[SOLVED] In Lenovo Z560, how to output BIOS on HDMI?

[pallups]

Hi All,

I have a bit old Lenovo Ideapad Z560 (i5, 3GB, Geforce 310M, Win7) that used to be my workhorse for a long time. Recently, the display hinges broke beyond repair and I switched to another laptop. Everything else still work pretty well though and I am trying to re-purpose it. I plan to use the display as a secondary monitor with the new laptop and the rest into a Home Media PC to use with my TV through HDMI for Netflix, Skype calls etc.

For the latter part, the trouble is, while I can see everything after the Windows login screen through HDMI, it does not show the BIOS or any other pre-boot up screens. I am worried that, with the LCD display removed forever, if I have to do any maintenance in the future, not being able to see the BIOS screen might prove a huge challenge.

Is there any way to output the BIOS as well through HDMI? As suggested in another thread, I tried disconnecting the LCD Panel and even the actual connection into motherboard to avoid any confusion on the display to use. Even then, HDMI only shows from the Windows login screen.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
pallups

 

[Deleted member 14196]

I personally don’t know of any laptops that will do that but only show up on the laptop screen

 

[pallups]

I personally don’t know of any laptops that will do that but only show up on the laptop screen

Theoretically, is it that it can't be done? Even with some kind of custom BIOS?

 

[Deleted member 14196]

I am sorry but I just don’t know and I would say as an educated guess that it wouldn’t be possible without a custom BIOS. See the problem would be because HDMI would be useless without graphics drivers and you’re in a pre-boot environment So there are no drivers at that point to run the HDMI signal.

HP and Dell and Lenovo all have really inexpensive laptop so that would fit your home media server just fine and they’re not very expensive. My HP notebook was $250 and I use it as a workhorse

 

[pallups]

The new laptop itself set me back over a 1000 bucks! And so you can probably imagine why I would rather not spend another 250 on a non-critical thing like this!

Plus, more than anything else, I wanted this to be a project to re-purpose an otherwise perfectly fine system.

I was having another crazy thought about this - apologies in advance if it's an annoyingly stupid one! The pin from motherboard that connects to the LCD monitor, is that some kind of standard? Would it be possible to use some adapter on it and take the output to a screen? Mine looks like this: https://ibb.co/Js3FtmN

 

[Deleted member 14196]

I believe those are proprietary to the manufacturers but I could be dead wrong. I will have to look up and see if what you are asking as possible and your last statement