bios update, black screen cant do anything...

Seems to me like the BIOS upgrade failed.

If this is the case there is nothing to do but change the entire motherboard, give Dell a call.

Try replacing the Video Card with the original Card. It sounds like the card you upgraded with may not be compatible and you have lost your  video only. Have you tried it with an external monitor?

I didn't install a new card.. I just downloaded the updated driver for the video card, and the bios.. Called dell and they had me do a ton of things.. (take out the memory, take out the hard drive and blow in it.).. nothing worked..I really dont know what I am going to do.. Dell said that the bois must have faild and since I had my wireless card plugged in it could have had something to do with it.. I dont really understand how updating the bios did this, and there is no way to fix it.. I really dont what to have to buy a motherboard how much are they? How myuch do you think dell would charge to get this fixed? I need to get this fixed, I am a college student and cant go without a computer. I tried a external monitor and that didn't work.. when i start the computer it doesn't sound like it does when it use to start up correctly and the harddrive light doesn't flash.

The boards are going for $270 up on Ebay. Usually the reboot on a BIOS Flash Update takes place automatically, and does not involve you having to reboot it yourself. Did  you do it from the Harddrive or a floppy? Were you docked when you flashed?

I did the bios from the hard drive...I was not docket at the time but I had a wireless card in and A usb mouse.. also windows was downloading some updates at the time it was restarted...I took part of the computer apart to make sure the little button that shuts the screen of wasn't broken.. it looked fine and was working properly...

There have been many unsuccessful BIOS Flash updates and most of them have been from the Harddrive; the Floppy method seems to be safer. I have only done a harddrive flash once and that was more than enough; when I saw what was taking place, the hair stood up on the back of my neck.

I do not understand why if you are a month and a half from the end of semister/year, and need to count on your notebook, you would undertake reloading the system complete with vbios and BIOS flashes?  You are in need of a motherboard.

The same thing happened to me over a week ago and Dell support has been terribly unresponsive. I ran the nvidia bios upgrade recommended by Dell, it failed, and my 8500 will no longer post -- the screen remains black. There was no power interruption or wireless or other activity; the failure message claimed the bios was the wrong version.

Tests with power-on light patterns suggested by the Dell chat site and another technical support person both led them to conclude the motherboard is now bad. Two Dell representatives acknowledged that the $700 Dell wants to replace the motherboard is ridiculous and one suggested I try to get it repaired locally. One of them said he would call back at a specific time over a week ago to see what else I needed, but never called.

Neither I nor a local independent technician could get the laptop to reboot after trying a re-install of the bios from floppy or, in his case, a hardware reset. We used the original version (A02) to minimize variations. The technician said he could repair it if I can get the parts, but I can not find out from Dell what I need.

After the Dell tech support rep failed to call last week they consistently failed to respond to the half dozen emails I have sent to the address he originally sent me with the case #. Someone else called today, a week later, but had no access to the records; she said she was calling because the first one was "sick" (and could not explain why it took them a week to notice he was missing and not responding to problems).

After explaining the whole problem to her all over again she had no idea what to do. She said the bios controls all the hardware a couple of time, apparently reading it from something, then said I should have been using A06 because "files have changed" since I bought the laptop (A02 had been working and this is a post problem, not the hard drive), then said to give her a couple of minutes to look something up. The line went dead, she did not return the call, they are still not responding to email, etc.

What do I have to do to get this fixed? Dell has been no help at all and is shunning the problem -- even seeming embarrassed by their $700 motherboard replacement cost. Is it possible for a non-Dell professional technician to replace a portion of the hardware in order to physically replace the bios? If so, what do I have to do to get the part from Dell and how do I specify it?

Look on Ebay for the motherboard:

http://search.ebay.com/8500-motherboard_W0QQcatrefZC6QQfromZR3QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1QQkeywordZonQQsacatZQ2d1QQstrkwZboard

Cheaper than Dell.

Cheaper than $700, but $300-$400 for a motherboard from a riskier source, plus labor, is still not cheap. What is the matter with Dell that they can't respond to simple questions? Is it or is it not possible to replace the bios chip?

I think the easiest thing to do is do what I am doing... I am getting a new i9300 for $1,500(1.73M, 512, 256 Nvidia, uxga, dvd+-r duel layer, 3yr Warrantee) , and then selling my 8500 on ebay. I have been looking around and a computer with almost my specs with a dead motherboard was selling for about $650, so thats like I am paying 850 for a new computer.. Either pay $300+ getting it fixed or pay the extra $550 to get a new one. Thats just the way I look at it, I dont really want to buy a motherboard on ebay that I dont even know works, and I dont want to pay the $600 from dell thats just crazy. I learnt from my mistake..this time I am not getting a 1 year Warrantee

Exact same thing happened to me, see thread http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_bios&message.id=31018

Bios updates ordinarily work but Dell is apparently becoming more sloppy, taking shortcuts in comprehensiveness of testing and quality control, and in determining and publicizing limitations on applicability. On top of that it's technical support has become worse than useless, unlike its excellent reputation of the past. (I have been waiting days for one of them to call back while she took "a few minutes" to "look something up", and that is only the latest such "experience".) Sadly, Dell is not the company it used to be.

I could find nothing on the internet indicating it is practical to replace the bios chip or get one out of Dell. Dell doesn't use standard parts in laptops and is exploiting the post sale monopoly in both price and convenience of repair. This is very discouraging to those of us who had expected better.

But refurbished and new 8500 motherboards can easily be found on ebay. One source has been routinely selling refurbished mb's for $269 plus shipping, without enough demand to always get bids. Add installation at a local shop, or try it yourself -- the service manual can be found at unofficial sites on the internet for disassembly and reassembly (it doesn't talk about replacing bios chips, only the standard flash update).