MSI 5870 BIOS Update

[somedood]

HI,

I'm a proud owner of a MSI 5870 Card. It has nice overclocking limits and I really like it. The only problem is the unstable DisplayPort which has the flickering issue.
There is a fixed BIOS (MSI.HD5870.1024.091112.bin) that I want to flash.
Only problems now:

1. The Vendor-ID is ATI not MSI like on my current BIOS (MSI.HD5870.1024.091006.bin).
   Can I change it with RBE so that I don't have to reinstall my drivers. Or shouldn't I? Is it an issue?
2. Fan speed curve is slightly different. As is one voltage (1.175v) vs. (1.1625v). Doesn't bother me. I guess it's a stability fix.
3. Now the most important issue is the max overclocking settings: ATI has: 900/1300. But my MSI had: 1800/2600.
   If I read the FAQ correctly the driver will refuse to work if I change those manually. The Hash method is not working. And there is a report that the new beta doesn't produce working BIOSes.

So what do I do to have the "best of both worlds"?
Can every non-working BIOS be restored by booting DOS and using a second VGA card?

BTW: I found an oddity/bug: If I repeatedly load the same BIOS over and over in RBE the Fan speed setting get really messed up sometimes.

 

[BAGZZlash]

1. The Vendor-ID is ATI not MSI like on my current BIOS (MSI.HD5870.1024.091006.bin).
   Can I change it with RBE so that I don't have to reinstall my drivers. Or shouldn't I? Is it an issue?
2. Fan speed curve is slightly different. As is one voltage (1.175v) vs. (1.1625v). Doesn't bother me. I guess it's a stability fix.
3. Now the most important issue is the max overclocking settings: ATI has: 900/1300. But my MSI had: 1800/2600.
   If I read the FAQ correctly the driver will refuse to work if I change those manually. The Hash method is not working. And there is a report that the new beta doesn't produce working BIOSes.

1. No, don't do that. The vendorID is protected by the BIOS' hash algorithm. You can change the ID using RBE but the BIOS will fail to be approved by the driver, then.
2. It seems that the fan settings that RBE reads from the BIOS do not have any effect on 58x0 BIOSes. I can't tell any more about that since I don't have one of those cards right now.
3. The beta will produce working BIOSes as long as BIOS versions do not differ much. You could give it a shot, a signature will copy the vendorID over as well.

So what do I do to have the "best of both worlds"?
Can every non-working BIOS be restored by booting DOS and using a second VGA card?

Yes. As long as the non-working BIOS has been flashed to the card successfully, flashing over is not a problem. There are only problems reported if the flashing process is being disrupted somehow, i.e. the computer crashes during flashing.

BTW: I found an oddity/bug: If I repeatedly load the same BIOS over and over in RBE the Fan speed setting get really messed up sometimes.

Really? Could you give me instructions to reproduce that issue? Do I have to load, save, load, save,... or do I have to load a BIOS for several times only? How many times?

 

[somedood]

Thank you for the reply.

Concerning the wrong values on the Fan tab:
I actually can't reproduce the effect when loading the same BIOS over and over.
But when I alternate between two different BIOSes (I used MSI.HD5870.1024.091006.bin and MSI.HD5870.1024.091112.bin) I got the problem after about 2-3 Loads.

Exact steps:

1. Load RBE
2. Go to Fan tab
3. Load first BIOS
4. Load second BIOS
5. repeat until it somehow breaks

I will try to use the new beta to get the hash from MSI.HD5870.1024.091006.bin and use it to modify MSI.HD5870.1024.091112.bin soon. I'll report back when I had the chance to try it.

 

[BAGZZlash]

Exact steps:

1. Load RBE
2. Go to Fan tab
3. Load first BIOS
4. Load second BIOS
5. repeat until it somehow breaks

Still can't reproduce. Could you please post the exact BIOSes that produce the issue?

 

[somedood]

Sometimes it takes a few tries to reproduce. I attached screenshots.

Both BIOSes are the same as on the database. The one with .Joe at the end was dumped from my card, but it is byte identical.

EDIT: I'm on Win7 x64 PhenomII 965 4core. Maybe that is relevant.

 

[BAGZZlash]

Sometimes it takes a few tries to reproduce. I attached screenshots.

Both BIOSes are the same as on the database. The one with .Joe at the end was dumped from my card, but it is byte identical.

EDIT: I'm on Win7 x64 PhenomII 965 4core. Maybe that is relevant.

Hm. Still doesn't work for me. I just switched back and forth for about 15 times. Will try again later.