I decided to open the lid and check it. Everything ran smooth, i started reformatting, installed drivers and just after driver installating, bang! No video....
I didn`t know that it was a common m1730 problem up to the point i googled around a bit and found so many problems regarding GPU, even a video about reconstructing it on youtube.
I examined the laptop closely, unscrew everything and took it apart.
All i was able to notice was that the fans weren`t spinning at all...
Then, my friend google helped me find some posts inside dell's support area where i was able to find sources and details about the problem, what i found?
There was a bios update from dell support that looks promising into fixing the blank screen / vga problem. I downloaded into a usb stick, and booted from it to install the update.
Things weren`t so easy though, as soon as i got into (you know the blue area :) the flash rom, dell asked me to recharge the battery to continue! Battery? What battery? It was dead!
Questions... where can i find another battery? any alternative solution? Nope!
I decided it was time for debugging., then i found the assembly code of the function that checks battery charge.
What I changed in the MXG7A11.exe was the PUSH 3 to PUSH 0.
004213C0 /$ 55 PUSH EBP
004213C1 |. 8BEC MOV EBP,ESP
004213C3 |. 83EC 0C SUB ESP,0C
004213C6 |. 8D45 F4 LEA EAX,DWORD PTR SS:[EBP-C]
004213C9 |. 50 PUSH EAX
004213CA |. E8 FD0E0000 CALL
004213CF |. 807D F4 00 CMP BYTE PTR SS:[EBP-C],0
004213D3 |. 75 04 JNZ SHORT MXG7A11.004213D9
004213D5 |. 6A 01 PUSH 1
004213D7 |. EB 22 JMP SHORT MXG7A11.004213FB
004213D9 |> 807D F5 80 CMP BYTE PTR SS:[EBP-B],80
004213DD |. 74 1A JE SHORT MXG7A11.004213F9
004213DF |. 807D F5 FF CMP BYTE PTR SS:[EBP-B],0FF
004213E3 |. 74 14 JE SHORT MXG7A11.004213F9
004213E5 |. 807D F6 0A CMP BYTE PTR SS:[EBP-A],0A
004213E9 |. 76 0A JBE SHORT MXG7A11.004213F5
004213EB |. 807D F6 FF CMP BYTE PTR SS:[EBP-A],0FF
004213EF |. 74 04 JE SHORT MXG7A11.004213F5
004213F1 |. 33C0 XOR EAX,EAX
004213F3 |. C9 LEAVE
004213F4 |. C3 RETN
004213F5 |> 6A 03 PUSH 3
004213F7 |. EB 02 JMP SHORT MXG7A11.004213FB
004213F9 |> 6A 02 PUSH 2
004213FB |> 58 POP EAX
004213FC |. C9 LEAVE
004213FD \. C3 RETN
After this thing, the update worked like a charm ;)
