it with the 55.SAG01.001 vga bios? This card is useless to me unless I manage to make it work in the 510.
Could I get the files needed for such operation?
Thanks!
 
I have a new problem: I received an ACER HD2600 512MB (LS-355-BP model), but sadly no picture when booting the 510. The machine does boot however, I can hear it booting for sure.
Do you think I could blind-flash it with the 55.SAG01.001 vga bios? This card is useless to me unless I manage to make it work in the 510.
Could I get the files needed for such operation?
Thanks!

The BIOS and some details on the 55.SAG01.001 can be found here and I've attached a GPU-Z screenshot. If you attempt to cross-flash please make sure the hardware is a match, GPU revision, memory type and manufacturer. The 55.SAG01.001 uses Hynix GDDR2, if you flash its BIOS onto a card using another brand and type of memory then it could go badly wrong.

I'm not 100% sure but I've found indications that some HD2600 cards could also use GDDR3 and to date I have never got a DDR3 MXM card to work in an iDea. I'm not familiar with LS-355-BP, its possible its just an alternative part number but I can't find any definite details on it. It's possible the card is just dead, the number of MXM cards in the market that are DOA is amazing.

I will check to see if I have the flash tools and post back as soon as possible. EDIT: There is a thread here with the ATI tool for flashing the BIOS. Can you connect via remote desktop and grab a BIOS backup of the card using GPU-Z?

m76.gif
 
Last edited:
Hello.

As promised, here is the first beta of my VFD driver for the Acer Idea.
Use it at your own risks.

This driver can display media info from the following apps: WMediacenter, Mediaportal, Kodi.
- To work with Kodi, you have to activate the option Settings/Services/Control/Allow remote control via HTTP.
- To work with Mediaportal, you have to install the MPEXTENDED plugin.
- You may also need to install the latest "vc_redist.x86.exe" from Microsoft´s official web site.

I am open to suggestions, to make the most out of the tiny VFD display.

I've just given it a quick test under Windows 10 1909 x86 - nice work :) The customization support is great.

I am having some trouble getting it to work with my Media Portal setup but it might be something to do with the outdated versions I'm using. The newest MPExtended I can find is version 0.6.0 from 19 April 2014, my MediaPortal is also out of date and is still on version v1.22. It's a little hot today so I'll come back to this in the morning, I could be doing something stupid.
 
Last edited:
I've just given it a quick test under Windows 10 1909 x86 - nice work :) The customization support is great.
I am having some trouble getting it to work with my Media Portal setup but it might be something to do with the outdated versions I'm using. The newest MPExtended I can find is version 0.6.0 from 19 April 2014, my MediaPortal is also out of date and is still on version v1.22.

Thank you so much. This tool is based on something I created years ago for another display, but I never published.
It is working for sure with Media Portal 1.25 and MPExtended 0.5.99

BTW, did I mention that this tool is also compatible with LCDSmartie plugins? So you could display any hardware info, or make the "volume bars" on the VFD show network download speeds instead. :)
 
I blind-flashed the card, but it still does not display anything.
I followed all the instructions. It is a DDR2 card. I tried DVI and HDMI, I removed the battery, I could see the card in Win7´s control panel through remote desktop. GPU-Z looks tremendously like yours.
 
Last edited:
I blind-flashed the card, but it still does not display anything.
I followed all the instructions. It is a DDR2 card. I tried DVI and HDMI, I removed the battery, I could see the card in Win7´s control panel through remote desktop. GPU-Z looks tremendously like yours.

Did you grab a copy of the original BIOS? It would be interesting to see if any major differences. Do you know which laptop it was intended for or which one it was pulled from? Unless there is a hardware difference between the cards making the 55.SAG01.001 BIOS incompatible it's very possible the card is DOA, the ones on eBay and AliExpress are more likely to be DOA than working in my experience.

This is a bit of a longshot but is the motherboard BIOS updated to the last version? The last one was R02-C2, it shouldn't make any difference really but its worth a shot.
 

Attachments

  • idea510-R02-C2.zip
    685.5 KB · Views: 65
Last edited:
Did you grab a copy of the original BIOS? It would be interesting to see if any major differences. Do you know which laptop it was intended for which one it was pulled from? Unless there is a hardware difference between the cards making the 55.SAG01.001 BIOS incompatible it's very possible the card is DOA, the ones on eBay and AliExpress are more likely to be DOA than working in my experience.
This is a bit of a longshot but is the motherboard BIOS updated to the last version? The last one was R02-C2, it shouldn't make any difference really but its worth a shot.

Yes, latest BIOS. The RAM chips are labelled Hynix too. Here is the original vbios attached.
However, there was indeed something curious about the flashing...
I saw in GPU-Z before flashing that it was 512MB, and it has all the RAM chips present on both sides of the board. However, the blind flashing gave this curious output:
Old SSID: 011F
New SSID: 0104
Old DeviceID: 9581
New DeviceID: 9581
Old Product Name: Acer_ICL50_M76M M76 GDDR2_16Mx16 128bit
256MB 300e/400m
New Product Name: M76M A14 Oscar Plus Hynix GDDR2 32Mx16 512M 400m/450e
Old BIOS Version: 010.062.000.003.029234
New BIOS Version: 010.066.000.003.026850
10000/10000h bytes verified
Restart System To Complete VBIOS Update
.
 

Attachments

  • M76.zip
    38.2 KB · Views: 68
Last edited:
Yes, latest BIOS. The RAM chips are labelled Hynix too. Here is the original vbios attached.
However, there was indeed something curious about the flashing...
I saw in GPU-Z before flashing that it was 512MB, and it has all the RAM chips present on both side of the board. However, the blind flashing gave this curious output:
Old SSID: 011F
New SSID: 0104
Old DeviceID: 9581
New DeviceID: 9581
Old Product Name: Acer_ICL50_M76M M76 GDDR2_16Mx16 128bit
256MB 300e/400m
New Product Name: M76M A14 Oscar Plus Hynix GDDR2 32Mx16 512M 400m/450e
Old BIOS Version: 010.062.000.003.029234
New BIOS Version: 010.066.000.003.026850
10000/10000h bytes verified
Restart System To Complete VBIOS Update
.

There is some weirdness there, if its actually a 256MB card the BIOS from 55.SAG01.001 is very unlikely to work. I don't know why GPU-Z would report 512MB but RBE agrees with the old spec string and thinks the old BIOS is for a 256MB card. Capacity aside, if there are differences the memory timings can be an issue too. Can you make out the codes on the memory chips or maybe anything else that looks like a part number for the card? Something in the format of xx.xxxxx.xxx?

The ICL50 reference may mean that the card was pulled from an Acer Aspire 5720Z/5720/5320 but that would mean it should actually be a 512MB card.... I think so anyway... :confused:
 
Thank you so much. This tool is based on something I created years ago for another display, but I never published.
It is working for sure with Media Portal 1.25 and MPExtended 0.5.99

BTW, did I mention that this tool is also compatible with LCDSmartie plugins? So you could display any hardware info, or make the "volume bars" on the VFD show network download speeds instead. :)

It sure looks like it could have some interesting applications. A temperature monitor would be fun using the volume bar would be fun seeing as it goes red at the high end :)

I never got it to work with my MediaPortal setup but MPExtended could be at fault here as its no longer maintained, I'll try it out more with MediaPortal again when I update it next.
 
I never got it to work with my MediaPortal setup but MPExtended could be at fault here as its no longer maintained, I'll try it out more with MediaPortal again when I update it next.
My bad, for Mediaportal playback media info, the plugin you really need is WIFIREMOTE. The MPEXTENDED plugin is for Mediaportal recording info (providing your Mediaportal server is on the same Idea machine).
Sorry for the confusion. You need both plugins, and also restart the tool.
 
Last edited:
My bad, for Mediaportal playback media info, the plugin you really need is WIFIREMOTE. The MPEXTENDED plugin is for Mediaportal recording info (providing your Mediaportal server is on the same Idea machine).
Sorry for the confusion. You need both plugins, and also restart the tool.

Thanks :) I will be sure to give that another try this weekend. How are you doing with the MXM card?
 
I´m afraid I have played too much swapping video cards back and forth, and now the original Nvidia card stopped displaying pictures as well. :-(
The last thing it shows is the bios screen but with strange corrupted characters. Afterwards, no more video.
The video ram looks partly fried. My fault entirely. I thought I was better at this delicate job.
 
Last edited:
Reuploaded the XP MCE recovery image if anyone needs it.

1. Download ISO image - Acer_iDea.iso (7.75 GB file on MEGA)
2. Burn ISO image to dual layer DVD using ImgBurn or any other suitable burning software.
3. Boot Acer iDea from burned DVD (May take a few minutes to load).
4. When asked to confirm partitions just click OK.
5. Wait for image to be written to hard disk and once complete remove DVD and click restart.

Please note that this will destroy all data on the target hard drive but once its done you will have the Diagnostic/Restore partition along with an untouched original install. In case you wonder when booting the DVD, it does use a Windows 7 based preinstallation environment but it does actually restore the factory original OS.

I've also dumped a full copy of the Acer iDea FTP files at Mega (1.04 GB folder on MEGA)
 
Last edited:

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom